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Brigante's Build Thread


Brigante
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Seeing as there's a dedicated section for builds now I was gonna ask to have my thread moved over, but as it's many many pages long and full of banter it makes for a long read for anyone who hasn't read it yet.

Because of this I've decided to create a new, stream lined build thread with all mods to date on one page.

So here's what my motor looked like when I bought it almost exactly a year ago

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A completely stock Ford Focus Ghia 1.6 115. 2 previous female owners :o

And here's what a lorry decided to do to the poor thing within a month of owning it by cutting me up on a roundabout :( :( :(

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Used front bumper, wing panel and new alloy centre cap later and I had her good as new.

That was after I managed to get back in my bonnet

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And refit the bumper n wing panel myself after a qualified 'mechanic' made a complete bodge of the whole thing

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First thing I did to it then was get a new battery cause the poor girl was lacking start power. Trumped for top of the range

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Now I started with some small mods. First being getting friendly with the carbon wrap n me Missus's pink hairdryer

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Then come the 'custom' heating knobs. I say 'custom' cause they aren't really any more seeing as most focus's on the forum now has them lol

A little more carbon wrap to the demister switch panel

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As my focus is a ghia there was no worry about not having foot-well lighting or it only being part fitted in some way, nope my focus had em as standard :P

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Which the dingy yellow bulbs quickly got replaced with LED's. As I'm a Birmingham city fan you can guess what colour I went for

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Then come the aluminium pedal set

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Don't forget the tea ;)

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This gap was starting to annoy me

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So I got this to fill it

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Much better

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LED's was also annoying me as they weren't very good and just looked like a focused blue blob in the corner

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So I swapped em out for some better ones

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And put the old ones in me map lights

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Got a dremel and butchered a little hole in the garage door

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So I quickly had power back to it

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Next come some LED sidelights to get rid of the horrible yellow

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As well as these for H1 and H7

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Results B)

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New tax disk holder ;)

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And these turned up

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Next great little mod I did was get some mist washer jets. Luckily got em just before they went up to silly money too thanks to Lenny

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It was at this point I was really enjoying owning me car and started to make a few subtle changes when I received more damage. Even more annoying it was yet again involving a lorry driver not looking what he was doing. Come flying at me on a narrow road from a carpark when I had right of way and was already in the road. To avoid my Missus in the passenger seat being sideswiped I had to brake hard, only to result in being hit from behind instead <_<

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This time damage wasn't as bad though just a cracked bumper. Used this as an excuse to start doing some proper mods and treated the poor girl to an ST rear bumper

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At the same time I got a good deal on a spoiler too so thought ah go on then

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Before

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After

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It looked silly having ghia on the back of it so the badges quickly came off

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Next great mod I did using help from Lenny's guide was wire in some rear foot-well lighting

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I also put even better LED's in my front foot-wells as well as got a LED courtesy light

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Results

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Then my wind deflectors turned up

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It was also looking silly only having front mud flaps so they also come off. I have some aftermarket mud flaps in my boot which I should be fitting shortly if it doesn't snow again

Car was looking pretty filthy and not in a good way so it came the time for a well needed clean

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About 4hours later and

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Bit random but going through photobucket I found these, so for a laugh here's what happens if you get on my bad side :P

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Anyway back to the build..

Got myself a none genuine clear LHD fog light unit

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Really evens out the rear

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Which after sourcing a few extra parts and using yet another of Lenny's great guides ;)

I quickly butchered to create this

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And with a bit of extra wiring I had twin reverse lights

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While still retaining me fog light which I upgraded to a red cree bulb

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I ordered 2 cree reverse light bulbs with extra leds round the sides which I waited a month for to come from china

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(DISCLAIMER: THOSE AREN'T MY NAILS) :P

Which when I went to fit, both turned out to be duds :huh::angry: Moral: Don't buy from china

After threatening the seller that I'd fly over there with a chainsaw I eventually got a refund

I then bought 2 normal cree bulbs from the UK

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Result

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BOOYAH!! :P

Can see the difference of cree vs original here

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Can never have enough LED in your life so I got me a ignition barrel LED

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Which instead of routing the the courtesy light, I cut most of the loom off and spliced into me foot-well loom

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Then I got myself 3 of these LED pads

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One of which I slapped in the glove box

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And then with the help of yet another of Lenny's guides (seriously sensing a pattern now)

I wired in a second boot light and put a pad each side so now I can actually see in the boot of a night as well as be lit up like a smurf

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These popped up on eBay for a very reasonable price

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So I had em away, even though I knew they wouldn't be a straight forward fit cause the plugs are different

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So what I did is cut the indicators off and transplant them and the covers onto my existing wing mirrors, and with a little speaker wire I wired em to my existing indicator loom

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What I decided to do with the old indicators is simply colour code em to the rest of the car

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Then the day was among us and my 23rd birthday came around. And my lovely Missus treated me to a new head unit

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And reverse park camera

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All fitted and working

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Given the area I currently reside in I was a bit worried about my nice new head unit disappearing quicker than I fitted it so I decided to go down the dummy faceplate route

To which my good old uncle Clive kindly donated this to the cause

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Which I set about obliterating till I was left with this

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Everything glued in place

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And the back lined with foam to avoid scratching and it does the job beautifully

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You'll notice from the above photos my carbon interior has changed

I decided to give carbon dipping a go

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The finish turned out quite good albeit with a few patches missing

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But I since decided I used a too lighter base coat and that the carbon dip I used looks nothing like carbon lol

