C3's various shite in somewhat legible format for your viewing pleasure. Maybe.

[C3C3]

[snip]

[UltraWomble]

Nice

I refuse to believe you did all that engineering yourself as I can clearly see Bagpuss on some of those photos.

[yes oui si]

Great stuff. Photos of mk3 fiesta on slots pls. 

[grogee]

9 hours ago, C3C3 said:

Righty fiesta story time.

Impulse buy at a good price, collapsed suspension and a rotting drivers side floor. Fiesta L 950cc 4 Speed bASe spec. No radio, nipple on the floor for washers etc. 47,000 genuine miles with all the paper work that went with it. God awful blow over paint job done circa 2014-15 with overspray and all the nastiness you would expect. £40 for a pair of corsa coilovers from ebay to replace the shagged originals. Bit of a die grinder work & machining the top mounts got me this:

Patched up the floor, cut the rot out. Weld up, seal up. Standard stuff.

Drove it as my daily all around essex carrying IT equipment for about 6 months. Great blast around backgrounds screaming the bollocks of the poor little push rod Valencia engine. Couldn't leave it alone could I? Picked up a 80k Focus ST170 2.0L engine from a written off car for £200 delivered. 6 speed gearbox included. car had a twisted chassis etc. Great history and covered in brand new parts like billet fuel rail etc. I could just slap this in along with a 5 speed IB5 gearbox from a mk5/6 escort but that would be way to easy, haven't heard of anyone pairing an ST170 with a mk5 turbo diesel MTX75 gearbox. Long ratios etc. Brain started doing the dangerous thing called thinking and after a bit of searching I found a known good gearbox and gear remote for £70. OK strip the bastard down, internals check, rebuild. Engine internals were spotless, no scoring. Nice. Rebuilt the head and replace the water pump for a brand new one with a billet reverse direction impellor. You'll see why later. Toybota engine in the background too.

Okay gear, how the fuck am I going to pair the two? Clutch and fly wheel? Yeah good luck finding any useful info on that from the interwebs. I picked up a Mk1 focus factory ford lightened flywheel in its original packaging from ford for £100, it uses a standard 230mm clutch so I'd get the bigger clutch than an IB5 (220mm) but without the stupid pricing of the 240mm focus RS clutch/flywheel combo. Neato. It all fit together great! This was not a fun process to work out. Using a Fiesta RS1800 sump, tray and oil pickup so we can fit the exhaust through.

The MTX75 gearbox is what you see on the mk1 mondeos & TD Escorts and some of the fiesta RS1800s (I think?), this is the rod operated version found on early models. Newer ones are cable operated after lots of complaints about the mk1 mondeo ones feeling like shit. That was all down to the stupid extra linkage they put in to avoided having to tunnel through the passenger floor, not the box itself. 

There was original paint in the engine bay around the bottom of the bulk, was in pretty good nick after a jet wash. Other places were a bit knarly. Under the headlights, battery tray rotted out etc all the usual suspects.

I've still got the engine and gearbox in running order if anyone needs it. After days of taking the entire thing back down the bare metal I got my dad to seal it all up with epoxy primer as my back was shagged.

Now onto slinging the lump into the hole. It isn't going to fit but we will get to that. First is mounting, traditionally as we all know people modify a CVH engine mount in something along the following lines:

Shove it in the hole, cut the inner passenger wing up to fit an IB5 gearbox, fit a long XR2 drive shaft on the drivers side and call it day. Oh no, not here we dont. THAT WOULD BE TOO EASY WOULDNT IT?

Brace yourselves and dont cry too much, here comes the molestation. Parental guidance is advised.

GET THE ANGLE GRINDER AND HOLD MY BEER.

 

Well... its in. Somewhat. This is where the realisation of just how fucking big this gearbox is compared to a BC4/IB5. We have to move the whole thing back so far we are almost touching the steering rack. Looks like we are going to have to make custom tie bars for both sides now too. Drivers side has 0 clearance on the RS1800 sump. We have gotta fit a alternator down there too. Yikes.

 

Bought my self a lathe and made my first part. Alternator pulley as the 45amp one came with a v band pulley. Runs god dammed true and you know it.

 

So the engine mounting situation still needs solving and the solution was staring us in the face the entire time. Tough but flexible transit leaf spring rubbers! Cheap, easy to replace, easy to find. Perfecto.

There is no way in hell though those inner wings are going to hold the extra weight of all of this without flexing. I see problem I resolve problem. 3mm steel plate cut and bent under oxy-ac flame to shape, stitched in on both sides. Fucker aint flexing anytime soon. Some may call this overkill but I've seen too many people use this style of mounting and have it flex. When this bastard launches I want to be sure the whole car is being launched and not the engine lol.

OK, roughed up engine mount.

Thats one heavy duty mother-trucker there. Here is what we are dealing with in regards to clearances.

Bloody hell its tight. We carefully bent the drivers side tie-rod under flame and.... it snapped. Clear sheared not even on where it was being heated, made a mental note to find another or good material to make one.

It's not as bad as I thought it would be undearneath.

Slapped together something to hold the gearbox. Will likely replace this entirely at some point but it works for now.

