Just picked up a 2021 ST with some mods in Longmont, CO

Just picked up a used 2021(with only ~20,600 miles on it) for my wife in Longmont, CO, this past weekend and I'm hoping somebody on this site previously owned it. It's carbonized gray, has a set of H&R springs front and rear, as well as what appears to be a Super forged BBK front and rear. The only other mod I've been able to find is a set of hood struts, but I'm continuing to look around.

So far she's enjoying how it drives and the kids definitely love how it accelerates. At some point it'll get (at least) a cvf intercooler and cold side pipe to deal with the summer heat around here and the heat soak of the stock intercooler.

Fwiw, I've got a 2018 Focus ST that's running a 2867 gen2 along with about every other bolt on, plus an AEM wmi kit to try to deal with the lousy 91 octane we have here in Colorado. Vdyno estimate is right at 390 uncorrected for the altitude, and while it's a lot of fun to drive, it's definitely not as quick to 60 as the ExpST. Hoping we get to enjoy this new-to-us ST for a long time.

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Thanks. Yeah, I hope it treats her well for a long time to come. What she previously drove was a 2016 Transit 350 XLT with the 3.5 EB (15 passenger van... we have 8 kids), and she got t-boned a few weeks ago by a lady who (appears to have) jumped into a left turn lane to pass a string of cars (which were doing the speed limit) and then hit her at what we figure was 80+ in a Mercury Milan. It ended up spinning the van 180 degrees and flipped it on its passenger side, and then the lady who hit her still had enough energy to slide another 200+ feet. She swore to the cops she "was doing exactly the speed limit", but there's just no way... Regardless, the thing that likely saved her and the 4 kids in the back from getting more than some superficial bruises was that she saw the lady out of the corner of her eye and stomped the gas. Thanks to its 400+ ft/lbs of torque, it got the van just a touch further across the intersection, so it hit just behind the kids. Thus, when it came to a replacement vehicle, I'd rather have at least enough torque to get things moving rather than not enough.... so it was going to be either the ST or the Platinum in the Explorer. We were also looking at Expeditions, but holy cow... that's WAY more money. Since we have several kids who are either out of the house or on their way out (in college now), we think a 7-passenger Explorer will work well for us. I wish the rear seats were more comfortable for their sake, though... those things are pretty bad.

Yesterday when we woke up to get ready for church she looked over at me and said "so, you snuck a racecar into the house for me to drive, huh?" I just told her "well, I wanted the 3 liter, and I could only get that 2 ways, and the platinum is even more money. So, the ST was the best option for it". She just gave me a funny look and said "Uh huh."

Just picked up a used 2021(with only ~20,600 miles on it) for my wife in Longmont, CO, this past weekend and I'm hoping somebody on this site previously owned it. It's carbonized gray, has a set of H&R springs front and rear, as well as what appears to be a Super forged BBK front and rear. The only other mod I've been able to find is a set of hood struts, but I'm continuing to look around.

So far she's enjoying how it drives and the kids definitely love how it accelerates. At some point it'll get (at least) a cvf intercooler and cold side pipe to deal with the summer heat around here and the heat soak of the stock intercooler.

Fwiw, I've got a 2018 Focus ST that's running a 2867 gen2 along with about every other bolt on, plus an AEM wmi kit to try to deal with the lousy 91 octane we have here in Colorado. Vdyno estimate is right at 390 uncorrected for the altitude, and while it's a lot of fun to drive, it's definitely not as quick to 60 as the ExpST. Hoping we get to enjoy this new-to-us ST for a long time.

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Just picked up a used 2021(with only ~20,600 miles on it) for my wife in Longmont, CO, this past weekend and I'm hoping somebody on this site previously owned it. It's carbonized gray, has a set of H&R springs front and rear, as well as what appears to be a Super forged BBK front and rear. The only other mod I've been able to find is a set of hood struts, but I'm continuing to look around.

So far she's enjoying how it drives and the kids definitely love how it accelerates. At some point it'll get (at least) a cvf intercooler and cold side pipe to deal with the summer heat around here and the heat soak of the stock intercooler.

Fwiw, I've got a 2018 Focus ST that's running a 2867 gen2 along with about every other bolt on, plus an AEM wmi kit to try to deal with the lousy 91 octane we have here in Colorado. Vdyno estimate is right at 390 uncorrected for the altitude, and while it's a lot of fun to drive, it's definitely not as quick to 60 as the ExpST. Hoping we get to enjoy this new-to-us ST for a long time.

