轉錄自UK STOC論壇
If your thinking of modding then take it from someone who has been down this road, and spent alot of money (some of which could have been avoided) on mods.
My order of mods would be:
1) a remap - handheld unit such as Code:Red, Dreamscience, Bluefin :- all have plus and minus points so the choice really is your own as without other mods they all give similar results.
Budget on £500
2) Exhaust system - change just the downpipe and cat if you can't afford a full system. Most people just stick a backbox on and wonder why it doesnt do much, power is released by changing the bits iv mentioned, then when you get some more cash finish the exhaust of with the cat back sections. (or if you can afford it do it all at once.) Again plenty of choice, cheapest is Magnex, Piper is loud, For Quality choose either a Miltek System or the Primary Designs System (PD is pricey but very good).
Budget on £400 (for downpipe and sports cat) with additional £400 for catback system
3) CAIS - this is a "Closed Air Intake System" fancy words for an Induction Kit, works pretty well but without the exhaust and remap you wont see major benefits. Options are Wolf and GGR (same design similar costs). Also K&N offer an open Induction Kit that sits down near the passenger headlight in front of the wheel liner to avoid the heatsoak, its cheaper at about £200 (CAIS is around £400) but TBH pretty much accepted that the CAIS systems work better. This works fine for the costs if money is tight.
Budget on £400 (but £200 will suffice aslong your not going to stage 4+)
4) Intercoolers - The intercooler (I/C) allows the air to cool down (after it's passed through the red hot turbo don't forget) before it enters the engine itself, once you have modded to this level your charge temps (ACT's) will be on the rise very quickly when you start to "make progress"
So why does it matter? The ST has a very clever ECU (the Bosch ME9 to be exact) which will actually monitor ACT's and when they get to high ( i dont know the extact figure but its around 55-60 degrees C) the ECU will actually start to back off the power effectively un-doing all the hard work modding it you have done! By fitting the uprated I/C you allow the charged air to remain at a nice temp that the ECU is happy with, as the colder the air the denser it is and the more fuel charge can be added to it. Options on the I/C are Forge, Pro Alloy, Radtec, Airtec. Price normally reflects quality but the two most popular are Radtec and Pro Alloy. Visually the Pro Alloy is a more pleasing unit, but in tests the Radtec looks to be the better performing unit.
Budget on £400-£500
Once you have fitted the above 4 stages you will find yourself with somewhere between 270-290bhp depending on what brands you have fitted and how well set up the car is. Regardless of "numbers" you WILL notice the car is a hell of alot more fun to drive, sounds fantastic and is generally just alot quicker. The next stages are where it starts to get more expensive, alot more expensive.
Turbo Upgrades:
Wolf WR330 or Pumaspeed ST340R both use same idea, reworked standard turbo to produce more boost and ultimatly more power, Both have merits so again choice is yours on this.
Budget on approx £2-£4k depending on where you are up to on the above stages listed.
If you want to go SILLY then Pumabuid offer GT28 conversions but be warned you will need deep pockets to go down this route (even more so than the other two turbo upgrades) and its still very early days for this route.
Budget on 6k+
So Good luck with modding your car, the path you choose will of course ultimatly determine how much money you spend and which companies you encounter.
Brakes
Once you have stage 4 you really should be looking at brake upgrades, AP 4 pots are available if you want to keep the standard alloys, otherwise you can run AP 6 Pots (but you need 19" alloys). Of course you can just run upgraded pads and discs and brake lines, but that depends on how hard you drive.
Suspension
Option A: Lowering springs, options are H&R or Eibach. Personally the H&R's are my choice, good handling and a nice low stance make for a great car.
Budget £200 fitted
Option B: Coilovers, options are Bilstein or KW's. the Bilsteins are dear at £1200, but the KW's arn't much cheaper £1k) both are cracking set ups and will defy logic of what FWD is capable of. A serious upgrade for serious cars, I wouldnt bother with coilovers unless you plan on more than one track day a year or visits to the Nurburgring.
Contacts:
Collins - sell exhausts, expert mappers, Dreamscience Master dealers.
Pumaspeed - full packages offered
Wolf UK - full packages offered
Pumabuild - full packages offered
GGR - Specialist ford tuners, been in the game years. full packages offered.
These are pretty much the top tuners (not in order mind) that are about for the ST.
That should save you some searching. Hope it helps.
Just to point out, almost all the products listed above can or have been on either group buys or forum discount at some point in the last twelve months and no doubt will remain to have great deals set up, so if your thinking of modding then upgrade to "owner member" status for the forum through the online shop, it will cost you £10 for twelve months but will save you potentially hundreds of pounds!
Rick
