Project Magnum (2003 ST170)
 

No, not the ice cream ...

About a month back I picked up a relatively cheap 3dr ST170 in (you guessed it) Magnum Grey, big stack of service invoices, full service history, blah blah blah. Sounds great, right?

Well, pretty OK, sure. Picked it up from a garage in SE London for the drive back to mine (20-ish miles) and discovered about halfway that the garage selling it had gone to the trouble of cleaning the engine bay. With a jet-washer. Misfires and stutters galore, lovely job.
Nursed it back to my local town and had the leads and cylinder head air-blasted, which cured that ..

When the initial OMG I LOVE THIS CAR feeling had subsided, I started to look over it with a properly fine-toothed comb and have found a few bits I really want to fix before they drive me nuts, money (hah) and work schedules (double hah) permitting.

Long term goal for the car? Well, restore it as best I can (and improve it). So, how?

• Fix front bumper (paint chipped, dented above numberplate)
• New IMRC
• Clean headlight covers (DONE)
• Refurb/get new alloys
• Replace driver & passenger doors
• Put in new stereo (DONE)
• New cat (DONE)
• General engine TLC (plugs, leads, ignition coil etc.)
• Remove airbox resonator
• New exhaust system (DONE)

So, how's it looking so far? Well, see for yourself!

Attachment 184859
On the day I picked it up!

Attachment 184860
Lovely clean engine, wonder how they managed that ... :wall:

Attachment 184861
Important things first, new stereo. Absolute steal from Halfords, got to love end-of-month deals! New fascia from Dynamic Sounds in Wandsworth, fitting by a chap in my local Halfords for a very reasonable £30!

Attachment 184862
Headlights in the original (as-purchased) state. YUK.

Attachment 184863
MUCH BETTER.:top:

Attachment 184864
Washed, polished & waxed. Looks beautiful if I do say so myself.

Attachment 184865
Shameless beauty shot after a post-waxing rain shower. ;-)

As I do bits to the car I'll update this post with links to the relevant posts below. Here begins the adventure.

So, item one ... sports cat or OEM?

I was lucky to come accross a scorpion sports cat as I did originally replace my cat with a decat but it made the car sound nasty & chavvy loud and also lost power, soon as sports cat was installed the tone was of a better quality and power was restored, also I have a double din in mine but wanted to keep my coinholder as the aftermarlet ones are all blank but nice to see a ford getting some tlc

Car is looking good. What find you use on the headlights?

Looking good mate, same sort of things I'm doing to my Magnum ST170 at the moment. Keep the updates coming. :)

Lovely looking good, look forward to reading more updates :D

Nice stereo as well :D

Just a succession of wet papers, a bucket of water and time & effort!

Cheers, I'm loving it so far -- it's the Pioneer SPH-DA120, cracking unit (though it doesn't always play nice with iOS 10 on my phone).

Will keep the updates coming, just on the hunt for a decent sports cat at the moment (cheers for the Scorpion recommendation, 1-PD!) then it's off to the ramps to fit the thing. Currently trying to troubleshoot an interesting rattling noise when off the throttle between 1800 & 2000 RPM, it's not cat heatshields (because I don't have any), it's not the internals of the cat (as that's intact, it's the joint leading to the rest of the system behind the cat that's got a hairline crack). It's ... something down there. Why are these rattles never somewhere easy to troubleshoot? ;-)

Ive also got a ST17O too. Mines a bit tatty but its only really a work horse. Mines got 130k on it,i paid 600 quid for mine which has both the comfort and climate packs.

Think I've found the problem, exhaust header heatshield. Now just trying to work out how to contort my fat posterior into the space to cable-tie it in place or remove it! Waiting for a quote to get all the scuffs on my drivers' side door fixed too, drives me mad every time I look at it!

Car looks great! I'm about to do the same thing to my dash as yours. Looks brilliant which is very re-assuring. Do you have any other plans?

Not much in the way of updates right now (thanks, being ill), though hopeful I'll be getting some new bits for it in the coming few days to get the momentum going again. Did manage to wash, polish & wax the damn thing last weekend though before the rain closed in, so there's that.

Attachment 184832

Oh, and I'm wondering if the fuel pump is going. Occasional stutter at WOT, generally more when cold, usually when under half a tank. Got plugs, leads & coil pack on order anyway, but not sure if that's going to fix it.

A nice reflection :D

What kind of stutter is it, and is it consistent ?

