1985 Ford Escort RS Turbo Series 1

[SebringMan]

I guess it is time I spoke of a relatively new purchase.

At the start of this year I have quite a few cars, with them working to some degree. One of them was a Triumph Stag which I had owned for a number of years and carried out quite a number of jobs on, including a new roof, gearbox refurb, interior retrim amongst other things:




After having a few issues with the gearbox once more in addition to a minor falling out with a specialist over other things occurring with the car I decided it was best to part ways. Waiting 10 minutes for a relatively new gearbox to pick any gear from cold was becoming quite annoying!

Another car which was sold this year was a Peugeot 205 GTi. Originally 3 of us bought this car so that we could rally in it. Thus the car received quite a bit of attention. Towards the end we decided that with the lack of use it would be best to get rid, even if the car itself was sound. That car was lovely to drive when all of the extra goodies were fitted.






Finally the last car to be sold was my beloved 1991 Porsche 944 Turbo. This for a year was a daily for me and then it became more of a weekend toy. In the 944 circles the car is relatively well known being ex ProMax Motorsport's Andrew Sweetenaham's car. As a result it had a very tasty spec including:

-Chipped engine with a different BOV and Wortec switchable exhaust producing 290BHP
-KWv3 Suspension with M030 ARBs and ARB poly bushes with 968 castor mounts
-928 GTS 'Big Black' brake conversion with smooth callipers at the rear
-17" Cup 1 wheels in anthracite finished with Michlin Pilot Sport tyres.

It was a joy to drive and it is a car I will miss. But it is always great to try other things.





For a brief moment in time (as a result of P/Xing the 205 against it) I owned a cheap Mercedes W124 300D with the OM603 engine. That car as great as it was has to be one of the slowest cars I have ever driven. I owned it for a day before my friend spared me of it, and with that it is the shortest timespan for me owning any car.

So what would I buy with this? Some nice Scooby, a BMW E46 330i Sport, an M3 maybe?

No, I went with one of these:



Yup, I went from owning a superb handling car to something not quite so superb! But an RST for some perverse reason is an itch I have been meaning to scratch for some time, although I always thought it would be in the S2 flavour.

My initial plan was to buy a tidy rust free car. This seemed tricky. When this one turned up it also happened to have a few other goodies present (and so no goody goodies!):






The spec of this car seems to be as follows following a recent engine rebuild:

Engine: 1.8 ZVH sporting a Stage 3 head, Piper TT cam with vernier pulley, Omega pistons with a tweaked KE Jetronic fuel system running an MFII 5th Injector. Pace chargecooler and alloy rads are also present with a swirl pot. CR Turbos Stage 2.5 T3 (360 degree bearings, 2WD Cosworth compressor housing with .55AR compressor wheel, -31 actuator). ARP bolts.
Brakes: Wilwood 4 pot Midlites on Hawk Racing pads with braided lines all round.
Gearbox: MkV RS2000 gearbox with LSD and a quickshift kit. Helix 4 paddle clutch.
Suspension: Fully polybushed with Leda coilovers all round
Interior: Stripped with Sparco seats and a rollcage.

It is quite a lively thing to drive and surprisingly well handling as well! However, a few things have changed since these shots, which I shall bring up to date in due course. Whilst this is not quite as fast or as agile as the Porsche it is certainly more fun, at least for me in more ways than one, and well I guess there is a soft spot for me and old Fords .

Edited by SebringMan on Saturday 17th January 19:55

Edited by SebringMan on Saturday 17th January 22:47

[SebringMan]

Well, many thanks for the comments! It is good to see that there is some Ford appreciation here for the few times they pop on here . As for the comms:

DaMasterMind said:

Love it although i would much prefer it with the original interior. How much power is that spec of engine running around?

I am working on the first part . On the plus side I got to see that the car was not full of rot in this state.

AFAIK the engine is making around 230-240BHP. I need to get this confirmed as the clutch in this car is far from friendly. I have actually got used to it (and I think it has bedded in since I have owned it) but it still requires thought. What are your peeps opinions? Depending on the power the car makes for sure I'll probably get Helix's fast road clutch (or the ubiquitous AP2000-35 organic clutch) or try what others have; fitting a stock pressure plate and release bearing to the 4 plate pressure plate.

However, the clutch does seem to aid the experience when putting your foot down .

ubbs said:

Yes they did on the s1 and were far more "twitchy" than the s2 something to do with the front anti roll bar set up totally different to the s2, something to do with its motor sports homologation fantastic cars back in the day I bought mine in 1988 off a retired engineer and sold it 1994 longest I've ever owned a car

What this man said regarding if they came with an LSD or not. I believe that where almost all of the MkIII (and IV) Escorts had track control arms with the ARB locating them (very much like a Capri or MkI & II Escort) the very early MkIII Escorts along with the RS1600i and RSTs (in MKIII flavour) had tie bars fitted as well, with them being adjustable on the RS versions, allowing for the castor to be changed. This was ditched when the MkIV came along.

sleeky said:

Hello Chas!

That is the last thing I expected to see you get...I thought the ford loving days were long gone, hehe.

I may just have to make an effort to come up and see this

Hello stranger! I was not expecting you to be lurking on here! What are you driving these days?

