Is there a common issue with a start up noise on the 2.5t engine, it sounds a bit like the oil pump diaphragm failing, to be honest I haven’t tried taking the cap off the engine when this happens, I’ll do it tomorrow.

but it goes away after about 20 seconds at idle, and doesn’t come back until the car has cooled down again, earlier I noticed the noise wasn’t present at idle but blipping the throttle made the noise come back, but again this eventually subsided after 20-30 seconds.

 

you can hear the exact noise in this video, but it carries on for longer on my engine.

 

Right so I’ve found the problem, and apparently it’s fairly common, the exhaust manifold has come loose, the rasp kind of noise is the gasket fluttering.

i nipped them up with a 1/4 ratchet but one has snapped 😂🤦🏻‍♂️ I managed to get another nut on the couple of threads that are left and only done it up slightly just to stop it from moving too much, bit stupid I know as I currently have a fair bit of stud to purchase on for removal 🤣

ill have to get a new gasket/stud/nut kit and replace them, it was freezing so I’ll wait a bit longer and hopefully with a hot engine I can get the studs out without chewing the threads on the head 😬

 

I managed to change the gasket and all the studs and nuts, I got the engine red hot first then undid all the nuts, some where quite tight and the first quarter turn was a bit hairy as I didn’t know if any where going to shear, most nuts came out with the stud, only the previous snapped one and one other left the stud in.

the kit from Anembo was spot on, inserting the studs with a hex bit made it so much easier, and as you can see the gasket was toast, I’ve torqued them up to 24nm and I’ll keep an eye on them, hopefully they should stay put now.

 

Happy days. At least its sorted now.

 

No wonder it was making a strange noise!! That gasket was was well past it's sell-by date!! Must be so quiet now.

 

Nice one matey. What was it like to change?

 

Thanks guys

I’m glad it’s done now, and yea when I seen the state of the gasket I knew it needed changing, I could see it was all buckled behind the manifold.

I did the job from above Glenn, but as it’s down the back visibility was crap so I used an old wing mirror glass to help see what I was doing 🤣 If I’d of snapped a stud this job would of been a nightmare, and a few of them where really quite tight.

Access was good compared to some jobs, there’s enough room to swing a flex head 3/4” ratchet without too much fuss, and Volvo has moved everything so every bolt is accessible which is nice.

I should of really pulled the turbo right off and cleaned everywhere up, but I was running out of time I just removed the battery tray and slid the new gasket in from the side, I slid the gasket round a little to hopefully clear any carbon or muck that may have been present, and it’s sealed fine at the moment.

The noise was only on cold start, it would subside and it would disappear within 30 seconds so I only had a slight leak, the quiet start is bliss though 🤣

 

Glad it's all sorted. I bet modded 2.5 mondeos go well.

 

I’m only going to go 3” DP and decat, some kind of valved exhaust, and a map, it’s a daily so I won’t go mad.

it’s fairly quick for what it is already, but more go is never unwanted 🤣

 

What's the MPG like? Shit??

 

I kid you not, if you drive it sedately under 2k rpm, which it does effortlessly I've seen 39mpg on a run 🤣🤣

it’s actually quite good on fuel, not sure what it does around town, haven’t really kept an eye on it to be fair, but it’s miles better than the 4.2L v8 s6 I had, and hence why I’ve kept it on daily duties, not as good on fuel as my 2.0tdi A6 but with the ULEZ coming into brum in July it’ll be cheaper for me to run, the other half has a 2.0tfsi Octavia VRS and it’s about the same on fuel, I’d even be inclined to say the Mondeo is more economical around town but the VRS is mapped and you tend feel like you have to drive it quick, where as the Mondeo you can quite happily waft as well as lay rubber down 😎

since I’ve done the manifold gasket and reset the ECU as the battery was disconnected it seems to have perked up a bit too 👍

 

I'm surprised at that cause I've heard that the focus st is shite on fuel and it's the same engine.

My mk3 2.5 V6 mondeo was shite of fuel. Flat as a fart too compared to my mk4 mondeo diesel donkey. The mk4 is even quicker since I've had it remapped.

 

I think I’m getting around the book figures for MPG, I’ve just reset the trip and mpg figure and I’ll report back once I’ve done a longer journey than the 1.1 mile I did earlier 🤣 it was previously at 23 mpg but some of that has been some full on hooning 🤣🥴

 

Looking forward to your update.

 

I’ve never seen my 2.5 Focus go over 24 lol and I’ve been on long journeys and certainly done drive like a twat

 

Well unfortunately AJ I’ve already blown that one out the water 🤣🤣

I reset it again this morning, popped to the shops and back home, then went for a drive as I’m bored out my mind 🤣 bit of country road driving with junctions so stop start, then onto the M42 at Redditch and drove up to Warwick on the M40 and back again and for anyone with local knowledge it’s quite a hilly stretch of motorway, and then down the busy high street to the petrol station.

ACC set at 70 on the motorway and driving at speed limits on other roads, not exceeding 2k rpm if I could help it, apart from the motorway where 70 is around 2.5ish rpm iirc maybe even closer to 3k rpm

as far as I’m aware the car is bog standard, it’s got its cat as it was mot’d a couple of days after I got it and it did have a K&N filter but I took it out and replaced it with a paper one.




it needs the tracking doing and it has crap odd tyres all round still, but I have seen 38.8 on the dash when I picked it up, I stayed at around 65mph on he motorway though, because when I picked the car up and the AUX belt was squealing and I didn't want to bork the engine if it failed so kept the revs as low as possible 🤣

 

The only difference I know of it the DP is a larger bore on the ST, I wonder if that has anything to do with it? Is the fuel system the same?

i haven’t even cleaned the MAF or MAP on it yet and I’ve noticed some odd boosting behaviour where sometimes it seems to lack a little so I’ll probably have a look at the boost solenoid as I’ve heard that’s a common failure item, I’ve also noted a slight jerkiness at low rpm when coming back onto the power so maybe a throttle body clean would be an idea, but I’ll just keep doing bits as and when, it drives fine overall though.

 

I’m on few st pages on Facebook I think the norm for the st225 is 20-26 they are well know as being very bad on fuel. I thought I had a problem with mine so put it on the emissions tester and it was below it’s set figures so doesn’t even have an issue and it’s still shit lol

 

It’s quite a weird difference though as it’s considerable as well, the focus is lighter too, does the engine feel really torquey between 1-2k rpm? As this one does, I don’t think I’ve driven a turbo car with so much bottom end torque.

 

mine has 3inch down pipe 200 cell sport cat full mongoose system a bigger intercooler and a re map. To be fair mine dose go well for what it is

 

That’s the sort of mods I’d be looking at getting done tbh, hopefully see just under 300bhp?

I’m hoping my mpg doesn’t get slaughtered though 🤣🤣

 

So I was right about the Focus STs been shit on fuel then. Its defo strange when it's the same engine.

 

I’m lucky I don’t really have to drive mine. I can walk to work if it’s dry as it’s only 10 mins away on foot. Plus every other week I have my work van as I’m on call. I only use it to go shopping use the gym and see family and friends lol