Cheers, it's amazing what sort of shine you can get out of old paint with a little bit of elbow grease! The stutter is very intermittent -- seems to be more when flooring it uphill too, which makes me think fuel pump (as there's also the incline for the car to contend with), but it goes away entirely when the car is properly warm. Most odd and definitely unwelcome!

Found the definitive cause of the remaining rattle, it is a loose exhaust manifold heatshield. Bolts are completely jammed into the manifold though, so new plan - find a new exhaust manifold (anyone got experience with after-market ones?), flexi-pipe & cat (which I've found has a hairline fracture at the back, see below :( ). So much for the cosmetic bits on the car, grr!


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/passion...67c9f61d78.jpg

Excellent, hairline fracture!

Wow, so I've not updated this in a while ...

All gone a bit quiet on the resto front to be honest, have had work done on the car but it's been quite a lot of fixing rather than restoring!

In the last couple of months have had all new exhaust components from the manifold back, mostly because when I had the cat replaced, the flexi pretty much immediately let go. Still, new cat + new flexi means at least I'm getting the most out of the new Scorpion system I now have on the car (which sounds amazing, wholeheartedly recommend them!).

Also noticed my tracking was out when the car was up on the ramps for exhaust work, so had that corrected, just need to replace those tires now (:angry:). Currently got Dunlop Sportmaxx on the car, does anyone have any better/slightly cheaper recommendations? Don't want to go budget, but don't particularly want to spend £100+ a corner either!

Oh, and my headlight washer covers fell off while I was abroad on business. Got two used ones, but haven't put them on yet because the old ones have left MASSIVE MARKS on the bumper, so getting that fixed first.

So, what does it look like right now? Well, a bit like this:

Attachment 184782
Wahey, new cat. No more rattling or loss of pressure!

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Getting used to this view ... (getting the new flexi fitted)

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Trip to the seaside (Reculver)

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Bit of a difference between stock & Scorpion tip

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Scorpion fitted. Love it, 'nuff said.

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Can't beat a bit of shine, can you?

So, what's next? Well, there's a knocking from the passenger-side rear, which I'm hoping is a bushing and not a shock, so it's off to yet another ramp in the next week or so to have that investigated, then I'm getting the front bumper refurbished so it looks less like it's spent it's life doing this: :wall:

After that? Probably some general TLC to be honest, tempted by this brake kit off of eBay as the discs on mine are a bit nasty (not grooved or damaged, just don't look great).

Need to get someone who really knows these to have a listen to the engine too, I am paranoid it's making the wrong noises, but I'm told these are supposed to be a bit ticky thanks to the injectors. Any takers for a quick blast? :P

I would actually hope its a shock rather than a bush tbh as bushes on these cars are utter pigs where as a shock is 2 bolts and dead easy to do, as for brakes they are not bad and defo a improovement on stock

See, I was hoping bush as I thought it might be cheaper -- and surely not as bad as having work done on my old 2002 Laguna estate. I remember they had to drop the axle (so I was told, anyway) to replace the front brakes ...

Cheers for the recommendation on the brakes as well, I'll get them ordered, will be one less thing the car needs then. If I wanted to make the caliper covers look a bit less rusty, is there anything special I need to do or is it just a sandblast & respray job?

exactly that just prep them well and treat them to decent paint, bushes are cheaper but total crap job to do but shocks are also pretty cheap

Spent a good hour or so trying to take the airbox resonator off this afternoon. Failed miserably thanks to a couple of stripped screw bits on the airbox base (the bits the screws match up with).

Do have a spare airbox ready to go on, going to get some worm gear clamps to replace the bizarre snap-mechanism Ford ones on the hose first though (because they're horrible, horrible design).

Took the car into the garage yesterday as I was getting a horrible 'thwup-thwup-thwup' noise from the rear under cornering, which I'd have sworn was a flat tire if it wasn't fully inflated. Next thought, therefore, was suspension.

So, dropped the car off ...

Steeled myself for a hefty bill to put it right ...

...

It's my new exhaust tapping against the rear bumper under cornering, because I haven't swapped out the original Ford rubber hanger bits.

Well, that was a cheaper fix than expected. New stronger ones on the way from Pumaspeed to be fitted in the New Year. :)

Did find out, however, that my front subframe is not in good nick though, so going to have to have that replaced before the car is MOT'd next. Going to pop it back to the garage for subframe swap & all-new brakes at the same time, might as well. Looks like it'll be a refurb/breakers job though as my local Ford garage want £747 for a new front subframe!

When that's done, time to go and get the IMRC looked at (or maybe sticky flaps? Who knows?), then I can start getting all the little scratches on the body fixed up.

I'll make this car shine one way or another!