I thought you always knew that I was a fan of Fords. I merely fancied trying hand at a few things along the way before I got this (and generally got myself tied down to the car due to varying issues etc.!). As for having a peek just let me know .

rallycross said:

Looks very nice and will only go up in value but how much are you going to miss that 944 now If that's its replacement?!

Many thanks. The 944 will be missed for sure. Having other S2 owners come into the car and for me to make them grip various parts of the car's interior due to it's grip has to show the car's capabilities. If I am honest, it allowed me to realise just what a great chassis the 944 has with such a setup. But as said I do like many cars, and the Escort is quite fun for different reasons .

So, where was I? Ah yes, what has been done to the car since its purchase!

For a month or two this car became a daily driver. Being a relatively fresh rebuild I was expecting to run into a few teething problems and sure enough I did! But the car was getting quite a bit of attention and it was great going to a few well known meets across the country in it:




But the issues would not go away with them including:

-The engine not warming up (it did in traffic if left idling for a very long time, but it never overheated)
-A drain on the battery where the car would not start if left for a week
-Deal with the plumbing of the tanks etc.

The cooling issue I have yet to fix. I have purchased a genuine Ford Puma thermostat (same as an RST item, but it is 82 degrees as opposed to 88) along with a seal, gasket and clip. I know from past experience (or at least for me anyway) that pattern thermostats seem to be a complete lottery. On a few occasions I have had a car overcool more with a new pattern thermostat over the old item! I also obtained some genuine Ford coolant. Fingers are crossed that this helps the issue.

The other problem was the battery drain. I did not realise this when I bought the car but both previous owners after contacting them felt that the drain was down to a shoddy immobiliser (which would have been my hunch as well). After further investigation this turned out not to be the case. The first issue was the alternator belt. Due to the car running a different pulley (as a result of the engine having a Zetec Bottom end) the belt for car was too long. Off I went for a trip to the motor factors to get a Gates belt from a Series II RST. The alternator was now changing properly. This helped matters but it did not cure it.

After checking for a drain with the multimeter a 0.15A drain was found. Not massive IMO but not great either, The issue was found to be the clock wiring. This has now been amended with the car now becoming a reliable starter. The other issue is the car running a too small battery (it is running a 063 (genuine Ford calcium as well) although Ford specify a 065 for this application. I may well change it to this at a later date now that I have removed pipes which were obscuring the space of the battery .

Finally, there was the issue of the tanks. If I was to ever reinstate the interior the tanks would have to go. However, one was for an iffy Water injection setup with the larger tank being for the Pace chargecooler. Seeing as the water injection setup was crude at best that setup was binned pronto (the previous engine (a 1.9 long block) threw a rod out of the block; if the injection setup was working I cannot say that I am surprised. The other tank however required more careful consideration.

The larger tank forms part of the chargecooler setup. I would guess that the previous owner somewhere along the line had issues with the car keeping low charge temps (it has a charge temp display inside the car as well ). Here is what Pace used to sell saying that this setup could deal with 25PSi:



Mine however differs from this with it having:
-a much larger chargecooler tank
-a chargecooler rad about 3 times (maybe even 4) larger than what Pace provide
-a larger pump (a Davis Craig EWP80).

I would guess looking at the parts that the tank and pump were added first with the rad being the final addition (and probably the addition which worked!).

And so I got to work.

Firstly, the tanks went:



Naturally, this left me with a car that technically did not have a way of cooling down the charge air temperatures! A new ally tank helped matters here (spot the difference in the engine bay :



This of course allowed me to do this:




As of now it is looking more like this:



Shall I show a frontal shot?




Ahhh, go on then!



This was done so that I can still move the car if necessary. Is still much to do? Of course, this includes:

-Weld up the holes left from the rollcage.
-Find the boot parts (I am already 66% of the way there).
-Reinstate the doorcards all round.
-Refit the carpet.
-Sort out something else to do with the gauges (They will probably live in the tape deck cubby hole ; They will not be going (or the very least I'll need to keep two of the gauges ; Oil Pressure and Boost).
-Reinstate a centre airvent (I have never been a fan of losing them in any car ; how else can you warm your hands up on cold mornings (or maybe I just need to man up!).
-Drive the car .

When did Ford bits become pricey? This lot of parts were not cheap!

[SebringMan]

I am glad to see that a few peeps are appreciating an old Ford here .

TheLordJohn said:

Yours looks the business.
I owned one for around a year in about 2008. Made over £1k when I sold it on.
BUT - it was a bag of bks. 2.1 ZVH, hybrid turbo, uprated everything with over £11k of receipts in a year so so the previous owner had spent. Horrible to drive.
The £400 Mk2 MR2 I bought to replace it drove infinitely better.

There was me thinking the market was a weak time for an RST back then! Yours sounds great on paper. But what made it so bad to drive? If I am honest (possibly because I went in with zero expectations) I am quite enjoying mine. Of course, there are negatives (if you floor it torque steer is one (although it seems to add to the fun :/) as is the clutch (but I may have a plan for that ). Even the steering is not horrifically heavy surprisingly, well in comparison to other MkIII and IVs I have driven.

Dammit said:

Was this the car I saw in Altiss Engineering the other day?

Not this one, no . Do you have much experience of Altiss? It is always good to keep some local guys nos. to hand.

starf said:

That 205 looks fantastic. But it looks like the boot is a different colour - was that on purpose?

