Considering how much has been done, I find it hard to believe that Mario only picked up his Fiesta about 5 weeks ago now. Following the last update he went and installed a few more pieces around the car such as a Mountune high-flow air filter and symposer delete, more new speakers, and an evap canister skid plate. I’ve said it before surely, but I’ll say it again; he’s not wasting any time!

It also seems that as soon as a part goes on the Fiesta another one arrives. With more pieces waiting to be installed, a few of us coordinated to meet up and get to work. Brandon kindly offered his garage as the workstation so last Sunday Mario, Derrick and I headed over to his place to hang out and continue working on the mini ST. And just for the record, when these photos were taken the car was just shy of four weeks old.

When I arrived at Brandon’s this is what I saw. Sriracha was up in the air missing its face and the OEM intercooler had been replaced with a CPE unit. Mario had bought it and the evap canister skid plate from a fellow FiST owner whose car was sadly totaled (because deer) and parted out.

The intercooler was a good price and obviously had survived the collision, so Mario grabbed it since he’d be needing to swap eventually with the power levels he ultimately wants from this thing. I don’t think he was planning on one this early but it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

It wasn’t that long ago that there were pieces of Ketchup laying around Brandon’s garage.

With the intercooler in, Mario turned his focus to making swiss cheese of the factory airbox (and a bit of a mess of Brandon’s garage floor) by drilling into it for more airflow.

With the previously-installed Mountune high-flow filter and the drilled-out airbox, the little 1.6 should be breathing a bit better now.

With that taken care of, Mario picked up the drill again and went outside to the front bumper…

…and started drilling into the grille! YOLO(w), and all that.

It has become increasingly common for owners of STs to sand the backsides of their grilles to open up all of the little slats, therefore allowing for more airflow. Ultimately we want to do the same to the Fiesta (as well as my Focus) but didn’t have a belt sander handy so this is the temporary measure. The holes are barely noticeable with the bumper on, for those wondering. When we get a chance we’ll come back and fully open it up.

I noticed the reflection of Mustard in the windows so I played around with the camera for a minute. Hopefully I’ll have the Cup Spoilers back from their repaint soon!

With the shavings cleaned up the front bumper could go back on, which took a little bit of effort. The CPE intercooler requires some trimming of the bumper for perfect fitment since it’s thicker, but that is another task being saved for later when we have the appropriate tools to do a clean and tidy job. It still fit, though it was a big snug. We’ll be working on the Fiesta again before long anyway!

You know how there always seem to be pieces left over when putting a car back together? Haha.

Obviously the stock intercooler was left out, but along with it Mario removed the lower grille to help fit the larger CPE unit and show it off more, and the last piece here is an airdam that fit between the stock FMIC and the crash bar. It seemed to serve no real purpose since it went nowhere, so it was omitted during reassembly.

Like I said, some trimming will come. There isn’t much space back there!

With the car reassembled all of the lights were tested and it was then lowered down to the ground. All good!

With the new intercooler fitted Mario could switch to a Stage 2 tune, so of course he did. The new tune was selected and loaded in no time flat.

Along with the intercooler Mario had also brought with him two new exterior parts, though neither were installed that day. First up was his new fifteen52 rear wing extension which Kanji had picked up during his road trip. Mario himself had a road trip coming up in a few days’ time and since this would only be held on with adhesive, he opted to wait until he returned instead of throwing it on and then almost immediately subjecting it to hundreds of kilometers of highway speeds.

The second exterior part was his new Mountune front splitter which he was painting that day…or more accurately, bedlining that day. It works well as a coating for splitters as the texture helps hide touch-ups. The splitter on Ketchup was bedlined as well actually.

After the installs we said bye to Brandon and Derrick and I cruised with Mario back to his place so that he could drop off the extra parts. From there we went to give both the Camaro and Fiesta a bath since they were a little dirty.

Also worth noting is that while the bumper was off I had removed the Fiesta’s fog lights and covered them in 3M for protection from stones and other debris. Mario had had one on his Focus get smashed from a rock and didn’t really care to repeat that if possible.

With the lower grille out the intercooler is nicely shown off. Since the CPE logo has worn a bit we’re thinking we may clean the rest of it off and put something new on to replace it.

At this point we really had no plans for the rest of the day so we weren’t in a rush to go anywhere or do anything. Derrick gave his car a quick little detail…

…while Mario relaxed in the sun.

While we were outside an Aston Martin even came by for a wash!

Eventually we decided to cruise over to Crossroads Market for a snack and to see what the vendors had, before I called it a day and headed back home to get some work done.

Before leaving I made sure to get a half-decent shot of Derrick’s new banner though! We had first applied the red base at my house and with it in place I could size the text appropriately to fit. I handed that to Derrick the next time I saw him and he threw it on shortly after. It looks good! Just today in fact Dominic stopped by and we installed one on his Focus as well, in grey and black. It’s awesome to see more people rocking these around town!

And with that, we’re just about up-to-date with the progress on Sriracha. Mario installed his splitter afterwards (once it had fully dried) and we have the wing extension to install once he gets back in town of course. He and I also recently spent an afternoon stripping Ketchup further so as I’m sitting here at my desk I’m surrounded by ST parts, a few of which I should throw in the sedan to get out of the way.

Sunday School is exactly 6 weeks away now, and we have absolutely no shortage of work to carry out on the cars. Stay tuned for more updates!

-Bill