Fast Ford's Series 2
15-05-2007, 02:05 PM
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Fast Ford's Series 2
We’ve owned this car since the summer of 2005, so thought it was about time we started a resto thread…
In May that year we moved offices from shitty Gloucester to slightly less shitty Bath after our publishing house was bought out by Future Publishing. Luckily Fast Ford’s new publisher turned out to be a sound guy and after realising we had no magazine project car, ‘found’ us £4000 to go and buy something.
At the time, for that money the most sensible choice was a Series 2. Fudgie saw a Radiating Red one in a garage in local Bradford-on-Avon that was up for £3500. It looked OK, ran fine but clearly needed setting up, and had had a truckload of money spent on it at Interpro (cam, chip, Konis etc etc). Most of the stuff on it we didn’t actually want or like (the gash rims and dump valve being the most obvious), but we figured this wasn’t a problem as we could sell them on to fund more bits for the car.
We could/should have looked around at other cars but the money was only going to be available for a short time, and with a mag deadline looming, we thought ‘sod it’ and after some barter, bought it for £2600.
Not long after, Fudgie took it up to cover a rolling road day at Power Engineering. It ran badly on the way up, so Chris Todd took a look and diagnosed a mullered ECU. He suggested picking up a Series One item (no knock sensor), so we picked one up off here for £100.
At the same time we also removed the original spots and mudflaps to clean up the exterior, plus we fitted a pair of adjustable TCAs and Poly Sport bushes from Rally Design to replace the knackered originals.
The TCAs were set up by eye, with a view to getting them reset properly the following week. They’ve only just been done nearly 2 years later!
The Wolfrace rims were tired and not to our taste so these were replaced with a set of 17 inch Pro Race 1.2s in gloss black to contrast nicely with the red paint. These were wrapped in Avon ZV3 rubber. Ideally, we would have preferred 16s, but Team Dynamics didn’t do them in that size for Ford fitment. Ah well!
Around about the same time, the gearbox let go (the Fudge was driving at the time, funnily enough…). I got straight on the phone to CTS and after a few weeks wait, we gingerly drove the car up to Markyate for them to fit up a Stage 1 box.
This was fitted up with a new Valeo Fast Road spec clutch kit supplied by us. It wasn’t long before it started slipping so an AP is on the cards.
The box is just the job, but in hindsight I wish we’d dug a bit deeper and got Bernie to fit an ATB diff at the same time, as the car desperately needs one. We just couldn’t justify the extra cost back then.
With the car back up and running we booked it in with Toddy for a chip upgrade and rolling road set-up. He found all manner of bodges including a badly repaired breather pipe and incorrect idle screw, but after fitting a PE chip the car made 181 bhp and 189 lbf.ft on 13 psi.
On the same day, Dan and Neil fitted a Pro Alloy front-mount kit to replace the half-width Pace item the car came with. It’s a well put together piece of kit and once fitted the ACTs dropped by 21 degrees, and we gained 9 bhp and 12 lbf.ft.
http://www.fastfordmag.co.uk/page/fa...to_fit_a_front
Chris was happy to wind the boost up to 18 psi to give us over 200 bhp, but we decided to stick to 13 psi for now.
On the styling front, we fitted a set of German ’plates from Dubmeister to suit the car’s vaguely DTM look. They’ve been on the car for 18 months now and we haven’t had a tug (yet!)
Despite being only a couple of years old, the Konis were absolutely shagged. At the time, SPAX were keen to get their product on our car so we went up to the factory and had a fixed-platform, adjustable damping PSX kit with –25 mm springs fitted.
You can’t fault the build quality of the dampers — it’s absolutely superb but the jury’s still out on the ride quality. Even on the softest setting, running on 17s and 205/40s they are too harsh for the road, but would probably make an awesome track set-up. I’d really like to try the car on standard rims and rubber to see if the ride is any better.
As bought, the RST came with a mixed set of silicon hoses, so Paul Roose supplied a complete boost, coolant and ancillary set in black. Sadly, bar the main boost hose, we’ve yet to get around to fitting these.
As recommended by Bernie, I also fitted a B&M quickshift kit. Straightforward to do, but get the car up on a ramp if you can, as getting the circlip that holds the bush in the pivot socket is a right sod if you are lying underneath in the freezing cold.
http://www.fastfordmag.co.uk/page/fa...t_a_quickshift
The shift is now soooooooo much better than the vague original set-up.
In February 2006 I bought and fitted an ACT gauge from R&B Motorsport. I decided to mount the gauge in the redundant choke light cut-out in the instrument cluster and bought another cluster assembly so that I could fit it at my leisure.
http://www.fastfordmag.co.uk/page/fa..._to_fit_an_act
Unbeknownest to me at the time, I’d bought an earlier set of clocks that don’t work with later cars… so after carefully cutting out the panel, I had to go and do it all again. Wiring-wise, the gauge was a cinch to fit, though.
