Blue Pierogie: 2002 Ford SVT Focus Street Project

Welcome to my build thread! I'm hoping to go really in-depth on my maintenance/rebuilding of a 2002 SVT Focus that fell into my hands about two years ago. This thread should, I'm hoping, keep me accountable to my current project which has been quite scary; a full engine bay re-wire and cataloguing of each and every wire, connector body, terminal and splice in the thing, as well as a guide on how to do it yourself. I am committing to bring this forum up-to-speed on the vehicle's story since I purchased it, and to continue to detail the progress into the future.

I'll start this with a fun little (citation needed) story. I lived in a small town in Alberta, Canada, for most of my life, and was pretty aimless by the time I graduated high school in 2020. This was a pandemic year, when I walked the stage, I shook hands with a cardboard cutout of my principal. Strange times. I then moved to a bigger city to work in a livestock feed mill, and while this was good-paying work, I was feeling it necessary to escape. This escape came on four wheels initially, when I got in contact with Colin Spencer of Motorsports Supplies Inc. in Edmonton, Alberta and he encouraged me to put my car on track, promising he'd tow it home for free if I blew it up as long as I gave it a good, honest try. This car was a 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier, with the automatic transmission. I believe it was a 4-speed. After the event (didn't blow the poor Cav up!), I knew I was hooked. I drove two hours to buy a very cheap Logitech G920 racing wheel with pedals and a shifter off of a fella in another town, and then a frame, and an NRG seat (off of Colin - thanks again!) and I had a racing simulator. This, I hoped, would sate my automotive desire through the next part of my life.

One problem; it didn't quite work. I still use that simulator, and I credit it with a huge amount of my improvement as a driver, but it was missing something. At this point in our story, it is February 2022, and I had sold my Cavalier to my brother for $500 and moved with my girlfriend at the time to Vancouver Island off the west coast for school. One year in and I knew what the simulator lacked; something to wrench on. Facebook marketplace went from something I looked at in passing, to something I used seriously. Any person with an automotive interest knows the feeling. An SVT Focus popped up, and I remembered the experience I had riding in my friend Trey's (shoutout Trey, the guy comes up again. He no longer owns his, but he's been a huge help in my SVT journey) SVT Focus on another track day, and I could not help but reach out.

The car was located in Abbotsford (in the greater Vacouver area) and the seller seemed amiable to provide me with what information he had. It was around a $4k car, with imperfect paint and several, SEVERAL red flags that I ignored in favour of overestimating my wrench-turning skills and repeating "how bad could it really be?" to myself in increasingly confident tones. I took around seven hours of public transit to get there (bus, to ferry, to bus, to subway, to bus) with zero plan for what would happen if I didn't buy the car. My intelligent self would be sleeping on the street until I could find a way back home if that were the case, but thankfully, the seller was cool. Transparent, understanding, and willing to give me a ride in his sweet WRX to get the registration and insurance done so I could drive home. With that finished, I resolved to drive the peppy six-speed the eight kilometers or so home. There was only one barrier in the way, which was that I did not know how to drive a manual transmission automobile. I used what practice the simulator gave, and only stalled the thing once on the way to the ferry terminal; in front of a gravel truck, I remember it well. I stalled it three times at the ferry ticket window, much to the concern of the poor lady who I had just assured of my vehicle's (and its driver's) capability to board and disembark the vessel, and dumped the clutch to get up the ramp to the boat after traffic got stopped on the way up. Smelled great. What a ride. I made it home without further incident, and so begins the part of the story you're probably here for.

Thanks for coming by, and I hope you can find something entertaining, useful or both in this thread. Attached is a picture of the car the day after I got it home.