The 944 looks brilliant too! I bet that was a right handful on the country roads.

Is this your first Escort? You mention you're a fan of Fast Fords. Have you had many others? I always had a soft spot for the convertible myself, but yours looks good too.

Well, I wonder who this is .

The boot was all the same colour though.

It is funny you mention a Cabrio. Many moons ago I may have owned one. It was good fun even when it did let us down:

s p a c e m a n said:

Nice, I've got a soft spot for the mk3. What does it run like on a bodged KE? That was a pants system even on a standard car once it was a few years old, needed to be set up every weekend to stay in tune

Many thanks . I was never a fan of the MkIII bar the RS 1600i but I did like the RSTs more than the other RSTs and preferred the MKIVs. It is funny how time changes that. The MkIIIs have some great retro touches to them IMO .

When you say bodged, I take it you are referring to it running a 5th Injector setup? TBH for 80% of the time it has run absolutely fine. If I am honest it drove better than the 944 it replaced ; it is smooth off boost and while it does give you a kick when coming onto power it is all very smooth and transient. As a daily it worked very well. The only issue was that it would stutter slightly at lower rpm on part throttle, which I guess could be partially down to advanced timing. Naturally I could cheat and get the ignition timing retarded at that point at the expense of it feeling flat. The latter I am aware can happen to most cars out there with a pokier camshaft but a single throttle body .

I did have an issue before it was put away for storage mind you (with these winters!). After leaving it for two weeks the car would misfire (as if it had hit a rev limiter) when going higher up the boost with the odd backfire through the exhaust after or even randomly without boost on occasion. Initially I was quite worried (it is never good news!) and suspected the 5th injector. The issue did clear itself however, but I am aware that there is always a cause. Maybe the car was retaliating for being left outside for two very cold weeks (with condensation forming :/, hence why I put it away ).

Maybe I have been lucky but bar one car (which was neglected and £200 for a car!) I have not really had any issues with K-Jetronic on any previous car. I did do some no-nos on them like attempting to keep the metering head plate clean, but it also fixed 99% of the running issues with the cheap Volvo I owned ).

I am wondering whether the ignition system is to blame. Going through the receipts it has an Intermotor cap and rotor arm fitted, possibly because it is all the motor factor had (I know ECP seem to only stock no name brands for the caps and rotor arms on these) and the bonus of them being cheap (£5 for the cap and arm in total). On a VW Beetle (which uses the same bits oddly enough!) these brand of parts (despite being cheap) gave me a plethora of running issues, to the point where the car would barely run (as detailed in another thread). The Stag had very similar issues to this (it would not rev beyond 3.5krpm) until I went to an old school rotor arm. On a friend's Dolomite, his issues were similar to the brief problem my Escort seemed to suffer. As a result a BERU cap and NOS Ford rotor arm have been sourced, which shall be fitted once things begin to warm up .

Naturally the best solution would be to convert the car to run something like an Emerald setup, but where would the fun be in that? .

Edited by SebringMan on Tuesday 20th January 22:14

[SebringMan]

There has not been much progress truth be told bar it being stored . I did however find a photo on it years ago:



After looking into the previous history of the car it was time to get on with a few minor issues with the car.

These include:

The car having a very leaky rear damper despite being 2,000 miles old
The breather system not being the best
Getting the interior back together
Sorting out the car's iffy heater pipes (thanks for pointing that out Eddy!).

The damper leaking is annoying. Upon looking into things further it seems it can be a trait with Ledas due to their seal design. However, it should hopefully be OK with some revisions with the rebuild [] .

The breather system, what is so wrong with that? To cut a long story short it seems that my system was not all that great for getting rid of them! It works something like the pic below:



The first pic is when the car is idling with the second being the car at full chat. One thing is for sure, it does draw the gasses out relatively effectively for a stock car. Mine is similar but with the filter end simply being replaced with a bit of pipe, one that is a smaller bore than the main longer part of the pipe running up the gearbox side of the engine into a catch tank.



The stock system is not favoured since not many are a fan of how it puts the waste gasses back into the engine. That and it is said to be inadequate for a ZVH (they breath heavier than a CVH) or CVH/ZVH producing in excess of 170BHP. It seems that my system was not much better with the receipts tallying up (it is on its second sump gasket after the rebuild). Whilst it vents the gasses to atmosphere it does not do so effectively.

Enter the new swirl pot. Well, not so new. These are said to be very effective at dealing with crankcase gasses and generally not being as messy as some systems out there:



Whether this is a waste of money or actually effective time will tell. It plumbs into the breather system something like this:



In other news I am not a fan of how the cambelt is exposed on this car. It would only take a stone or something equally as insignificant to ruin this engine As a result I bought a cambelt cover from a CVH. Maybe it fit a ZVH will be interesting and I shall certainly be in the minority with this change:



This has left me with the final issue. Thanks to a certain PHer on here I discovered that some of the coolant hoses were silicon but unreinforced. Not something that you want on a car running over 100BHP more than when it left the factory. I weighed up my options over time, well, over a few beers generally commiserating about things. The way I saw it my choices are limited with them including:

Going with OE/pattern hoses : On the basis that Ford no longer make them and the fact that I had a poor experience with the Stag hoses (they perished and leaked within a year on a stock engine!) that was a no go. Besides, many of the hoses were good quality Samco items in blue!
Get some silicone hoses : After the experience on the Stag this was definitely an avenue I was wishing to consider. However, the unbranded items were not available in S1 flavour (my engine is still running an S1 pump) and after the plethora of coolant bodges on a previous car I had to give this car the treatment it needed. After some search I found a Samco set rather predictably from a Ford specialist and at a price that was more reasonable than anywhere, including the unbranded guys!