By now it was Spring 2006 and after being used all winter, the shell was really starting to look tired. Fortunately, Jacko offered to restore the shell and repaint it for us, so we ragged it up to Middlesbrough and left it with him for a couple of months.
Jacko did a top job, cutting out and replacing the corroded front panel, one rotten rear arch and repaired the roof.
The hatch was also rotten, so he sourced a clean one and through a mate, sorted us 90-spec front bumper and rear spoiler, before adding numerous fresh coats of Radiant Red. Thanks also to Paul and Jo at North Yorks RS Spares for sending up a new front screen seal for Jacko to fit at short notice. The car now looks the nuts.
The plan was to pick it up from Jacko and get it MoT’d and ready in time for TRAX last year. It’s now May 2007 and we’ve only just got it MoT’d… Unfortunately, as it’s owned by the magazine, our own project cars end up taking priority, and with a magazine to get out every three weeks, there’s little time for spannering.
Other than taking it to the shows, we’re not quite sure where to go next with the car. There’s a leather interior to fit up but engine-wise we can’t decide. Neil and I are big fans of the CVH while Dan is Mr Zetec, but it’s hard to do anything that hasn’t already been done before.
In May that year we moved offices from shitty Gloucester to slightly less shitty Bath after our publishing house was bought out by Future Publishing. Luckily Fast Ford’s new publisher turned out to be a sound guy and after realising we had no magazine project car, ‘found’ us £4000 to go and buy something.
At the time, for that money the most sensible choice was a Series 2. Fudgie saw a Radiating Red one in a garage in local Bradford-on-Avon that was up for £3500. It looked OK, ran fine but clearly needed setting up, and had had a truckload of money spent on it at Interpro (cam, chip, Konis etc etc). Most of the stuff on it we didn’t actually want or like (the gash rims and dump valve being the most obvious), but we figured this wasn’t a problem as we could sell them on to fund more bits for the car.
We could/should have looked around at other cars but the money was only going to be available for a short time, and with a mag deadline looming, we thought ‘sod it’ and after some barter, bought it for £2600.
Not long after, Fudgie took it up to cover a rolling road day at Power Engineering. It ran badly on the way up, so Chris Todd took a look and diagnosed a mullered ECU. He suggested picking up a Series One item (no knock sensor), so we picked one up off here for £100.
At the same time we also removed the original spots and mudflaps to clean up the exterior, plus we fitted a pair of adjustable TCAs and Poly Sport bushes from Rally Design to replace the knackered originals.
The TCAs were set up by eye, with a view to getting them reset properly the following week. They’ve only just been done nearly 2 years later!
The Wolfrace rims were tired and not to our taste so these were replaced with a set of 17 inch Pro Race 1.2s in gloss black to contrast nicely with the red paint. These were wrapped in Avon ZV3 rubber. Ideally, we would have preferred 16s, but Team Dynamics didn’t do them in that size for Ford fitment. Ah well!
Around about the same time, the gearbox let go (the Fudge was driving at the time, funnily enough…). I got straight on the phone to CTS and after a few weeks wait, we gingerly drove the car up to Markyate for them to fit up a Stage 1 box.
This was fitted up with a new Valeo Fast Road spec clutch kit supplied by us. It wasn’t long before it started slipping so an AP is on the cards.
The box is just the job, but in hindsight I wish we’d dug a bit deeper and got Bernie to fit an ATB diff at the same time, as the car desperately needs one. We just couldn’t justify the extra cost back then.
With the car back up and running we booked it in with Toddy for a chip upgrade and rolling road set-up. He found all manner of bodges including a badly repaired breather pipe and incorrect idle screw, but after fitting a PE chip the car made 181 bhp and 189 lbf.ft on 13 psi.
On the same day, Dan and Neil fitted a Pro Alloy front-mount kit to replace the half-width Pace item the car came with. It’s a well put together piece of kit and once fitted the ACTs dropped by 21 degrees, and we gained 9 bhp and 12 lbf.ft.
http://www.fastfordmag.co.uk/page/fa...to_fit_a_front
Chris was happy to wind the boost up to 18 psi to give us over 200 bhp, but we decided to stick to 13 psi for now.
On the styling front, we fitted a set of German ’plates from Dubmeister to suit the car’s vaguely DTM look. They’ve been on the car for 18 months now and we haven’t had a tug (yet!)
Despite being only a couple of years old, the Konis were absolutely shagged. At the time, SPAX were keen to get their product on our car so we went up to the factory and had a fixed-platform, adjustable damping PSX kit with –25 mm springs fitted.
