Since Photobucket fucked everything up and PF lost a shed-load of threads at some point, I figured I'd re-upload some pics of my old, beloved XR3i. This car was my first foray into the performance Ford world, my first hot-hatch, and my 2nd car over-all (and an upgrade from my 1.1 Fiat Uno!). I forget how old I was when I bought this, 20 I think. It was bog standard when I got it from a middle-aged (well, nearly) woman only a dozen houses up my road back in the day. It was so bog standard, it had wind-down windows and no central locking! All the work on it, bar the painting, was done by myself with help from my brother and friends, so it was a real "built not bought" car. The only part that bought bought ready-made was the louvred bad-boy bonnet, which I spotted in the back of Loot (!!) for sale only an hour away, already done and painted. The rest of the body kit was all genuine plastic RS stuff I collected over time from classifieds and auto-jumbles (this was before eBay was the place to go for car parts). The side repeaters were genuine Focus triangle indicators, because no one was offering them in universal retrofit back then, so I had to cut the wings with a junior hacksaw blade to turn the hole from a round one to a triangle. At one point the blade snapped so there's a couple inches of hacksaw blade in the bottom of the wing The front bumper was all hand cut and fibreglassed, with little plates made up for the RS front valance to fit the gaps in, but the numberplate mount is possibly the thing I'm most proud of - just because it was such an over-engineered solution to a problem: 18-gauge steel plate, three M12 bolts welded ( ) to it, fitted through three holes drilled in the valance, and rubber bouncy balls cut in half and used as washers to fit the curve in the bottom of the valance, with double nuts to lock it all together. So overkill

Along with the bodykit and Recaro's, I put in the electric window motors and central locking (and the front door cards) from a pair of doors I took off an RS Turbo found in a local breakers yard, for the grand total of a fiver! It had 2WD front discs with the standard calipers on TurboSport brackets, full stainless Magnex system (manifold, system, 3" backbox), OEM RST shocks and -40mm Gmax shocks, fully polybushed, no engine mods at all (not even a cone filter!) and a few interior mods (the fuel computer never worked; I found it at a breakers and used it to fill the gap in the surround until I put an oil pressure gauge in. At some point it had white dials in it, as I remember fitting them, but no pics of that. The steering wheel was the leather wheel from a Saff Cos. 1st set of wheels were 16" Mondeo "Cossie" wheels, which I later changed to a set of 17" Kosei Snipers, a wheel I'd seen on a blue S2 in Fast Ford mag some years before and instantly fell in love with. A forum member here had a set for sale here I had to have them. Drove better on the 16's though

Sounds came from a Sony CD (originally MiniDisc) headunit and MD changer, Pioneer speakers in the front and rear original positions, and a pair of JL 12" subs in the boot on a Sony amp. I came out one morning to find the sub-box and amp missing, and the boot wide open. Which was a shame.

I loved this car. Had soo much fun back in it back in those days, and making it was the most fun in itself. It won the modified concourse twice at the XROC shows (it wasn't bufty by any means, but it was clean and tidy). I used to love cruising down to shows in the summer; early morning starts and convoys down motorways.

I didn't own it very long - pretty sure I bought it in 2001 and I sold it to a lad from Ireland sometime in 2004 I think. He and his dad flew over to Stansted, looked it over, did the payment in the bank and drove it to the ferry! If I could buy it back, in the same condition, I 100% would. Miss this car, even with it's dodgy K-Jet fuel system and dislike of cold mornings

 

Uxbridge and Gaydon photos! must have been arounnd 2003?

loving the mini disk changer install in dash

 

Good old days when you could play and modify to your own taste ,.cracking pics mate.

 

The good old days! Missing that time...
You did a great job, looks good. Have to ask, no single whiper?

Going to a meeting building up a convoy way to early in the morning, cruisin, chilling and going back home when the day is over and you can hear work calling already...

 

Cool car. Sadly young lads do mod there cars now. They just go and get finance on a posh car.

 

Thanks all

I did want a single wiper but I didn't want to just put a blanking plate in the drivers side hole as it would look shit (even on a black car) and I just didn't want to get into removing, cutting/modding/welding the scuttle, having it painted and refitting.