Gear remote shorted and quickly slapped into place. Goodbye passenger side floor it was just rubbing slightly so not the end of the world. Gears feel fucking fantastic though, its a world of difference cant wait to drive it.

Working out how to steady the engine, the transit rubbers already do a good job we just need that extra point on the back to stop it from rocking. We end up using the original rear candle mount holes to make a bracket, it will also double up as the anchor for the exhaust pipe after the flexi. 

 

Lump out, cleanup etc.

Worked out an alternator bracket, using a stretchy belt normally found on mk4? fiestas.

Now onto the hard part. Drive shafts. I decide to stick with the original hubs and knuckles rather than change them due to steering geometry headaches. I buy a complete Mk2 focus diesel LX drive shaft set for £60. They slot straight in to my gearbox as they also use an MTX75 gearbox but with cable shift and hydraulic clutch. I'm using a 2 piece shaft design to reduce torque steer as intended. This means I gotta mount the half shaft somehow. Heres what we came up with. Very precisely (totally not eye balled) glued a original mk2 focus bracket and presto. Runs as true as it would ever get, no snatching etc.

Well shit, that aint too bad all things considered. Gotta take a bit more out down the bottom not an issue.

Some time later, exhaust nonsense. Oh christ help me. The original manifold is a GREAT manifold, I'm not being sarcastic. Ford knew what they were doing. For now we are going to use bits to get something to get running with. Runners are 45mm and the final size will be 2.5" for that good flow yo. Built a new extension on the garage specifically for this car. Radiator is intended to be used with a Mk2, its from airtec and cost me £170. OUCH. This is the first exhaust I've ever made & I learned to tig while I was doing it.

Now you can see why the change in sump was a 100% requirement.

Made an adjustable clutch. God damm it FEELS SO NICEEE.

Mocked up a header tank.

Finally patched up that uhhh hole. Heh.

 

Now onto the fun bits, how to fuel the thing? Got a set of ZX9R bike carbs for £60 and adapted the original plastic manifold to accept them. I may just go straight to EFI throttle bodies as I am comfortable with them now.

Welded up the manifold and down pipe.

Made a plate for the carbs to fit a nice big air filter.

Didnt really like the plastic manifold, got some 45mm ally tubing and start making one instead.

 

Modified passenger side tie bar to clear the gearbox during compression.

Picked up a tie bar from a Cortina(?) and use the two to make a new driver side tie bar that clears the sump by miles.

Gotta stop the damm thing somehow right? Brand spanking new 4 pots. on XR2 discs for now. I had to modify the hubs to accept the discs as the very tips next to the bolts had a weird angle to them, so I carefully took them down to be a perfect flush interference fit.

In order to get enough pressure to the 4 pots an upgraded master cylinder and servo was needed. I settled on an Mazda MX5 1.6L in the end, if its not enough I can then use off the shelf upgrades for an MX5. Modified the original bracket to angle and clear the gearbox. No modifications to the brake bar were needed, it has the PERFECT amount of throw the fully actuate the cylinder.

 

 

 

 

So thats the story so far. All I really need to do is make my drive shafts, do the plumbing+brakes & get it wired in. Oh and paint it of course.

At the end of the day I just want my fiesta with a more modern engine and a nicer gearbox. Externally everything stays original, no stupid arches or any of that nonsense.

'But why why why molest car, car good, care pure YOU BAD MANNNNNNN!' If I could have got a 1600 push rod I would have, but then I'd have a knock off XR2. I dont want an XR2. Too much plastic. Ew.

 

You're a fabricobble god and you're wasted in IT. 

I can't wait to see this run

[High Jetter]

This promises to be an extremely interesting thread. Am looking forward to the next update(s)

[AnnoyingPentium]

2 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

This promises to be an extremely interesting thread. Am looking forward to the next update(s)

+1 on this. This is all very exciting.

[yes oui si]

7 minutes ago, C3C3 said:

As promised, as it came to us. Reduced the chav factor a bit thankfully with the slots.

Ooooof. Want. 

[Rod/b]

What happened to this? Is it done?

[C3C3]

On 26/07/2022 at 04:51, Rod/b said:

What happened to this? Is it done?

NAH M8 LOL.

Drove it for the first time at fuck-0-clock in the morning back from another garage after hastily slapping it back together.

Pulled the whole thing apart, wings off, brumm brumm unit out etc to finish the body work. New sills, new front lower valance, even more 3mm plate inside the hot box rattle rattle area where it flexed after launching like a bat outa hell.

Custom suspension arms next. £750 fucking differential. OWWW. But alas how does one stop torque steer. 

[High Jetter]

Ok, we can wait ...

[C3C3]

Look at the funny lines.

Hmm. Pretty.

 

If any of you fine people have a roll cage, sell it to me before I end up in a ditch compacted to the size of a sardine can.

 

Edit: forgot to post the pudding

[C3C3]

Shiny fresh paint.

 

It will be the escort's turn soon

[C3C3]

Wont be long now. 😉

[C3C3]

Asbo fiesta is on the road. Escort resto time: engaged.

[Marshall2810]

That's very nice 

[Matty]

12 hours ago, Marshall2810 said:

That's very nice 

Isn't it just 😍