Better late than never and greetings from the US or over the pond. So I stumbled upon your postings about what you're doing to your TC. I have a few things I can tell about our adventures with two different TC's since 2015.
Our first van, the 2015 TC SWB 2.5L was our daily driver and the only things we did to the van at that time was add window tinting and 17'' Sparco wheels. When 2020 rolls around the old van seen better days and we got tired of the common white color. This time around we opted for the dark navy blue LWB. As I'm not able to up load images, You'll have to wait and see some of the things we've accomplished since 2020 on our current Connect.
In your remarks, you're asking about a few things that can or can't be done to the TC. One of the main things we've learn is at some point we heard that the Focus performance parts would fit the van. Sure many of the control arms and smaller parts do fit or are listed as crossover parts for the van. Sites like Rockauto and Summitracing here in the states have listed of parts for the van with crossover references from the Focus, Escape, Mazda and Jaguar.
One good reference site is roadkillcustoms (no relation to the show) as this site has cross reference parts from other vehicles with the same bolt pattern & center bore as the current Connect. For instance, we've always hated the full size spare tire under the rear of the van. So we removed the spare and cut the cable system holding the spare in place. Then using the Roadkillcustoms site we learned that the 2005 Thunderbird uses the same bolt pattern & center bore spare tire but in a 17'' balloon size. We ended up mounted this spare inside the van using a off road spare tire mount or bracket. One of the best things we've done to the van. Less weight too and yes this spare fits like a glove.
Now onward to the real important stuff..
We've installed a front set of Bilstein B6 Struts with the factory coil springs. This set up lowered the front end of the van by 3/4 of an inch or 19mm. We'll be adding a rear set of Bilstein shocks once we have the 40mm lowering springs in hand. These springs will be coming from Cobra Coil out of Netherlands.
With the struts in place it was time to think about new wheels. The van came with the 16'' wheels. but we wanted something better. we tired 17'' Voxx wheels and hated this combo. Then we spotted a van owner in UK who just mounted a set of 18'' OZ wheels on his van.. we though about 18's but changed our mind.. 19''s was our new goal. But we ran into a problem. with that large of wheel on the van, we needed to locate a tire that was suited for the load index as well as load rating of the wheel and van. we ran into issues with 5 different tires as they had too weak sidewalls. These weak side wall tires would cause the van to slide into and through curves which made for unsafe driving.
The 6th set of tires payed off. The Nokian G4's (made with kevlar but not runflats) helped keep the sidewalls in check. These Nokians have been the best tires we've ever had the chance of owning. Just in case you're wondering, yes in less than 4 months we test drove the van with 5 different sets of tires and none of them worked until we found the Nokian brand.
Next on the list.. Again we've heard reports that the Focus sway bar will fit on the Connect. So we wanted to prove or verify this. there's a shop south of our location which invited us to test fit their 32mm sway bar on the van. Sadly the 32mm was too large plus because the bar is designed for a focus, the bends towards the end of the bar were not bent correctly and did not allow for clearance on the Connect engine cradle.
Not all is lost. Concluding that the Focus sway bar is off the table, we learn that the Ford KUGA uses the same engine cradle as the Connect. However, anything newer than 2019 will not fit on the Connect cradle because the sway bar chanced in 2020+. So anything between 2013-2019 sway bars will or should fit the van and we're aiming to test that very soon.
Lastly, we're not doing anything to the engine other than adding a drop in K&N filter and NGK sparkplugs. The main draw is the van's interior.. we've added Diamond Tucked carbon Fiber to the side and rear door panels. The van will get a new sound system and sound dampening panels. Once this has been completed, we're looking at have the rear of the van lowered with the Cobra 40mm lowering springs. because the 19'' wheels already fit snuggly under the front of the van no lowering springs are needed, but we're going to get a second set of factory springs and have them powder coated the same as the rear cobra springs.
Oddly, the most expensive part of this build is the wheels and tires while many of the other parts we've add or soon to be added cost around $100.00 ea. USD. Till then, we're following leads on a set of Brembo calipers fitting on the van as well as the KUGA 28mm sway bar fitting on the van.
Have any questions on our findings? Let me know I dig up what we've tested on the van.
