Getting more power out of your Fiesta ST is a lot easier than you’d think, as the owner of this Oxford White Fiesta ST discovered after a visit to ModAuto. A few months back this car came in to see the Mod Experts to do a little something about increasing the output of the EcoBoost four under the hood. He came to the right place- check out what we set him up with.
As we’ve said in our guide to the Best Mods for Fiesta ST, Perhaps the single most important upgrade for making consistent power with your Fiesta ST is an upgraded intercooler. We’ve replaced the OEM intercooler with a high capacity Cobb Tuning Intercooler for Fiesta ST with chargepipes.
The Cobb Tuning Intercooler for Fiesta ST is more than 100 cubic inches larger in internal core volume than stock and with greater surface area, yet doesn’t punish you with a major pressure drop like you’d think. What’s more, the Cobb Tuning Chargepipes for Fiesta ST help eliminate pressure drop by streamlining the air charge path and omitting the weird resonator thing found on the OEM chargepipe.
To enhance the breathing ability of the Fiesta ST while keeping heatsoak to an absolute minimum, the OEM intake tube has been replaced with a Cobb Tuning Intake for Fiesta ST. The Cobb Tuning Intake for Fiesta ST features a rotomolded plastic intake tube, rather than a metal one like most competing systems, because plastic is an excellent thermal insulator. What that means is that because of its plastic construction, your cool air charge stays cool all the way along the intake path.
Beyond that, the Cobb Intake for Fiesta ST is a true ram-air cold air intake system, and retains the sealed airbox design of the factory unit while dramatically enhancing flow and performance. What this means is that you have a consistently cool incoming air charge and are less likely to get heat soaked in stop and go traffic.
To give the Fiesta ST exhaust a bit more growl, the owner of this ST opted for one of the more aggressive options, the MBRP 3in Cat-Back Exhaust for Fiesta ST.
With massive 3in piping and large dual oversized round tips filling out the exhaust opening in the diffuser fully, this system gives this little hot hatch some major growl.
The system looks great installed on the car and the larger tips are a major visual upgrade over the godawful stock tips.
One thing we did want to mention here is that we strongly suggest picking up a set of Cobb Tuning Exhaust Hangars for Fiesta ST, regardless of what brand exhaust you buy – or hell, even for your stock exhaust.
Several people have asked me (both with the stock exhaust and my Cobb exhaust!),
“Is your exhaust broken? It moves around a LOT”
after following me, and following other Fiesta ST’s, I noticed their cars do the same thing.
A few months back we had the frustrating experience of explaining why these are necessary to a friend, and they simply did not believe me because they thought the muffler shop knew more or thought I was just trying to sell him an extra that wasn’t necessary. They’re full of crap, trust me, as the expert on this platform having worked on probably hundreds of Fiesta ST’s by now, you need these damn things. It’d be easy to say “oh they’re pointless”, but nope, the fact is that they actually do quite a bit.
Reason is, your stock exhaust hangars are softer than the StayPuft Marshmallow man. This means your exhaust likes to jiggle and dance around like a Leprechaun dancing a jig whenever you are driving. We’re not talking a little bit of movement here, we’re talking INCHES OF PLAY.
Enough so, that the hot exhaust tips do indeed have the potential to make contact with the inside of your diffuser as you drive (which starts melting it…)
Anyone who tells you that your exhaust doesn’t move around enough to warrant these is straight up lying to you.
See the orange thingies in the photo above? Those are the hangars. If you don’t believe us on how soft these are, go outside and try moving your exhaust around. Go on, we’ll wait.
Tried it? There’s a lot of slack and movement there, huh? Well now you know why this otherwise trivial $50 addon is more of a “must” rather than a suggestion. Anyhow, rant over, moving on.
To manage the larger intercooler and take account of additional mods, this Fiesta ST owner loaded up his Stage II off the shelf map on his Cobb Tuning AccessPORT for Fiesta ST, and the car was ready to rock. A larger intercooler is the key component needed to take the car to Stage II off the shelf mapping, and as what we know about the car is changing, it may not be necessary after all to have a sports downpipe on the Fiesta ST until you bother swapping out the turbocharger, meaning you can leave your OEM catted downpipe in place, totally compliant with the law.
After installing the intercooler, the owner of this ST chose to remove his lower grille to better show off his new Cobb Tuning swag.
From every angle, the car looks better than it did rolling in here, accelerates faster and sounds far sexier – which just goes to show what just a few mods can do for the character of your car.
Interested in modding your Ford, say a Fiesta ST or Focus ST? Check out our guide to the Best Mods for the Fiesta ST here, then talk to the Mod Experts at ModBargains – give us a call at 714-582-3330 or chat live with us on ModBargains.com – between the Mod Experts and ST Vehicle Specialist/Sr Content Marketer Nick (yours truly), we can help make your Ford better to drive, whether your goal is to be a obnoxiously loud racecar or get more power out of a sleeper-y daily driver.
Thanks for reading, see you next time!
Story & Photos Nick Gregson