Ford Capri 3.0 S: £15K Competition Update

Matt's oily quest to find a new engine for the Capri continues

Life with the Capri was never going to be dull but after an engine meltdown it was looking like this was for the wrong reasons. Catch up on that in Matt's last report on the car here. Here though is an all-new instalment for you, as the business of getting the Capri moving again takes a new and exciting twist.

Over to Matt for the latest and our thanks again to Adrian Flux for sponsoring the competition.

Capri is stabled for the winter awaiting transplant

Looking back at the last article, I can't believe nothing's happened to the Capri for over three months. However, with my 1952 Land Rover providing excellent transport right up until I sheared the rear propshaft off (it's now front-wheel drive and, strangely, driving better than ever) as well as diving into the final year of my degree, I hope I can be forgiven for allowing the Capri to fall by the wayside slightly.

If not, I have a small token to barter with. It's big, it's rusty and it nearly gave me a hernia. In the words of a man whom we dare not speak of anymore, "can you tell what it is yet?"

Gold star smiley face to anyone who said "it's another broken Essex V6!" No, I'm not joking; there has been a 100 per cent increase in things to get in the way at the workshop.

Matt's collection of oily/rusty Essex bits grows...

While I've been busy elsewhere, an awful lot of thought has still been dedicated to the Capri and its future. You may remember that in the last update I was off to collect some new Essex parts - this turned out to be a pair of standard heads and a Kent V63 camshaft. Not the incredible haul I'd hoped for, but still some useful bits. No man needs three sets of standard heads for one engine though...

It did however point me in the right direction with regards to the rebuild. As rightly pointed out by many, it's not a car in huge abundance - if an engine swap was desired, there really are plenty of other Capris to go mad with completely guilt-free. It had to be something tasteful, something period.

With a stroke of luck one evening, I ended up buying a set of new old stock Hepolite +0.60 pistons on Gumtree for a bit of a steal. Great, that's that sorted - little rebore and it'll be a 3.1 with a few extra horses and a good bump in the cool-stakes. It was potentially a waste of a good block - the car's original I may add - but this could always be addressed later.

Oh eBay, what have you done...

Then it happened. Sod's law hooked me one right in the kisser. "New discoveries for your followed searches!" eBay told me excitedly one morning. There sat a near-complete 3.1 motor barely 20 minutes down the road, advertised for an absolute bargain. A few calls around saw my pistons for sale and a deal negotiated. Two days later, I was in Newhaven chucking it in the back of a Land Rover.

Viewing an engine in a gloomy garage is always a hard one, and deciding to take it with you even after struggling to turn it over isn't always to be advised, but this still had a few things going for it. I was nervous about my decision until I got it into the unit and gave it a proper look over. These nerves then developed into borderline panic; what the hell had I just done?!

Two bores showed a fair bit of surface rust, the cam followers were stuck and it wasn't even entertaining the thought of turning over. Still, what was done was done - a bit of lube saw some followers wriggle free, and with them crept back a little hope. Time was running out for the day's playtime, so with plenty of diesel thrown in the bores I jumped on a train to London to get deafened by Motorhead, crossed my fingers and attempted to forget the whole ordeal.

There's promise in here ... honest

The 'forgetting it' side of the plan worked pretty well until I got a call from co-conspirator Jon a few days later. With Lemmy's finest still ringing in my ears the phone call wasn't easy to understand, but I could hear a vital line: "You're a lucky boy!"

The diesel had done the job, and almost immediately I was on a train over there. A swap over on the engine stand and the second strip-down instigated, I was very happy.

What now sits alongside the original Essex (preserved for its own rebuild and the car's return to standard if required) is a 3.1-litre block with 10.5:1 compression Powermax pistons, pocketed to clear the ~46mm inlet and 41mm exhaust valves in the heavily ported and polished heads. Inside all of this turns a Group 1 spec cam.

The rebuild will plod along at a leisurely pace, but I'm hoping it'll be back in business for late spring, just in time for all the fun stuff to start happening again.

It may not look like much now, but to me it's a big lump of lightly rusted potential.

Previous updates:
Matt explains why it had to be a Capri and how he found his dream car
The Capri project starts in earnest
Matt reports in after a summer of fun in his Capri
Burning the midnight oil
Capri goes well; stopping it is more of an issue
MoT reveals some rust ... quite a lot of rust
And it was all going so nicely too...
Engine out, time to begin hunt for a new one