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Swapping the pinto for a ST170


Lr refurb

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HI,

I bought a 2b a few years ago during the lock down and decided to rebuild the whole thing and put a St170.  Started off with a working car now I have myself a pile of parts ;).

Purchasing a complete focus St170 I have pulled out the engine and stripped this ready for cleaning up and prepping. This will be matted unto the type 9 Gearbox all been well.

So my plan is to fit a new bell housing to the type 9 allowing the use of a Hydraulic clutch system.

Now the engine will be RWD I suspect a dry sump will be require to stop the chance of oil starvation? 

I have also looked at a Throttle body kit from Dan st which seem to have some good feedback 

My plan is also to turbo the engine once I've got it in place and see how much room I've got around it.

 

I am looking for peoples options who have either done this conversion or have experience with this kind of set up.

What do I need to consider while doing it? 

What problems am I likely to come across?

Also if anyone has anything available for sale that I will require during the build. 

 

I have a work shop which specialises in landrover restoration along with a fabrication shop where we have fibre lasers and machinery so making engine mounts etc isn't a problem. 

 

I Hope there is someone out there who can steer me in the right direction and might have a few bits i need laying around

 

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Good luck with the project. I can’t offer you any experience on the ST170 engine conversion but I guess you are already aware that it is a zetec derivative rather than a duratec, so the inlet/exhaust are on the opposite side to the pinto that was in your 2B originally.
 

Depending on the throttle body arrangement you may find that the inlet manifold area interferes with the existing Sierra pedal box / master cylinder arrangement. A number of people have gone down the route of a reversed top hung pedal box (available from GBS) or a floor mounted pedal box. I’ve done the latter for an MX5 engine conversion on my 2B due to inlet clearance.

Chris

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7 minutes ago, RallyChris said:

Good luck with the project. I can’t offer you any experience on the ST170 engine conversion but I guess you are already aware that it is a zetec derivative rather than a duratec, so the inlet/exhaust are on the opposite side to the pinto that was in your 2B originally.
 

Depending on the throttle body arrangement you may find that the inlet manifold area interferes with the existing Sierra pedal box / master cylinder arrangement. A number of people have gone down the route of a reversed top hung pedal box (available from GBS) or a floor mounted pedal box. I’ve done the latter for an MX5 engine conversion on my 2B due to inlet clearance.

Chris

Hi Chris,

Thank you for your comments. Due to them been on the opposite sides I’ve actually remade all the body panels in aluminium to get rid of any holes from the pinto. 
 

I’ve also removed all the sierra medal box as you mentioned. one to make some more room but also it just looked a little rough. I’ll have a look at the GBS as I haven’t found a pedal box yet. 

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Apologies - kitspares don’t seem to be advertising the pedal box kit on the website at the moment, but it might be worth giving them a ring. The kit was pretty basic and definitely required some imagination from the builder, but allowed hydraulic clutch and single brake master cylinders to face rearward behind top hung pedals. I mocked up this setup in my build but couldn’t get it to work comfortably with my steering column arrangement (Mazda).

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I used a floor mounted pedal box but stuck with the cable operated clutch. 'If it aint broke dont fix it' Works fine!

Personaly I would not use the ST170 head but stick with a blacktop zetec head. ST170 seemed the way to go 10 years ago when I was doing it, not many around, but these days why would you not go straight to duratec? No Brainer? Yes it was nice the standard bellhousing/type nine bolts on. New release bearing and clutch and you are in business.

ECU and throttle bodies as you would expect but unless you control the VVT inlet timing properly the engine will have no power above 5000 rpm. Mine uses a piggyback second ECU for the cam. Clunky but effective. Just shy of 200 horses.

I dont think these engines take well to turbo charging. Tiny exhaust valves. You might as well stick a blacktop head on it if you are going that way but the bottom end is stronger than standard zetec.

It was a frustrating and expensive journey but ultimately OK but there are easier and cheaper ways to 200 HP. Go Duratec! (Or buy my car. £4000 and there's the complete kit with a very nice exhaust and a spare car!!!)

 

 

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15 minutes ago, Longboarder said:

I used a floor mounted pedal box but stuck with the cable operated clutch. 'If it aint broke dont fix it' Works fine!

Personaly I would not use the ST170 head but stick with a blacktop zetec head. ST170 seemed the way to go 10 years ago when I was doing it, not many around, but these days why would you not go straight to duratec? No Brainer? Yes it was nice the standard bellhousing/type nine bolts on. New release bearing and clutch and you are in business.

ECU and throttle bodies as you would expect but unless you control the VVT inlet timing properly the engine will have no power above 5000 rpm. Mine uses a piggyback second ECU for the cam. Clunky but effective. Just shy of 200 horses.

I dont think these engines take well to turbo charging. Tiny exhaust valves. You might as well stick a blacktop head on it if you are going that way but the bottom end is stronger than standard zetec.

It was a frustrating and expensive journey but ultimately OK but there are easier and cheaper ways to 200 HP. Go Duratec! (Or buy my car. £4000 and there's the complete kit with a very nice exhaust and a spare car!!!)

 

 

I did a budget turbo build to start with and got 240 bhp so it’s really easy and achievable and a hell of a lot cheaper than duratec 

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Out of interest which head are you using? Stay with VVT or standard blacktop?

One of the problems when you drop out for a while. You miss developments and trends. I thought duratec stuff would be a lot cheaper by now.

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