Whether all of the above effort will pay off time shall tell.

The eagle eyed of you will have noticed something extra in the above shot. Whilst the Momo steering wheel on the car does not get my juices going I cannot say that I am a fan of the stock items, but they are cheap to pickup. This RS1600i item is more like it though!



The next stage? Get the work done, the car another MOT and enjoy it! As always there are minor details to attend to on a car. Maybe the previous owner ran out of cash after throwing a fortune at it! Is this not always the way?

[SebringMan]

s p a c e m a n said:

One of the main causes of high crankcase pressure on those things is when people try to hide the breather pipe behind the inlet manifold, they drop the pipe down underneath it which causes it to fill up with oil and block up.

Oddkidd have started making bailey style breathers since they went bust so you don't have to use a second hand one.. https://www.facebook.com/oddkiddcreations/posts/90...

I am not sure if I follow you with the above. Are you saying that people block the breather pipe on a stock system going from the rocker cover to the metering head which causes issues?

Oddkidd's tank I am well aware and I came *very* close to acquiring one. Two things stopped me ; some people have said their cars breathe heavier on his breather over Bailey's creation (although his is meant to be a dead ringer of Bailey's tank mind you and maybe the individuals had their reasons for saying what they did) and the Bailey item was fairly priced from a mate, and it is proven . I'll have to see however, I may end up going back to OK .

Mark, it was the evocative burble that kept on bringing me back to the RSTs. I have to say that this car does not dissapoint as to what I thought an RST would be like .

Damn, I better get those dampers sent off to be rebuilt!

Edited by SebringMan on Wednesday 11th March 00:14

[SebringMan]

s p a c e m a n said:

I would be impressed if anyone had anything to say about them at all yet, as far as I know they were only finished last week. Should work exactly the same as Baileys ones although they're a slightly thicker material so it's easier to stick AN fittings to some of them.

After looking more at a friend's tank who said the tank was breathing a little heavy I am now wondering whether it was an OK tank, or simply a modified AutoSpecialists/SpecR item. It will be nice to see one of his in the flesh.

Many thanks for the tip on the breather hose. I'll see how it looks, but it seems on the Bailey tank the O/S breather port is lower than the N/S item. In your experience do you think I shall get away with running it under the throttle body or will it have to be routed over it?

LittleEnus said:

I love this. Would prefer it a little more stock but I bet its fun.

Many thanks. I am enjoying the car more than I thought I would. After all besides that evocative burble and the looks they were never the best handling or quickest car back then! You could say that I bought this car not expecting much.

The clean condition of this car did sway me alot though! Whilst I was originally after a stock looking Stage 1 RST I am glad I went with this. Yes the engine is running a little close to what it can push out but it also does have upgraded many things that do go bang on an S1 RST (all of the hoses are silicone, not rubber which tended to blow on the boost hoses, the Stainless header tank should help matters too which the dampers really helping matters IMO . The power however despite being a little ludricrous for the chassis really does making driving the car an event in a good way! It is surprisingly drivable at normal RPM (if you can get used to the clutch) but it does spice up quite a bit on boost!

Anyway it is about time I pulled my finger out with this car. The MOT is due and it will not pass at the moment! The dampers will have to be sent off and I may need some new tyres. I may go for a bit of a leftfield and a thinking man's choice of tread here however .

Edited by SebringMan on Tuesday 17th March 00:15

Edited by SebringMan on Tuesday 17th March 00:16

[SebringMan]

Does it sometimes seem that you have done quite a bit of work for little return? This seems like one of those moments but enjoyable all the same. Clearly the Essex charm wins me over easily in more ways than one.

Many would have noted that I spoke about the rear end of the car being super wayward, where even riding bareback with a lady of the night may have felt safer. I wonder which would have been more fun. Clearly before I ended up in a hedge something had to be done.

The car went to having its Mr. Fusion look for a while:





The reason? These blighters at the back. 10k miles worth of Ledas. They look fine here. OK, one may be slightly more damp and that was not down to me getting excited:



Ah, that will be why! On closer inspection it seemed that the damper had blown internally quite badly. Whether it was down to the lack of covers or simply old age I will not know:




Naturally I committed the archetypal sin on RR of fitting the products before photographing new items in all all of their glory. However I would like to justify myself by saying that they do not look all that different post refurb and that all of the magic was done within the damper out of sight. Here's a shot of them on the car:




This was not all however. For a while I have noticed that the rear wheels having positive camber. Not only does this look pretty silly and worthy of getting me the boot from this parish I doubt it helped the handling much either! The tyres seemed to suggest this was the case with the uneven wear on the rear.

