Puma wheel arch vs FRP wheel arch

Today a bloke in the local Ford dealer said that the inner wheel arch of the regular Puma is different in design to the FRP's inner wheel arch due to the FRP's flares, is this right?

the FRP rear arch is bolted over a standard rear arch.

Are you talking about front or rear?

On the front, the outer arch is obviously different, and the seam in the top of the arch is flattened. Arch liner is larger and made of two standard liners.

At the rear, the original arch / quarter panel was removed with the FRP rear quarter fitted in its place. There is a special panel inside to fill in the gap between the original inner arch and the FRP outer arch.

Ahh, sounds like he was right. He said that the regular Puma's inner arches were cheaper made and not so well designed as the FRP's inner arches. I was asking because I was thinking about selling the FRP and getting a normal Puma converted into an FRP replica, just so I can fit a 2.0 Ecoboost without carving up a collector's item, but it seems it'd take more than simply buying the flared arches to get it right up to FRP spec. I guess in that case it's right back to the drawing board again then.

Structure of both is the same, biggest expense when converting to FRP, aside from bodywork, is the steering gear, longer lower arms, track rods, drive shafts (though you would probably be looking at custom driveshafts anyway for a Duratec HE based engine...)

Why would I need custom driveshafts? Wouldn't using the 2.0 EcoBoost just need the driveshafts made for that model of engine?

he means the FRP has custom driveshafts

Tomcat said:

Why would I need custom driveshafts? Wouldn't using the 2.0 EcoBoost just need the driveshafts made for that model of engine?

Click to expand...

2.0 EcoBoost is an evolution of Duratec HE, there are no "plug & play" driveshafts for a Duratec HE in a Fiesta Mk4/5/Puma. It is possible that the Fiesta ST shafts could work in a FRP due to the increased track, however that is not necessarily the case.