Let’s get this out of the way first; this is Selsun. It won’t be a surprise to anyone who’s been following our social media (or checked the About tab recently) but this is what Mario’s RS shall be known as from now on. It’s a bit of a change from the usual naming patterns we realize, but isn’t the first time we’ve not strictly adhered to the condiments theme; though this is the furthest we’ve strayed from it, granted.
Team Condiments started years ago just as a bit of fun. Mustard and Ketchup were the names given to the original two cars by someone, somewhere, and we just ran with it. Since then we’ve introduced Mayo, Tabasco, Sriracha, and even stretched it a bit to include Blue Cheese (Guy’s old Fit) and Spork (Andrew’s Mk1).
This time though, we’ve thrown the whole food theme out the window and moved to a completely different aisle in the store: hair care. We joked about calling it Blue Ketchup (there literally was blue coloured ketchup for a while) given some similarities to the original Ketchup, but Mario kept going back to – and thus officially chose – Selsun as the title for this build.
Speaking of similarities, the whole time we were working on the RS on the night shown here we couldn’t help but feel a bit of déjà vu. It was almost exactly this time of year back in 2013 (oh boy, time has flown) that we were carrying out the first subtle changes on Ketchup, one of which we were even repeating here – albeit temporarily.
Outer dash vents; the swap between Mustard and Ketchup was one of the very first posts on the blog, and the first install ever documented even! The reason behind that swap was that I wanted the higher-spec, “chrome” trimmed pieces for my sedan and Mario wanted the all-black versions from the lower models for his ST. We each had what the other wanted and so we traded. From there it really snowballed, and look at where we are today.
Anyway, the RS, like the pre-facelift SEL+ models, had the silver/chrome trim and Mario wanted to once again ditch that. I ventured into my stockpile of stored Mk3 parts and found Mustard’s original vents, which had purposely been saved from Ketchup back in 2016. I unwrapped them from their bubble wrap and we set about removing the RS’ pieces to fit them instead.
The passenger vent went in without fuss, but we then noticed that it seemed to be a different hue to that of the RS vents and the dash too; it was a blacker black for lack of a better description, but we didn’t see it as an issue and so carried on, swapping out the driver’s vent as well.
For whatever reason however, the driver’s vent refused to sit perfectly flush within the dash despite repeatedly trying to re-seat it. With this actual issue facing us, on top of the colour variation, we decided that these would only stay in as a temporary measure while I would then disassemble the RS vents to paint the accent trim black. Those will be refitted – and thus shown – at a later date but that’s not all we have for today’s post.
Quick side note – if swapping between pre-facelift (PFL) and facelift (FL) vents, you also need to use the matching headlight switch surround as Ford revised the seam between the two components meaning you can’t mix and match PFL (curved seam) and FL (straight seam) parts.
One “modification” that new cars in the group usually see fairly soon after purchase is some form of Lamin-X on the fog lights. It’s not inexpensive to replace smashed lights and even if they don’t get broken by the gravel and debris on our roads, they’ll at the very least get peppered with little impact marks over time. It appeared that one of Selsun’s lights had already been replaced even, at its young age, and Mario didn’t want to risk losing another one. I grabbed some yellow Lamin-X and with his fog light/brake duct trim removed (which is SO MUCH EASIER TO DO than on FoSTs. I’m not angry, I promise) the film was applied to each light for both protection, and a subtle cosmetic upgrade. Being nearly flat as opposed to the convex lenses of the PFL FoSTs, these were possibly the easiest-to-wrap fog lights I’ve ever worked with.
And last but not least, Mario wanted a bit of carbon fiber added to Selsun, specifically in the form of the auxiliary gauge pod. The RS LEs come with these as well as the carbon fiber door spears as standard fit items, but Selsun is a ‘17 model – therefore not an LE – and so it had the standard black plastic pieces instead. Luckily when I picked up the carbon door spears for Mustard last year they came with the matching gauge pod, but as Mustard doesn’t have the ST/RS auxiliary gauges the pod was just sitting in that same stockpile of parts as the dash vents. I grabbed it as well, and in no time it had taken the place of Selsun’s original as the “install” for one of these housings is super simple – unclip it from the dashboard, unplug the gauges, and then remove them by undoing two torx screws. Reverse the procedure and the new pod housing is in!
Given that this was the first night of really working on Selsun we were quite happy with the few subtle changes it saw but of course there were more plans for the RS, some of which have since come to fruition. All will be covered in the next updates on Selsun, along with all of the work the other cars saw as we prepared for the 2019 show season. Mario and I have of course discussed his ideas for the car and while it may not end up as extreme as either of his STs (though I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of things escalating) it’ll still be made uniquely his.
-Bill