It was time to get thinking. After some searching later and some smoke and mirrors from people who should know better I figured that these camber adjusters should do the job:



With these dialled in it was time to replace the ageing Toyos for something a little more fruity and potentially controversial as well:




Did all the above count for anything? Yes . I took the liberty of driving the car by separating out the changes where possible. After initially changing the dampers the car did drive better but it still felt loose at the rear. After playing with the camber to get a degree of negative at the rear this did improve matters. I still did not trust the car but I was getting there now. As for the new Nankang NS-2Rs? Quite a difference. This car drives alot better than I thought an RST ever could, it just seems to grip and grip! I shall not lie and say that I attempt to be a snob with buying tyres after previous experiences with tyres from super cheap to super pricey, but wow these NS-2R tyres seem to be the business! OTOH the Toyos were probably 10 years old, albeit with minimal craking, so maybe something would have been better than nothing. OTOH it does now feel as if it could trouble modern hot hatches, I do drive one after all ).

There was still however more to come. The bodged ancillary hoses required attention and in all honesty it is something I should have picked up sooner on an inspection.

That darker hose does not look too bad now eh?:



Where did the reinforcement go?



Some will say that I went OTT but from previous experience I hate taking chances on cooling systems after being bitten badly. Being a ZVH the hose routing did not quite go to plan. Apologies if the next part makes no sense whatsoever! Firstly I was left with a load of spare hoses. Great:



The straight hose was a simple fit. The other two cause much perplexity. Eventually it clicked that not all Zetecs came with oil heat exhangers. With this in mind and some thoughts given to how to route the hoses if the cooler was not there I pressed on like an tireless teenager.

Oooooh, Smurph life blue!:




The moment of confusion ; Where do the damn hoses go?:



A missing link required:


Where the hose was linked from in the end:



At the same time the lack of a thermostat was soon rectified with a genuine Ford item of the Puma variety. Simultaneously a few litres of Ford's finest coolant went into the engine. Naturally I am keeping an eye out for leaks.

Now where was I? Ah yes, for the efforts of sorting out the cooling system I was now rewarded with a cooling system which cools down faster in addition to a heater which is super warm within minutes. OK it is now summer time but at least I will be prepared for those early cold starts during showtime .

I also finished installing the Bailey breather tank. After fiddling about long enough I got there in the end. Like the above the engine bay is no longer getting coated by a film of oil and the car does not wreak of gasses inside. A result all round. The heavy breathing from the vent pipe previously has now appeared to have become a thing of the past :



The eagle eyed of your will have noticed that one of my bleed off coolant hoses is still unchanged. I do plan to change this since the hose beneath the braiding is so thin that I would probably have more confidence in Pirelli condoms in all honesty! A second bleed off hose is on the way ; these RSTs only ever came with one bleed off but of course this car is running a coolant swirl pot to aid in removing airlocks from the engine . As you may be able to tell I also cleaned the engine bay a little in addition to sorting out some of the previously shoddy wiring by soldering in new wire where necessary. Reliability is key remember .




Not much has occured with the interior but it is certainly heading in the right direction. Once the holes left from the rollcage have been dealt with and a minor leak investaged the carpet shall be reinstated once more. At least for me the interior looks better than it did before. But what else has changed bar the seats from previously? .



All that was left was to secure the car an MOT. Bar some silly things the car passed in fine style. Naturally a number plate bulb blew a mile down the road from the MOT station. I guess the car not covering many miles over the years (well, 200 in 6 years to be exact until I put on 2,000 miles ; whoops!)) probably would not help matters.

But now the car is looking something like this. Very much the same but with subtle and more purposeful hints I would like to think rather than all show. Isn't that what old Fords are about or is it posing? I cannot remember...:

[SebringMan]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Love it, you would have been quite "the man" back in 1995 with that thing

Many thanks. With the car in the state I bought it I certainly would have been! It is slowly going in the right direction I would like to think. I would like to think that my direction with the car is fairly obvious and hopefully pay off .

RS Grant said:

Reading this thread (and being such a sunny evening) has made me miss my (Series 2) RS Turbo.

What a fine job you're doing with it, all the chrome is a little much for me, but at least it's in decent nick and well kept. Look forward to this progressing and the interior returning to a more original state in time.


Cheers,
Grant

Many thanks there. I am surprised at just how many people have owned an RST at some point! The engine bling initially was a bit much for me although my main criteria was to buy the most rust free car for the budget.

However (but I would say this ) the bling in the flesh works quite well and brings many benefits including:
-easier to clean and responds well to it.
-rocker cover no longer leaks with the improved Zetec cap over the wear prone CVH item (Handy as Escort spares seem to be dwindling by the day!)
-Hoses in theory should never go with dodgy 'OE' replacements out there
-Header tank should not crack like the originals used to.

Put a 100BHP increase into the mix and the mods don't seem too bad . It is surprising just how quickly the spares are drying up for these cars though. I am so thankful that my car came with most of the interior. I shall not even say how much I paid for a set of air vents and a parcel shelf :/.

Speaking of which that is my next job on the list ; get it onto a rolling road to see just how much power it makes. Whilst I am getting used to the Helix 4 paddle clutch it certainly requires patience and thought to use it!

Edited by SebringMan on Saturday 18th April 08:14

[SebringMan]

Naturally, they are . We all need to know

As said there was a minor electrical issue the car had. There I was going down the road minding my own business when the car decided to have the dashboard go a little loopy! I switched the engine off, saw smoke under the bonnet and was greeted by the starter motor wiring melted and touching the exhaust manifold! Yikes was one of the words that went through my mind!



