Snapperpaul

That's all you needed to do Measure the bent valve then get a new replacement the same size

So how much did you pay for the Duratec? I actually need one for my Fiesta ST

A distributor with points and even a distributor with a black box does not give you the flexibility of a programmable ecu. I can set cranking advance on my high compression engine to get it started with ease, then set idle advance and then precisely when the advance starts after idle upto peak advance with whatever cam I decide to use Try that with a weight and spring advance of a distributor. As for power a distributor will only allow you to set it up for one rev range and the curve is fixed, you will miss out on torque where as a programmable ignition can be mapped to get the best out of the whole rev range

Different perspectives, I find distributors even ones with electronic trickery no where near as good as Megajolt

I've not had any issues with Megajolt on a Pinto

Simple test is to spray carb/brake cleaner down the carb, if it runs better (briefly) it'll be fuel, if not then carb may be gummed up as the fuel has evaporated or your ignition timing or cam timing has shifted after the gasket replacement.

Now I get it, this is for the adaptation of a single coil & distributor system where you can over heat the coil or not give the coil enough time to charge. On a system like Megajolt which used a coil pack, effectively 2 could, and wasted spark you don't have this issue. Very interesting, every day is a school day.

Dwell is the amount of time required to charge an inductive coil to its maximum energy level. In terms of modern engine control, dwell is defined in milliseconds. Typical ID coils will have a dwell between 2ms and 5ms. Electronic ignition is much better at regulating dwell than distributor based engines. Now I get it but 2ms to 5ms means you'll be safe to 10s of thousand rpm @6500 1 cycle is over 9ms Interesting though

So your saying there is a calculation required with fully electronic ignition I run Megajolt and don't have a dwel function. I would assume that if I program an ignition advance the software will calculate and adjust.

If you don't have points dwel is imaterial. The idea of dwel is to give time for the resistance to breakdown and jump the gap. Electronic ignition fires the spark accurately when you need it so you don't need to allow for the slack in a points system just use the map to fire the spark at the required time

Can't post the photo because of Photobucket but the difference between the standard head and injection is the inlet port short side turn which on the standard head is a sharp angle, on the injection head it's a smoother transition and a slightly higher port angle. For information there was no such thing as an RS2000 head, the only things different were the exhaust manifolds and the twin choke carbs. As you have both heads shove your finger down the inlet port and feel the short side turn.

Excellent info Paul Yes turbo head mods are quite different to N/A mods as you don't generally have problems getting air in, it's getting out where the restrictions appear. What has not yet been said is that cam choice is very different for a turbo setup, you want less duration and as little overlap as you can with high lift as I understand it. The little things help, 3 angle valve seats and penny on a stick valves. Looking forward to seeing how this develops

To tune a Pinto it's all about the head, not just big valves but port work, again, ports are big enough but not the best shape. A decent big valve head will up your FR32 canned engine to 150 ish. 180 is available with a different cam. I won't go into the fine details but I have built 2 engines that reached these powers. To go beyond this with a Pinto is big bucks then I would look at next generation engine, having a proper Duratec in a Fiesta ST I can vouch for this engine which with a cam change that can be performed without taking the head off and an inlet manifold and induction change will push above 200bhp. As mentioned the 7's aerodynamics make top speed an issue but you will get there noticeably quicker. When you are looking at engines look as hard at the torque figures as you do at bhp.

