Been offered a cheap ST170 and considering building a budget track car out of it... but I'd like a fair amount of extra power to peddle round with and turbocharging is the route I'd like to take rather than NA or Supercharged.

I know it might be easier to start off with a boggo Zetec model, but I've not been offered one of those.


Cheers,
Grant

 

How much power? You can use a 1.8 mm focus rs head gasket to bring down the compression ratio, most people use a standard blacktop head on the st170 bottom end but with the st170 valve springs, you can use an rs turbo exhaust manifold with an adapter or focus rs, turbo choice is up to you. Also use the standard blacktop inlet with suitable injectors.

 

Blow the money on suspension, brakes, decent seats etc...

 

Thanks for that G.. as far as what power level, not entirely sure.. however, c300bhp in a stripped out shell would make it pretty lively.

Si, I would strip it to the bones then fit brakes/suspension/seats/harnesses and possibly fabricate up a cage. Although not before doing a lot of reading about that to see if building a cage is something I could handle/do properly.

This thread was really to see what is/isn't possible with the standard ST170 running gear... I've no interest in owning a standard ST170, so if build costs for a budget boosted application are too high to justify then I'll not bother buying this car in the first place.


Cheers,
Grant

 

id love 300bhp in mine. they are a great handling car when you do the right things to them. mine is fairly standard power bar a few tweaks but its very quick on a track considering what it is.

 

I think they go well standard imo. Sould be a fun car though Grant.

 

Look for a cat d RS for 5k, rough ones ever cheaper, better suspension 4 pots turbo etc all done already

 

Whatever a Zetec turbo would cost to build, an ST170 turbo wouldn't be too far off that as it's a Zetec based engine at the end of the day. The limiting factor will be the ECU you'd use. You can't use/remap the ST170 ecu so aftermarket is your only option but the ST170 has VCT (which you can disable if desired) and a variable length inlet manifold, which you'd definitely want to replace.

The cylinder heads though are absolutely brilliant bits of kit and flow excellently for turbo-charging. The pistons, while decent quality, high-compression jobbies, have a question mark over them when used in forced induction engines so if you can get FRS rods + pistons you'd be sorted. You can pick and choose rods/pistons, head gaskets, inlet/exhaust manifolds to suit as they all interchange to fit.

 

Black top head frs gasket, turbo exhaust and mega squirt ecu

Or frs convert it