To be fair that could have gone alot worse it has to be said.

I have been slowly working through some of the wiring fixes but clearly not as quickly as I should have done! Whether I disturbed the starter wire when changing the hoses which is a possibly, or if it was loose before I shall not know. However, the routing of the starter cable is damned close to the exhaust manifold and turbo! Whether having a Zetec bottom end compromises this I do not know. I may look into getting an altered route for the starter motor positive feed so as to ensure this does not happen again!

Upon investigating RSTs it seems that the wiring route may have changed for RSTs. If I am honest mine was not all that great. My wiring went as follows:

Battery -> Starter Motor.

Another wire went:

Starter motor - > Alternator.

With the former the wire ran above the starter motor and in between the engine block and exhaust manifold I guess it was no surprise that the starter motor wiring melted. I shall have to find an alternative route for the cable and possibly shield it better from the heat. This sounds familar I have to say with some of the threads here where people are running more power.

[SebringMan]

Absolutely! I am glad that it was only as bad as it was!

It seems I am lucky this cable did not go sooner! The cable clearly had taken a battering as it touched the exhaust manifold unsurprisingly!

From this shot the cable looks ok. That can go back on the car surely?



On closer inspection not all is well! That is some threadbare cable:



The melted part of the cable originally sat under some red insulation tape! It seems that cable was never all that clever!



Another cable was sourced. This time however it was routed differently to the original cable, with it now following the path of a S2 RST, going in front of the exhaust manifold, being tied onto the front crossmember, before going over the gearbox bellhousing and then finally attaching onto the battery.

From closer inspection I reckon the issue was caused by a number of things:

-Me disturbing the loom during the coolant pipe swap, albeit slightly,
-The cable previously being bodged into position despite obviously being incorrect and old
-The extra heat and loss of space not helping matters
-The installation of a Transit Connect Starter motor, which are a higher torque and are said to be more reliable than CVH items ; It was certainly tricky to attack the terminals with the exhaust downpipe attached!

Finally, I had another issue. Whilst the car was attempting to self combust the other problem was the fact that despite me changing all of the hoses for some correctly reinforced silicone hoses and reinstating the thermostat the car gained a leak from one of the accessory joins! At the time I was debating bypassing the join due to its condition but 'winging it' got the better of me. Surely an iffy join cannot leak with enough pressure from the jubilee clip placed on it?



Ok, maybe not. It is strange how the leak started after the hose swaps despite the hoses fitting very well, but upon closer inspection at certain angles the join had corroded so much so that sides of the joining piece had bowed in! Add the fact that the horizontal joint is shorter than necessary I guess it was inevitable that this was going to leak, especially now that the flow would technically be restricted with a thermostat now in place!

Since my car is now running a Zetec bottom end this piece is no longer required. Thus I bypassed the join which in all honesty is what I should have done in the first place! It would have saved me wasting cash on coolant for sure!





As a result of the above cock up or an attempt of the car to make life awkward I was not able to drive the car on Drive-It Day! The coolant leak became worse than simply a few drips IMO, although steam was produced by the water leaking out and hitting the exhaust system. Furthermore the car now seems to be holding its cool a little better but of course time will tell as to whether this lasts.

I would love to say that the MPG has improved with the thermostat installation but in all honesty I cannot say that I have noticed much difference!

Another bonus is that the charging system appears to be charging better than it ever has done under my ownership with the voltmeter sitting closer to 14V! Even with every consumer on the voltage appears to not drop below 13V. Previously the alternator light would come on very very dimly at night time with all of the consumers and and the rear brake lights coming on but I initially put it down to the puny output of the alternator! The S1 Escorts came with a 55Ah Alternator, which is not much larger than what many BL cars without injection systems came with, and they were barely adequate! It seems Ford thought this too with the S2 gaining a 70Ah item.

[SebringMan]

In other news the coolant leak being fixed seems to have cured a few issues, especially since I changed the last off the very flimsy and thin bleed off hoses for a silicon item courtesty of Roose Motorsport. Firstly the coolant level stays at the max, something it previously struggled to do it would tend to sit slightly below the minimum. Secondly it is cooling down a little quicker once the fans cut in as well thankully. It is great to know that the cooling system is now dependable.

With this in mind I decided to take the car on its first outing where a few less 'what if' questions would be looming over the car upon going to a show. I was also rewarded by a mass of people admiring it despite having A Ferrari 360 a few cars away and many MGBs on the other side!









Upon going to this event I was greeted by a swarm of people running over the car upon opening the bonnet. Are people really like magpies! It was a strange feeling to see a car get so much admiration with the car's history seeming to put its hands down people trousers to help arouse the memories of these cars from when they were quite something. How a car can become a generation eh?

Through all of the people looking at shiny things (no, not my piece) a gentlemen came over to me to ask how much power the car was putting out and that he had a dyno I could use . Seeing as he was on my doorstep I could not turn this offer down. I also wished to do this so as to see what clutch options I could play with. The fuelling was also of concern especially since many consider this car to be running a 'bodged' KE-Injection system.

This was the result:



225BHP with 270Nm of torque with a better torque curve than I thought. I did always think this engine felt alot smoother than the Porsche.

