Pedders Coilover Plus Kit eXtreme Xa Adjustable Focus RS 2016-2018

Bill: With its turbo charged engine, all-wheel drive, and killer brakes, the performance of the Focus RS is no joke, right out of the package. We've talked a couple times, if you're serious about tracking this car, there's a few upgrades you want to make, but one we haven't talked about is going to be the suspension. While the factory suspension is adjustable, we all know if you're serious about tracking a car, coil overs are the way to go. Today we've got Angel here from Pedders Suspensions going to tell us about their coil over kit for the Focus RS and give us a hand installing it. Tell us about this kit and why you'd want to put this on your RS.

Angel: Well first of all, thanks for having me in the shop again.

Bill: Thanks for coming.

Angel: Again, the kit, as you said, the car is an astounding package out of the box but there is some room for improvement and particularly in terms of adjustability and tailoring the ride and handling to your own uses and your own likes, and this kit really offers you the ability to do that with both adjustable dampening, adjustable ride height, and then camber caster plates included.

Bill: All built in right from the box.

Angel: All built right out of the box.

Bill: Ready to go, and this is going to be a direct replacement strut assembly, so no pieces from the factory get transferred over.

Angel: No.

Bill: Just bolt on and go.

Angel: Remove and replace.

Bill: Tell us about the rear setup a little bit here.

Angel: The rear setup is of course the divorced spring setup here but the perch here allows you to adjust the ride height either up or down and again, we've set them here sort of in the middle.

Bill: Okay.

Angel: Which is a good catch all for most people's needs, but you're free to adjust it from there. And then we've got 30 way adjustment for damping on the rear shocks.

Bill: Okay, so someone who's serious about tracking this car really can dial their suspension

Angel: Exactly that, yeah.

Bill: What kind of drop are we talking factory, I mean our car's already been lowered at one point.

Angel: Right. From the factory height, we're talking probably close to two inches.

Bill: Okay.

Angel: Out of the way it comes out of the box.

Bill: And then adjustability within probably an inch and a half.

Angel: Easily, I mean if you go through the full sweep, it's probably about a three inch range.

Bill: Okay, we'll get started with the installation.

Angel: Alright, thank you.

Bill: For this installation we need a lift and a pull jack, or a jack and jack stands, 3/8" ratchet, 8mm socket, 10mm socket, 12mm socket, 13mm socket, 14mm socket, 15mm socket, 5mm Allen key, T-30 Torx bit, short extension, 15mm wrench, clip removal tool, panel removal tool, small flathead screwdriver, large Phillips head screwdriver, pry bar, and a hammer.

And I've obviously done the installation on the Focus a couple times now, I'm going to get Angel handle it for me today. We're going to start up front, you have to access the bolts for the front struts, and they're actually hidden under the cowl, and a lot of times people tell you to remove the entire cowl assembly. That can kind of be a pain to put back on, so we're going to show you a little trick to make it easier.

The cowl is actually a two piece assembly, so what you can do is separate the lower from the upper, remove the lower and that will allow us to get to the bolts without taking apart the whole cowl and the wiper assemblies.

Now we're going to remove this seal, simply grab it on the edge, just give it a tug, the whole thing pop off then you can see actually, the separate cowl, it is a two piece. Next thing I'm going to move are these four clips. Okay, now remove the cowl vent covers. They simply just pop off, they clip in place, and we've got two bolts to remove underneath.

Okay, now with that out of the way, we can remove the lower cal. With the cowl off, now you can access the three bolts. We're going to remove two of them, leave the third one tight for now. Alright, now down in the wheel well, the first thing you're going to do is remove this bolt to remove the brake line from the strut.

And now let's remove the ABS line. There's no tools required, just unclip it from the strut itself and from the brackets, and then we're going to move onto the sway bar. Alright now we're going to remove the sway bar and like just the top end link has to come off, there's actually a bracket for the ABS line as well. You have to do is actually use an Allen key to hold the center while you turn it with a wrench.

Now we're going to separate the spindle from the strut and the thing you're going to do is remove this bolt entirely. Don't worry, it's pressed in there, nothing is going to fall off. Now that is actually threaded on the other side, so we're going to do now is take the bolt, put it in from the other direction, we're going to put a piece of metal in there. Put that between the threads so when the bolt threads in and pushes against the metal, it'll actually spread out the spindle assembly, allow us to separate the strut. Once the bolt touches the metal, it'll start to spread. You don't want to go too far, just do it until you get a little bit of play in the strut. Once the spindle is separated in the back, pretty much now, you sort of have to just work it down off of the strut. This can be kind of a pain, but if you shimmy it right, it will come off.