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Congrats and welcome! Since you’ve gone down the modding rabbit hole in the past with your Focus ST I’ll help you with the modding guide for these cars:

https://www.explorerst.org/threads/explorer-st-modding-101-guide.7324/

Just picked up a used 2021(with only ~20,600 miles on it) for my wife in Longmont, CO, this past weekend and I'm hoping somebody on this site previously owned it. It's carbonized gray, has a set of H&R springs front and rear, as well as what appears to be a Super forged BBK front and rear. The only other mod I've been able to find is a set of hood struts, but I'm continuing to look around.

So far she's enjoying how it drives and the kids definitely love how it accelerates. At some point it'll get (at least) a cvf intercooler and cold side pipe to deal with the summer heat around here and the heat soak of the stock intercooler.

Fwiw, I've got a 2018 Focus ST that's running a 2867 gen2 along with about every other bolt on, plus an AEM wmi kit to try to deal with the lousy 91 octane we have here in Colorado. Vdyno estimate is right at 390 uncorrected for the altitude, and while it's a lot of fun to drive, it's definitely not as quick to 60 as the ExpST. Hoping we get to enjoy this new-to-us ST for a long time.

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Thanks for the link! It'll be nice to have a guide of things to do (and also look for which may have been done by the previous owner). Really hoping the previous owner fixed the 1-bolt subframe problem since this one was built in June of 2021. Was kind of surprised an intercooler wasn't on the list and maybe isn't needed until you get to upgrading the turbos. The factory Focus ST intercooler is basically a beer can's worth of aluminum with plastic end tanks... it's awful. Am I reading that guide correctly for the Explorer ST? The factory intercooler is sufficient and doesn't get heat-soaked like the one Ford put on the Focus ST?

Oh no, factory intercooler is the completely opposite. It literally is the same size as the Focus STs intercooler and gets heat soaked really easily even before a tune.

Congrats on your ST, we have the twin and love it! We returned from a road trip to Denver last month too.

Just for some data points, what kind of gas mileage can you realistically get on the highway at 75-80 with these while running the (kinda-sorta) 91 octane we have out here? I'm sure it'll be better than the Transit as that thing could get maybe 18 on a good day with no wind if you kept it at 65-70, but for every 5mph above 70 you'd lose at least 1 mpg.

Throw in a 10-20 mph head wind and you'd be down to 15.5-16. Kick that up to Wyoming-like 50+ mph winds and it'd drop to 12.5-13. Feeding it premium SUCKED when we had to drive that thing on 10+ hour trips with 30+ mph winds. Surely it'll be less of a fight in winds, too. Fighting to keep a loaded-with-the-family medium roof height van in my lane for 10-14 hours was tough. Very much looking forward to not having to deal with that ever again.

Just for some data points, what kind of gas mileage can you realistically get on the highway at 75-80 with these while running the (kinda-sorta) 91 octane we have out here? I'm sure it'll be better than the Transit as that thing could get maybe 18 on a good day with no wind if you kept it at 65-70, but for every 5mph above 70 you'd lose at least 1 mpg.

Throw in a 10-20 mph head wind and you'd be down to 15.5-16. Kick that up to Wyoming-like 50+ mph winds and it'd drop to 12.5-13. Feeding it premium SUCKED when we had to drive that thing on 10+ hour trips with 30+ mph winds. Surely it'll be less of a fight in winds, too. Fighting to keep a loaded-with-the-family medium roof height van in my lane for 10-14 hours was tough. Very much looking forward to not having to deal with that ever again.

Looks like there's no diff brace on the rear and it's the 1-bolt, unfortunately. I plugged in the vin and it's not showing up as still needing the recall work, but it's within the affected build dates... So I'm going to assume they've "fixed" it. I'll probably pick up an awr brace at some point.

So... We're up to an intercooler, cold side pipe, and the awr differential brace so far.

Spend the extra money for an ID-Speed brace. To me the AWR puts more stress on the bolt then is necessary due to its design. Steedas brace is similar, but isn’t designed as well and the bolts are known to break.

The ID speed unit definitely looks like it would support the diff much better than the units which only hook onto the differential housing using a couple perimeter bolts, but that price, though..... The issue is cash flow (or lack thereof)... Still have 7 kids at home and I'm the sole income, so mods are going to need to be done in their order of necessity.

The stock intercooler just sucks, so that's an important one, but having the rear diff turn loose would be worse... On the other hand, Jenny's not going to be hammering on it from stop lights or getting a tune for it anytime soon, so the likelihood of her putting a huge load on the diff isn't very high right now.

Any thoughts?