Not too bad a result at all. I do wonder if the engine can do more. I was considering playing with the cam timing etc. but I would probably be best to leave it alone! The fuelling curve despite being a tad safe and rich is actually far smoother than my 944's was. But then so is the torque curve!

[SebringMan]

Starf, there is interesting stuff coming up alright! It's another bout of headscratching!

Well, the issues do keep on coming!

Let's start off with the good news! Firstly, I managed to knock a few things off my to do list including:

- Reducing brake vibration from the front
- Replacing front brake carrier bolts with new items to hopefully get rid of the issue above (i.e the calipers falling off!)
-Solve the cooling issue
-Replace 3 wheel bearings ; 2 rears and one front
-Replace rear damper top mounts - Ish but done the job for now
-Sort out breather hose ; separator tank oil drain - Done but I have a new problem here (read on)
-Weld up the holes left from the roll cage - Booked in

Sending the discs off to be skimmed and turned down a couple of mm has solved the above issue well. Braking has improved quite a bit and with no shudder. New bolts were also installed.

Although I changed the rear wheelbearings the front was also changed this weekend, with it being torqued up as per the Haynes Book of Lies. For the first time the car has been much nicer experience with no droning or sounds coming from the wheels.

The creak from the rear top mount has also gone! Although the rubber bushes are now made out of unobtanium poly replacements are on the way. In the meantime I cleaned up the rubber mounts and applied silicone lubricant. This seemed to do the job quite well!

On my way down to the Pistonheads Sunday Service all was well. The engine felt strong and sturdy with the car generally behaving well! Things looked good for the day even if the car was dirty! The car even had good comments towards it for most of the day!



The comments soon turned to cursing after it hit the track! For all of 2 laps the car was great! There was plenty of grip with enough grunt. Intially there was a puff of smoke from the rear which I assumed came from the exhaust. OK thought this is probably a bit of oil coming into the turbo from surging. Not great but it will suffice! The whiff became a cloud and stench with people sliding off behind me! The one retro I have had with zero oil leaks decided to spew a good 1/4 to 1/2 a litre of oil on the track on right hand bends, burning the the rest off the exhaust! To say I was gutted was an understatement but OTOH at least no one was hurt and hats off to the car being pulled in. The underside of the car was dripping in engine oil, no what I wanted.

The engine bay is still as clean as a whistle on the block and everywhere. The only thing I can think of is that the oil must have got out of the vent tube of the oil separation tank where only water vapour is meant to exit and it always has seemed to with or without a catch tank due to the internal pipe which is placed right at the top of the oil separator. Of course this would mean that I have a fairly serious oil surge issue. I initially was going to put the vent hose back into the metering head but it was pointed out that with that much oil coming out I'd probably do more harm that good and potentially even lock something within the engine. There will be some head scratching for sure.

This now will sound pathetic but I was seriously considering getting rid after this issue. While the issues have not been major the car has certainly had its share of niggles over the past year. It has also been one of the few retros I have owned to be assisted by a Green Flag man on more than one occasion within a year; Even the Stag managed not to have this happen!




However,I decided to persevere with the car. The oil was mopped up at Silverstone underneath the car and the vent tube put back into a catch can. Sure enough on the way home only water vapour came out despite the car being topped up with oil! Arrrgggghh! Retros; Who'd have 'em?

In more pressing news the Chequer plates of derision have finally left the building! This was done in preparation for the interior to be refitted.



It is already looking better eh?



At least that part of the car is working out for now! I am sure one day the car will behave itself for more than a week!

[SebringMan]

Like many I seem to recall a song which went something like "things can only get better". For now it seems this is the case! The car has been behaving itself and generally being quite compliant. It's great to have the car to be joy to drive again.

I shall start with some of the work I did to get it there.On the road on the brief occasions I have been using it the car has been behaving quite well. With many of the previous issues gone including the horrific creak the car is now great to drive once more. Of course the clutch does spoil the fun, although I don't think @maph2 was quite man enough to handle it .

I shall start with some of the work I did to get it there. Without repeating too much from before I changed 3 wheel bearings (both rears and the fronts). One of the rears did look worse for wear with the front bearing looking like the rollers had become flush with the race. How could that happen after a CV joint boot swap? This time however I did adhere to what the Haynes Book of lies said to do which seemed to have done the trick all across the car.



Yes, one of the rear bearings were breaking apart. The others did not that "that" bad but the car is now far quieter .

I also had the holes rewelded left from the rollcage. The quote ended up increasing a little but the job is great:






At least things are going smoothly for one. I also managed to tame the high idle and get the auxilary air valve working a little better. Instead of idling at 1400rpm it is now idling at a more sensible 800-900rpm . I plan to sort out the cold start injector and see if it can be used again but we shall see. For now the car is good to use everyday bar the clutch.

During Haloween on my travels I came across a new hot hatch. The shot seemed to be quite apt to take TBH. Which would you go with?




However, my fun was not quite over yet. After dropping the car off home and indulging in some late night Haloween shenanigans I recall waking up a little fragile on the Sunday. But I was soon fit enough to attend the @maph2 breakfast meet for a few hours, well, as long as my injured ankle could bear!





I have to say the meet for a small one was great with a vibe present. It was certainly worth the trip. Here's to using the car more .