Now release this top bolt. The strut comes off. Now this part here is definitely a two man operation. Once you have the strut out and someone's holding it, you gotta release this line here. This is for the factory adjustable suspension. Pop it out of the clip, and then disconnect it over here as well.

Angel: Now due to the design up front, there's a brace that actually covers this top bit, so you won't actually be able to access to the adjustment knob, so you want to make those adjustments now, or in the future you'll have to remove the strut brace to be able to do so.

Bill: When you put this in, you want to make sure the orientation is correct. You're caster camber adjustment should go side to side, you'll have one stub that'll go towards the outside edge. Put the washers and nuts on here just to hold it for now, give us a little more play to get it in the spindle, and then we'll tighten these up later. Now we're going to back the bolt out and put it on the other side. Use the jack to lift up the spindle onto the strut, and then tighten it back down.

What we're going to do now is actually just lift up the other wheel because the sway bar locations are off just a little bit. Oh that tight and now we're going to reconnect the ABS line.

Alright, so the last step down here now is to reconnect the brake line to the bracket on the strut, and then I'm going to move back up into the engine bay. Alright now back to the cowl area, you want to tighten down the bolts that go through the strut tower.

Right, you want to repeat the process on the other side and then move onto the rear. Now we're going to move onto the rear. The first step in the rear is we have to disconnect the electrical connection for the shock so we can remove it. To do that, these little access panels in the back here, just pop off the plug. Now to start at the rear, we're going to remove this shock. We're going to do the shock and spring actually separate. The shock has a bolt down at the bottom and then two knots up at the top. Now, if you wanted to, you could remove the spring first. If you do it on the ground and you can get to the bolt a little bit easier, but a ratchet wrench would get the bolt out without a problem.

And then to remove the shock is remove the two small nuts at the top. Right, now to remove the spring, we're going to support the spring perch and then remove this bolt here. Okay, now we'll lower this down, remove the spring. Should just pop out, you may need a small pry bar but it should just pop out.

What we're going to do now is put the shock back up into place. We're just going to bolt it to the lower. That will actually lift the control arm whole suspension up, and we can bolt the spring in, and bolt that at the same time. Just get it snug, don't over tighten it yet so you have a little bit of adjustment when we put the shock up into place with the top.

Angel: Now, at this point we're ready to put the rear coil spring into its perch. There's an indent or rather a cutout on the bottom here. You need to make sure that the spring is clocked correctly, because that'll keep away any unwanted noises and movement, and now we're ready for the adjustment perch. That will sit on top.

Bill: Now the suspension is supported, we can reinstall this bolt. Now, this part will be a little tricky. Sometimes you have to actually get in here and sort of pry it to straighten it out to make sure the bolt goes through. Now once that bolt is tight, now we're going to actually jack the whole assembly up into place. You want to make sure your spring is seated straight, and we'll line up the shock.

Alright, now we're going to reinstall the original hardware to hold the shock in place. Everything tight up top, now we're going to tighten up the rear shock hold at the bottom, then we can repeat the process on the other side.

Angel: Alright, well we've made mentioned several times about the adjustability of this system. Now, with regards to that, the way they come out of the box, they're pretty much ready to bolt in but if you were to change the ride height, you need to take into consideration your final spring height, which is adjusted here via the adjustable perch and then match that on your shock. So you're going to loosen this and thread the body up or down so as to keep the shock in the middle of its travel. You don't want it to hyper extend or to be on its bump stops constantly.

Bill: Alright, this is pretty much installed now, the last step is going to be reinstall the cowl. We install the vent covers and the last thing is the seal.

Look at the car, it's exactly what I wanted stance wise. I mean, you don't want to slam this car to the ground, with the performance capabilities of the RS, you just don't want that. You want the performance and I think we're going to get it with our Pedder suspension.

Angel: No, agreed. I mean, and again, all the adjustability is there, so it can be tailored to the individual owners use and needs, but yeah the way it's set up right now, I think it's perfect to bomb a few back roads.

Bill: And you saw, the installation is pretty straight forward. You're probably talking about maybe three hours total, be back on the road in no time.