Stoneleigh Show, Buying A Car

[Snapperpaul]

Pinto is 100 to 110bhp out of the box

With injection head 4 branch and multiple carbs and a mid cam 130

A little more and over 150

The advantage is that the Pinto can pull well from low down

Its unlikely you'll find any better than a Zetec unless you spend big bucks

[kevin the chicken]

I didn't want a pinto engined car either, opting for a C20XE which produced 153 on the rolling road but more importantly it is torquey. Thats just with a couple of webber DCOE's, no fancy ignition or other gizmos. But there are a lot of tuning bits for the pinto so if you feel the need to tune it yourself you can. Despite not wanting one in my first kit, the Sylva I bought to do up for my wife has a pinto in it so I have the best of both worlds. Gonna put some bike carbs on it just to try something else other than webbers. Top speed to me has little relevance in this sort of car with acceleration being far more important. It goes like stink from rest and pulls like a train even in fifth gear when overtaking so I am pleased with my choice.

[femster87]

I think its pointless to start with either a pinto or xflow unless you are after a classic car.Zetec is the way to go.

[speedtripledan]

crossflows 40odd year old pintos 30odd year old 1st zetecs are now 20yrs old so even a zetec is an old engine ! the newer the better i wasted shed loads tuning pintos, where as my zetec with a decent exhaust and webers puts out 170bhp with ease, to get that out of a pinto would cost thousands and have the engine on the edge of reliability.