brumster

Well, for the record (and thanks to a friendly motor factors who went through his part catalogue!) the Cosworth/4x4 arms are 310mm - 15mm longer than the base model - so I'm going to try those; should give me just the extra thread inside the TRE that I need to keep the safety switch in my brain from toggling .

Provided the car is tickety-boo (MOT this week!) I think I'll try and pop up and say hello, and re-join after all these years! I've been out of it for a while, but what happened to the track time/sessions? Why did they drop that - health and safety finally got their hands on things, did they?

Hey all,

I've just been giving my Exmo a look-over before it returns to the road from it's 12 year hibernation (!), and one thing I've noticed there's not as much thread in the track rod ends as I'd like - it needs toeing out a little but there is no way enough thread left to safely extend the track rod ends on the arms.

Now as far as I can remember, the TRE's were new and the rods I assume are off the Sierra we built the thing from, so I'm not quite sure how the width isn't up to it, but I notice on various websites there are a few different track rod arms available - Mk.1/2 Sierra, but also a Cosworth 2WD listed, for example.

Does anyone know if one is longer than t'other - are there longer arms or TRE's available that I can fit to give me a little more engaged thread than I currently have?

The HP feed/return on mine are both the same size, I suspect the size may be important to get the right swirl from the pressure of the HP return. Too big, and you get low flow speed?

e.g.

http://www.sm-engineering.co.uk/alloy_fuel_surge_tank.php

Return is smaller, all the other ones are the same. Note the positioning of the HP take-offs, at the edge of the tank and half-way up or higher. I was told there are two kind of things here that people often confuse - one is a 'surge tank' to remove fuel surge during hard cornering, but the other more original reason for a 'swirl pot' was in racing to ensure you get air bubbles out of the fuel and also ensure you're not re-using the warmed fuel from the fuel rail over and over again but allowing it to mix with fresh cool fuel from the fuel tank.

So if all you want it an anti-surge device, you can forget worrying about all those design aspects

Details and discussion now moved to "Member benefits" section....

http://community.rhocar.org/index.php?showtopic=23159

Enjoy!

No worries all - Mike is working on the quotes for us now.

I've also asked for clarification on the RS lump - I know Mike said he's got tonnes of Focus RS pistons (4-potter turbo, not the Volvo 5-pot) but I wouldn't want to guess what he meant lump-wise.

Cheers,

Dan

I'll send the summary tomorrow for what we're after and get some prices; in summary, it seems to be (and there's no need to firmly commit at this stage, don't worry) :-

Complete bearing set (big ends, Mains, Cam, Auxilary) + thrust washers

SOHC Injected 2.0 OHC (reman prices)

92.5/93mm EFi Pinto pistons

2.1 Exchange short lump (if they can do one; not standard, so may be not, but I'll ask)

Low compression Pinto short block (would this be a transit derivative?)

DOHC 2.0, carb engine - reman and new

2.3 I4 short engine

Any more for any more ?!

Ok, I have some clarification here.

So the SOHC variant is pretty obviously the Pinto as we know it. These they can do remanufactured, as stated above.

For DOHC we are indeed talking the I4 derivative. They have lots of new stock of these, so you can have a DOHC 8v or 16v *new*, and that includes the 2.3 derivative. The only exception is the RS2000 engine, of which there are no heads left and in shortage, so that's basically a short-block only. Or provide your own head, of course. All the DOHC options are available re-manufactured of course, but Mike suspects there will be little interest in this given you can just have a new one... but each to their own.

He's getting someone to work on prices of 3 engine options just to give you a teaser of prices and some indication. I've said quote a 2.0 8v SOHC, a 2.0 16v DOHC and a 2.3 short block for you, Iain. All other stuff like parts/etc we'll wait until next week before hitting him with.

Apologies for any confusion, I didn't realise the I4 bottom end wasn't the same as a 8v Pinto block, my bad.

Would we all need to be buying the same thing to get decent prices as a bulk purchase?

Don't need to be the same thing, no, but by putting it together as one 'order' it will simplify things at his end - if there's a lot of a single item then he can potentially do a better price on it, but it depends what it is. He's obviously not going to tell me what his margins are, but the more we order the better a deal he can do - but the key thing is no, it doesn't have to be all of the same item.

Items are up in Grantham but can be brought down to me (Birmingham) and distributed from here/collected/etc. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

No, it won't be the Cosworth YB (although Mike did suggest they have a few RS blocks kicking about). Sorry, by Pinto I mean the SOHC lump we all know and love. For DOHC, I read this as the engines as fitted to the Sierras/Granadas, the I4 as you mention. I will clarify with Mike and get back to you.

Keep 'em coming guys, I'll collate and put the list to him next week

Okeydokey - what I'll do is let this thread run it's course for a few days, collate all the interest and just send him a request for one quote... sounds good!

