Engine / carb advice (kit car newbie )

[Guest Jericho]

Hi all

After years of waiting I've finally bought my 1st kit car, it's nothing flash as my budget wasn't massive and it needs done work over the winter but I'm happy with it.  

My first request for advice is about the engine, my car was built from a 1986 Sierra and has a 2.0 pinto with a Weber 30/34 DFTH carb.  Ignition is via a dizzy and electronic module that replaces the points.  It's also supposed to have a fast road cam, but I've not verified this yet and plan to take the rocker cover off shortly in the hope of finding some markings on the cam.

When I bought the car it ran like a bag of nails, after some investigation this turned out to be down to the choke being permanently closed.  With this fixed it's running much better, I've also worked out that the vac advance is faulty and the dizzy isn't perfect as I've got to set the static advance to about 16 degrees to get 36 at 3000 rpm, apart from a bit of firing back at starting it's running ok with this setup though, but does seem to be lacking a bit of power, for example it won't go much over 90 in 4th which seems low for the weight of the car and won't hit the rev limit easily in 3rd.

I'm planning a rolling road session to get the engine tuned as my guess is the carb is as it came from the Sierra and with a high flow filter , short exhaust and possibly different cam the jetting will need changing.  However before spending any more money I'd like to ask for a bit of advice about my engine.  I've looked around for info on the DFTH carb and can't find much on it, other than people saying it's a pile of junk and change it for a DGAV 32/36 or twin 40 DCOE.

If it turns out I do have a fast road cam on the engine should I change the carb to a 32/36 dgav or twin 40s before the rolling road session?  I'm planning to replace dizzy this winter too do and the carb choice will affect what dizzy I buy as I'll go vaccumless for twin 40s

Thanks for any help in advance

[richyb66]

32/36 would be a good choice and should be fine with a fast road cam. Twin 40's are overkill in my opinion, I know there are people that like them but for road use you'd be better off with bike carbs where their variable venturi makes them more driveable at part throttle. 

On the ignition side of things you could end up with a lot of fiddling around with the standard setup. You might want to think about replacing it with something like an Accuspark system. 

http://www.accuspark.co.uk/DealPage.htm#V6

[Andi]

Bike carbs all the way. Yes you pay for the manifold but the carbs are easy enough to set up and stay set up. The performance is as good as standard injection any day. 

Best cheap  mod you can do on a pinto I would say 

[theduck]

Marking you’ll be looking for on the cam will be on the end of the cam at the back of the head. 

Carb wise I agree with the above comments, either a 32/36 or a set of bike carbs. 

Distributor I would go for powerspark over accuspark personally https://simonbbc.com/ford-pinto-ohc-type-distributor/

I would also back your ignition timing back to 12* at idle, will leave you at 32* up top and most pintos don’t seem make any extra power with more advance than that anyway. 

[RevKev]

Glad to read your post as basically I'm in the same situation as yourself.  I'm new to kit cars and have taken on the task of completing an abandoned project.    Perhaps trying to fulfil a childhood dream I put R1 bike carbs on my 2.0 pinto (Dec 1988 production) with inlet manifold from DanST engineering and 1.5mm main jets in the carbs.  Scrapped the electronic dizzy for a new vacuum less one and once I had the static timing set at about 15* she fired up no problems after sitting in a shed for 15 years or so.  It seems to be a good set up and though I have a lot of work to do before I get anywhere near an IVA test I think you could do a lot worse than go for the bike carb mod.

You learn a lot as you go along and I can say that the lads on this forum are just brilliant at helping out!

Kevin

[Guest Elliot Poston]

32/36 would be best

Im looking for a 2nd hand one if you know anyone