So London is oop Norf Watford gap is the cutoff we all know that The M27 is the boarder between the UK and Europe so you'll be looking forward to the hard boarder in 2019

My anti roll bar took 2 milling bits to cut. I'm down south

Big discussion on sealing MLS ( multi layer steel) gaskets such as Cometic and Athena, consensus was to use spray blue hylomar between the individual steel sheets and the surface as the very thin Viton surface coating will not seal rough surface

The roll bar drops under the sump of the Sierra, I had this milled flat. It effectively cut the bar to half width, still stiff but noticeably better than before

I did 2 different things to make the S3 suspension work. Whilst I fabled with the front anti roll bar by thinning it to half diameter the real change was felt when I ditched the anti roll bar for tie bars. The original shocks were truly shocking so I changed them for Gaz all round using the original rear 180lbs and replacing the front springs for 130lbs

A lot of great information in this thread. I have 2 heads that have around 42cc chambers on a 2.1 block so struggled to get a usable road compression ratio of around 10.5 to 1 however the standard Ford gasket is 1.65mm thick. You need a compression ratio calculator so you can accurately calculate your compression ratio on your mix of components. There are always or course variables and pinking/detonation is not only a compression/timing/fuel octane only problem. For instance a longer duration cam will effectively lower the compression ratio that the engine sees in operation compared to a static calculated one. The induction system also has a bearing on an engines susceptibility to detonation and counter intuitively a single twin choke carb will not det as much as a set of twin webers on the same engine. You can dial out det with ignition timing but that is really cancelling a lot of the tuning work you have spent good money on. A good point about valve size and cam lift but this is a measurement at a specific valve/cam lift and what is often missed is that a higher lift cam will present a longer period of maximum port flow as it passes through the maximum flow point and keeps the valve open for longer at this point because it takes more time to then return to the max flow point in its closing phase. Love these technical threads

Cheapest option is a Sierra viscous LSD and convert shafts to bolt on at the diff end. This can be done with the right sized shaft diameter

Some interesting points a good info building my knowledge. The current Crossflow is so much slower than my Pinto S3a and I dont want to put a Pinto in even though I have one waiting. I have a Duratec in my Fiesta ST which I could pull out but I'm minded to keep the induction and exhaust in the Fury the same way round it currently is. I'm erring towards the Blacktop ST version as it has the strongest rods and solid lifters. I'm not made of money but am prepared to spend what it needs spreading the costs over time.

As you know I have a fair understanding of Pinto's However the Fury is going to have its asmatic 1660 Crossflow swapped out for a Zetec. I have looked with envy at the Supercharged Zetec on here, nearly bought a Blacktop but now looking for a Zetec from an ST170 to start with. So what do you do to a Zetec to get more power? What are the weak areas? How are the cheap gains found? I need to get s much better understanding of the Zetec please.

1.3mm Rhienz gasket adds about 0.5 compression ratio, on its own it's a minor increase. I wouldn't pull the head off just to get a little extra compression. If you have an injection head I would skim for about 10 to 1 and use the gasket to trim the compression to match your camshaft. No 1 thing will make a big difference but a lot of little things will, you must however plan what you intend to do as a whole. I have a lot of Pinto parts, most of the big valve ported heads were done a long while ago and have to much skimmed off the head, meaning I struggle to get a low enough compression ratio for a street car on unleaded fuel and cast pistons. You need to measure the chamber volume and how far down the bore the Pistons are at TDC, then you can skim the head or block and use a head gasket thickness to match the requirements of the engine and camshaft combination. A little discussed fact is that a single twin choke carb will not expose the engine to as much detonation (pinking) than multi choke carbs such as bike carbs and Weber 45's You see it's all linked

The Pinto loves compression and depending on your cam choice the cam will not deliver its full power unless more compression is built in. It's very cam dependant, the high lift low duration cams such as FR30 & FR34 don't need much of an increase, FR32 benefits from more and the RL and RC series need lots. You can gain 0.5 by fitting a Rhienz head gasket with a 1.3mm crush thickness Cometic and Athena do a 1mm gasket, expensive Burton do an Adjusa 94.5 mm bore 1mm thick £45 Head skim is not expensive and you should calculate for about 10 to 1 with a standard gasket this gives you some latitude to change compression ratio with just a gasket

No but it's pretty obvious when you look under the car. If you don't have the stainless angle gearbox support fitted simply run angle side to side at the front and back of the underfloor to join up the 4 front to rear supports