PLEASE NOTE all discussion/details are now in the Member Benefits section; please see http://community.rhocar.org/index.php?showtopic=23159

Hey peeps,

Something popped into my head in another thread and I thought I'd gauge some interest. Potentially, my good friend and neighbour (who is a Director at ATC Drivetrain) could sort out engines or engine components to club members if there was enough interest.

ATC remanufacture engines for all sorts of vehicles and car manufacturers, including Jaguar and Ford. One of their popular engines - Ford 4-potters in Pinto OHC and (I believe, I4) DOHC form. Chatting with him, I put the idea forward and he's open to discussion.

Basically they have EFi DOHC 2 litre units 100% brand new - not rebored/remanufactured, but *new*. Not sure what mix of 8v/16v and 2.0 or 2.3 is available yet. They have carb-type DOHC units but their stockpile of camshafts is exhausted so that is the only component in the engine that couldn't be new but would have to be supplied (exchange, or aftermarket cam for example). They can also do SOHC but these would be more your traditional remanufactured items - new pistons, bearings, gaskets, etc but rebored blocks, reground cranks and so on.

Lumps come in long block assembly - so no ancillaries, manifolds, flywheel, etc. and are rig tested for oil pressure and compression. Hot tests on full dynos are doable at additional cost.

On top of this, they can also provide just the components of the engine if that is preffered - and they have a long stock list that he sent me which I won't bother recreating here - bearings, piston assemblies (various sizes/compression specs), gaskets, thrust washers, every nut and bolt under the sun, dowel caps, dipstick tubes, sump baffles, piston rings, spark plugs, valve collets, valves, rocker arms, main bearings, reprofiled followers, springs (I'm assuming valve), DOHC cylinder heads, and so on.

Before I expend too much effort on anyone's part, would there be much interest?

I can appreciate the first question will be how much - if I get a per-unit price for a SOHC 2 litre, DOHC carb 2 litre and DOHC EFi 2 litre that might offer some indication... if there's components you're interested in, put it up on here and I'll collate and get quotes.

Cheers,

Dan

I have a twin m/c setup with .625 front and .700 rear. Balance is good. The rear drum slaves need very little fluid volume to activate and the m/c rod moves very little before the rears come on. The fronts need more movement. The smaller bore m/c exerts more pressure but shifts less volume. This means you have to set the bias bar fully back on the smaller front m/c side and fully forward on the rear m/c side. Don't set it up with the bias bar square to the rods or you don't get the stroke volume needed for the fronts. I am thinking of trying a .700 for the fronts as well to get more fluid shifted but it will reduce front braking. I don't know if the balance will still be OK or within the range of the bias bar to compensate. Time will tell.

 

Nigel

Hmm, thanks. Maybe a .75 on the rear would have been a better bet.... I'll give it a try and see how we get on then. The OBP pedal box came today but it needs a bit of modification to clear the steering column, and the clutch pedal needs a bit of bending to move it away from the centre of the tub...

Anyone any ideas on the other queries, particularly the rear coil-overs?

It's not untold of for engine remanufacturers to have pallets-worth of engines standing outside for months on end, they can keep quite some stock in hand so I'm reliably informed from a director at ATC Drivetrain.

Hmmm, now I've just had an idea for a bulk-buy I know they do Pintos, wonder if they do Zetecs too !!

Hi Dan,

 

I've just swapped to a twin Master cylinder pedal box and have had a bit of messing around to get a balance I am happy with.

 

I started with 0.625 rear & 0.75 front, but needed more stopping power in the front so swapped front brakes for Wilwood Powerlites and then changed the master cyl for a 0.7.

 

Plenty of stopping power now but still locking up the rears under very heavy braking (there is a lot of weight transfer from rear to front under heavy braking so it makes it progressivly easier to lock the rears) I'm going to re-fit the standard Seirra proportioning valve in the rear line as that worked really well at allowing decent power to the rear brakes under normal driving while still preventing the rears locking up when 'giving it death', as you would put it

Now that's interesting. Ignoring your move to Wilwoods, you put the .75 on the front and the .625 on the rear, which is at odds with what most people suggest and does seem at first sight to be the wrong way round - but without knowing the slave cylinder sizes of the standard rear drums and Sierra sliding-pot fronts I can't say for sure. Did you ever try them the other way round (.625s on the front, .75's on the rear)? Was it better or worse?

I'm ok with the balance as it is when it was on the sierra master cylinder, my main concern is keeping reasonable pedal effort and not going too hard, but the balance for me seemed fine previously.

Does anyone know the standard Sierra's master cylinder diameters front/rear? Anyone know the piston diameters at the caliper/slave cylinder ends?

I can see a bit of suck-it-and-see'ing here....

Cheers,

Dan

Hi all,

I've got an Exmo which has been sitting in the garage for far too long awaiting the completion of a K-Series engine transplant, and I'm now thinking about some finishing touches/improvements, given the experiences of others in the past.