So I've now sourced more realistic carbon dip film

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Which I will be re-dipping all my interior in soon as I can get round to it and when we finally get some decent weather after the months of snow

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But the effect I should hopefully end up with should be a long the lines of this

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I then decided to start fly eyeing my exterior lights till I got the funds together to buy actual black light units

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Turns out though it doesn't weather very well and does block out a fair bit of light so it's since been removed from head lights n tail lights

Was long over due but I finally got some DMB gel over lays

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Fitted

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Then after about a 2month wait, I heard a knock at the door from DHL man and like a child at christmas I got outa bed and ran downstairs to be greeted with a big box

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And inside that box was a smaller box

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And in that box were 2 smaller boxes

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Can you guess what was inside? :D :D :D

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My new black headlight units

All fitted and looking very pwetty

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:wub::wub::wub::wub:

Did I say they have built in halos? :o

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They sure do :P

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Got em leveled and aligned properly and the beam from em is as great as always and I'm really pleased with the light output

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And finally we've come to the end of my build to date and the last few little things I've done are colour code the grill to make the front a bit more stealthy n match me headlights

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Fit genuine ford Wiper Blades so I can now actually see clearly when it's raining and not be blinded by smear marks. Another good thing is they have a wear indicator on em

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Which will gradually turn from black to yellow when they need changing

And I've fitted a cheapy sun strip to see if it'll stop me getting blinded by glare a bit

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Oh and I've finally got a battery cover after trying to track one down for ages

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So there you go, all my mods to date on one page

Even though I said it was streamlined it's still turned out a rather long read :P

But at least you won't have to read through 30 odd pages ;)

Comments welcome

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Lookin mint mate love the tax disk holder :lol:

Lol nice one mate

Was hoping no one would see it n comment yet cause I've finally just finished typing up the second half of it

Thought it would be too long to put in one post so I split it in half ;)

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2 seconds and ill fix that ;)

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Lookin mint mate love the tax disk holder :lol:

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Lookin mint mate love the tax disk holder :lol:

Lmao nice one mate knew you was gonna do that

What you reckon to the finished thread so far now anyway?

Surely the highlight of the whole thing aint the tax disk holder ;)

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I think its time i started a build thread too

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Personally I love the interior lighting that you've done and your angel eyes look pretty sweet too :)

) the carbon wrapped interior looks pretty decent too. I didnt get chance to get a proper look last night lol

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You got any other plans in the pipeline?

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You got any other plans in the pipeline?

so many things i'd wanna do mate

st alloys, lowered, side skirts, st front bumper, duplex exhaust, rear tints. i still need to hydro dip everything too. im sure theres other things i wanna do as well that dont immediately spring to mind but with the amount of funds it'll cost n given i've just gone over the 100k mark i'd be better off saving the funds up and part exing for an actual st

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Yeah probably lol then youve got your insurance to lol cheaper to insure an actual ST than one done up to the same spec

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looking good, the st bumper should be on all focus its so much better,

out of interest what did you do to modify pedals?

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looking good, the st bumper should be on all focus its so much better,

out of interest what did you do to modify pedals?

these are the pedals i've got mate

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Refitting-Non-skid-Pedals-Pad-Cover-Set-Fit-05-10-M-T-Ford-Focus-RS-K-/321089168500?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item4ac267e474

or if you don't mind paying a lil bit more n want em sooner, i've found uk stock here

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Foot-Pedal-Cover-Clutch-Brake-Accelerator-Pad-Cover-For-FORD-FOCUS-MK2-MK3-BA43-/261197444361?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item3cd094b509

even found these from the new st

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RST-Foot-Pedal-Cover-Clutch-Brake-Accelerator-For-FORD-FOCUS-MK2-MK3-BA44-/251257052481?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item3a80165d41

the brake n clutch pedal covers completely replace your existing pedals, simply pull the old rubber pedals off n fit these instead

and the accelerator pedal simply fits over the existing pedal

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excellent thanks for that, i do like the look of the design, something different than boring rubber

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surprised you hadnt seen em before mate lol a lot of other members have em also

you should get em though they only cheap n very quickly transform your footwell

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yeh i noticed them but wasnt sure what was involved in changing them, i.e clip-on or remove/replace pedal

yeh they will be added to my list :)

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See how you've colour coded the side indicators why dont you get some kind of badge for the side indicators? ST badges or something since youve already got the ST bumper/spoiler?

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yeh i noticed them but wasnt sure what was involved in changing them, i.e clip-on or remove/replace pedal

yeh they will be added to my list :)

lol when you reckon you'll order em mate?

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See how you've colour coded the side indicators why dont you get some kind of badge for the side indicators? ST badges or something since youve already got the ST bumper/spoiler?

cause its not an st mate lol, don't think i'd even fit st badges if i had the front bumper, skirts n alloys

would just look silly putting st badges on it now cause most of it is still ghia

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lol when you reckon you'll order em mate?

haha erm when payday comes on monday :)

tbh m8 no idea prob some time next week if i have time (start new job next week)

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Not that much of a mod but I've just got some tailored car mats, they make a great fit

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haha erm when payday comes on monday :)

tbh m8 no idea prob some time next week if i have time (start new job next week)

ah fair play dude whats the new job?

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funny you should mention that because i used the mats out of my old car and noticed i couldnt accelerate (foot to the floor) long story short the mat was behind the pedal

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ah fair play dude whats the new job?

automation systems engineer :)

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funny you should mention that because i used the mats out of my old car and noticed i couldnt accelerate (foot to the floor) long story short the mat was behind the pedal

so the mat was too long n went up behind the pedals?

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