Regarding the mini oil spill disaster at the Sunday Service I have a few ideas up my sleeve. These include to do the following:

-Fit a later 2 piece baffled sump from a Focus - I am well aware that ZetecInside's site says that the Zetec does not suffer with oil surge but after further investigation it does seem that a number of early Zetecs do indeed throw oil out onto the track.
-Fit a baffled breather. This alone could negate doing the above in all honesty. Basically, my oil separator drain has been drilled into the rear of the block as show below since the original Zetec separator would have where the Turbo is now sitting, which also means to the front crankcase hole has to be blanked off.

Rear crankcase breather drain fitting on another ZVH:



However, this fitting is not baffled and this has been cited as another reason for why the oil threw itself out on the track on hard cornering. I do not wish to baffle this since I would end up with an issue where I would have to completely strip the engine potentially down to the block in order to do this. Thus pending there being enough room between the front crankcase breather and the turbo I plan to reuse the original front crankcase breather with one of these:




This should improve the breathing anything with any form of luck .

[SebringMan]

ya_bks said:

looks to be in decent condition too, might be worth putting your hand down the 1/4s on the inside and feel for crunchy metal on the mid/inner sill, under the rear bench corner sections at the very edge of the floor you can see corrosion, There's 3-4 layers of metal underneath and the badness usually starts between them, worth piece of mind knowing its not rotten and the layers below are structural sections between the rear legs and inner/outer/mid sills, looks clean else-were though. I'm trying to pick flaws its more so - If its got early enough cleaning/converting and sealing and priming is much cheaper then paying a gobste like me to replace section's of metal and no-one enjoys the process, love the s1's they look classier IMO only dislike are the black bumper over-riders apart from that it looks the job

Fear not, that is dust. I did the check as suggested and all was fine :

With it getting warmer I figured get my thumb out of my butt and crack on with getting the car the treatment it deserves.

Back in March I decided to remember that I owned it. However, the car as a remind to this fact decided that would be recalcitrant after a 3 month lay up. I could almost hear the car saying "What, you are playing hard to get, and you think you can just slip into me like an old pair of slippers and expect to behave?". Sure enough the car cranked over, but the battery went flat after about a minute of cranking at various intervals.

With some jump leads and an AGM battery however, we were back in business! Driving it reminded me just why I like this example. Yes, the clutch is horrific and requires more caressing than a princess on a bad day. That is before I get to the random squeaks and complete lack of storage space, or so I thought, but more on that later! But I love how the car grips more when you plant your foot on the accelerator in the bends and how even at 10mph or 90mph it feels alive! Flooring the car in 4th and then changing up to hear a few random pops and bangs from the exhayst on the overrun Yup, I really do love the experience. And so with it appearing to work well I took a photo to celebrate the experience:



However, it was still too bloody cold! So it was parked up again.

But for the first time in a couple of years the car would have to be a commuter once more in a twist of fate. Some of you may know that I own a Clio 172:



For some silly reason, probably because I try to be too considerate when parking, and the Clio's combination of steering lock that makes the QE2 look like it has an amazing turning circle I decided to get some 15" wheels, for the fear of kerbing the Cup Turinis with slightly stretched tyres from the factory, and have a nicer ride. I however did not quite envisage ending with the car looking like this!:



Check out those Carbon Fibre* centre caps:

• that may be a lie:

Yup, not a great look, but maybe it is to you! OTOH, someone liked them: they paid Pristine Wheels £290 for the priviledge of painting them!

And so the Clio went back onto its Turinis: One problem: The rear tyres on them make Kojak's head look like it has plenty of hair!





Enter Stage left....

The Escort would prove that despite it having no carpet and it being a royal pain transport anything due to nothing having a surface to grip on, that it would be a superb car for transporting wheels!

Off it went to a City all loaded up, with the wheels dropped off and then back in the City to mooch around for a day:



Someone wanted photos of the car for whatever reason, and so I parked outside a cool looking entrance and obliged:









And then I parked it in what I thought was a secure Multi-Storey. Brave I know!




After viewing the city, looking around, buying decent grub and meeting up with @maph2 of this parish I decided to head back. But not without the wheels! They do look a little different I think you agree!



Anyway, more on that on another forum and thread! This thread is about the Escort after all .

Today I figured it was time to push on with the car. Off it went to the Butty Run promoted well by our own @choptop here. After the event it was time to get stuck in with getting the interior closer to being like a normal RST again.

Here is a during shot:



After a couple of hours, metal everywhere, cleaning up the said metal from the rivets mainly I finally had a more stripped out look:





Door plates and cage be gone!:



Now to clean out the carpet, fix a water leak and push on with getting it looking like an RST should .

[SebringMan]

Gallons Per Mile said:

This car has just got better and better under your ownership! Can't wait to get my Series 2 out of the garage and actually get on with the restoration.

Many thanks for the comments! The vision of what I wanted from the off is coming together. Some things not quite as I wanted but some ideas have really worked very well on the car. Overall however, the car does seem to be heading in the right direction I would like to think.

Tiger Tim said:

Are you using that harness or have you got the standard belts refitted? ??

I am using the Harness for now. With the silly metal door panels I had no choice but to use them until I did all of the messy work inside the interior. Now however with all of the panels off I plan to refit the stock seatbelts .