1) Fix the front strut top mount issue with some plates and proper thrust bearings.

2) Think about retro-fitting the rear coil-over shocks to the rear... anyone know what specs the original 'optional' rear coil-overs were? Poundage, length, etc - is there an off-the-shelf option that fits the bill or is it a case of ring up someone and get a pair made up to spec?

3) As a knock-on effect from going K-series, the standard master cylinder had to come out to clear the TB's/air filter (no bad thing). After much searching I'm going to give OBP's pedal boxes a try with an adjustable bias on the brakes and twin master cylinders. Has anyone ever done this? If so did they find the normal M/C types of 0.625/0.7 ok with the standard Sierra vented discs/drums setup?

4) I suspect the standard diff might be a little tall given the increased rev range now available, if memory serves me rightly the diff to have was from a Sierra Estate (3.9?)- is that right? If I can find one... was it in anything else?

5) Bonnets - can you still get them? Lolocost don't seem to have it listed, or have I missed it... reason being some muppet decided to knock over a pile of tyres which landed on the bonnet and put a nice crease into it, so would be good to replace it if I can... but not essential, the old one just looks a bit tatty

Any thoughts/experiences much appreciated...

Cheers,

Dan

...or, as an alternative, I've used :-

JPEG Optimizer

It's handy for doing the sort of stuff you're talking about, for web pages, but it only works on certain file types (JPG, PNG, TIFF, etc) and not GIFs - so if you're after GIF stuff, not so much use maybe. And it's free (with some minor adverts)!

Probably lots of others out there too, to be honest...

Err, guys, before you go jumping to conclusions and spreading rumours, Patrick Fitch is the director of GTM Cars... or is there a Patrick Fitch at RH too!?!?

Must admit I find it hard to believe it IS GTM as they only recently got "bought out" by an engineering company RDM Automotive.

So I'm guessing it's another Patrick Fitch!!

No worries; enjoy! There's some stuff on the website (the brumster one) if you haven't seen it already...

Well, however you cut it, £1500 for a gearbox is ****ing expensive, but yes, it would improve matters. With a suitable final drive you could finally give the car a semi-decent turn of speed AND motorway usability.

Nervous at speed is just a nature of front-wheel drive geometry at the back of a car. In front wheel drive cars, it's called bump steer. No different here, you've just got it at the back instead of the front. Eek there are things you can do to improve it, like spherical rod ends, nylon bushes, etc. but IMHO the simple nature of design means it'll never be perfect.

Hard top removal/fitting is just a matter of a few minutes, no worries. Soft top is similar but the actual fitting of it takes a little longer. Once it's fitted as an assembly, putting it up/down is very quick indeed.

As for the K, you've clearly made your mind up there, so fair enough - but in short, the 1.4/1.6's are nowhere near as problematic.

GTMOC used to be great, I'm sure they still are, there's a yahoo groups for them (groups.yahoo.com/gtmoc from memory; I should know, I'm a moderator!! Oops!). GTM themselves are a great bunch of guys too, very helpful, although the Coupe/Rossa have long since left the ranch and are now handled by other guys.

Alan Britton took on the Rossa models, and he's a great chap, long standing club member so knows what's relevant still.

Depending on what's touching, we bought a different cam cover that had the filler at the back rather than the front - together with mounting the nosecone at whatever height we needed, we then had no problems.

To add some figures into the discussion, these were taken with the club's performance meter at Curborough a few years ago.

0-60 in 7.0 secs flat, that was an Exmo with a 4-speed box and a mildly tuned 2.1 spluttering away on 45's. No idea of weight (driver only) but the car was in fairly basic spec, no heater, etc. No exact power figure, but nothing groundbreaking - say 140bhp something like that...

Just gives you an idea I guess...

Had a Mk.2 for quite a while and was quite active with the owners club.

Motorway cruiser - errm, well, this would depend on the diff with a 4 speed. A 3.44 would be fine (MG Metro) but a little tiring at high speeds, or you could go for a 3.1 which would improve things at the expense of acceleration... and these things aren't exactly rapid in the first place. 5 speed box will be rare, and expensive. Let's not beat about the bush, it's not what I would pick as a motorway slugger - nervous at speed and lacking in any serious grunt at that speed. Also had a tendency to overheat but this was only if they weren't sorted - so check it out, but don't worry as despite what anyone tells you, it is cureable!

Rear suspension needs to be in absolutely tip-top condition in order for the thing to handle remotely well, so look for tired bushes or worn components.

Soft top? Errm, mixed thoughts on that one. Mine was absolutely bloody useless, but some have had them fit absolutely fine. Leaving it permanently outside, though, I'm not so sure... YMMV. Personally I'd just stick with the removable hard top if you can live with it.

The crux of it - if you can push to a K3, make the effort, it will be money well spent.

Pfaa, 98 octane?

Cool Blue