You can’t fault the build quality of the dampers — it’s absolutely superb but the jury’s still out on the ride quality. Even on the softest setting, running on 17s and 205/40s they are too harsh for the road, but would probably make an awesome track set-up. I’d really like to try the car on standard rims and rubber to see if the ride is any better.
As bought, the RST came with a mixed set of silicon hoses, so Paul Roose supplied a complete boost, coolant and ancillary set in black. Sadly, bar the main boost hose, we’ve yet to get around to fitting these.
As recommended by Bernie, I also fitted a B&M quickshift kit. Straightforward to do, but get the car up on a ramp if you can, as getting the circlip that holds the bush in the pivot socket is a right sod if you are lying underneath in the freezing cold.
http://www.fastfordmag.co.uk/page/fa...t_a_quickshift
The shift is now soooooooo much better than the vague original set-up.
In February 2006 I bought and fitted an ACT gauge from R&B Motorsport. I decided to mount the gauge in the redundant choke light cut-out in the instrument cluster and bought another cluster assembly so that I could fit it at my leisure.
http://www.fastfordmag.co.uk/page/fa..._to_fit_an_act
Unbeknownest to me at the time, I’d bought an earlier set of clocks that don’t work with later cars… so after carefully cutting out the panel, I had to go and do it all again. Wiring-wise, the gauge was a cinch to fit, though.
By now it was Spring 2006 and after being used all winter, the shell was really starting to look tired. Fortunately, Jacko offered to restore the shell and repaint it for us, so we ragged it up to Middlesbrough and left it with him for a couple of months.
Jacko did a top job, cutting out and replacing the corroded front panel, one rotten rear arch and repaired the roof.
The hatch was also rotten, so he sourced a clean one and through a mate, sorted us 90-spec front bumper and rear spoiler, before adding numerous fresh coats of Radiant Red. Thanks also to Paul and Jo at North Yorks RS Spares for sending up a new front screen seal for Jacko to fit at short notice. The car now looks the nuts.
The plan was to pick it up from Jacko and get it MoT’d and ready in time for TRAX last year. It’s now May 2007 and we’ve only just got it MoT’d… Unfortunately, as it’s owned by the magazine, our own project cars end up taking priority, and with a magazine to get out every three weeks, there’s little time for spannering.
Other than taking it to the shows, we’re not quite sure where to go next with the car. There’s a leather interior to fit up but engine-wise we can’t decide. Neil and I are big fans of the CVH while Dan is Mr Zetec, but it’s hard to do anything that hasn’t already been done before.
15-05-2007, 03:07 PM
#4
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Originally Posted by Daviet
good resto thread 
why not go for for sumthing different like a new focus st engine in it?
why not go for for sumthing different like a new focus st engine in it?
If we were going down the transplant route, I'd rather stick in a blown Duratec HE.
The trouble is, big-power CVHs are just so rude, you can't help but keep coming back to ’em.
15-05-2007, 03:39 PM
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Duratec turbo its the engine of the moment, may as well be at the fore front of it.
how much of the £4000 budget is left or have you gone over it with the restoration?
car looks sweet anyway
its the engine of the moment, may as well be at the fore front of it.how much of the £4000 budget is left or have you gone over it with the restoration?
car looks sweet anyway
15-05-2007, 05:25 PM
#6
Grey Mk4 Early XR3I
looks stunning now mate
and engine wise why not put a 2wd cossie lump in i know its been done but they just sound so lush and well obviously you then have the "drift" factor which just puts a smile on your face and i especially would love to have a rwd cossie powerd mk 4 escort!
and engine wise why not put a 2wd cossie lump in i know its been done but they just sound so lush and well obviously you then have the "drift" factor which just puts a smile on your face and i especially would love to have a rwd cossie powerd mk 4 escort!
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15-05-2007, 07:54 PM
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It's looking mint now Si 
Did you really give £2600 for it though!
You should have had a look around, I paid £1400 for mine with fsh etc on it, it was mint when I got it, isn't anymore but it was
As for the engine, I personally love how the 1600CVH engines drive, but I'm ditching mine (well it kind of ditched itself) for something a bit more modern.
Go on, chuck a Zetec in it, and I'll organise that Grudge Match at the Pod, or maybe a time attack around a circuit somewhere
Did you really give £2600 for it though!
You should have had a look around, I paid £1400 for mine with fsh etc on it, it was mint when I got it, isn't anymore but it was
As for the engine, I personally love how the 1600CVH engines drive, but I'm ditching mine (well it kind of ditched itself
) for something a bit more modern. Go on, chuck a Zetec in it, and I'll organise that Grudge Match at the Pod, or maybe a time attack around a circuit somewhere
16-05-2007, 08:26 AM
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Originally Posted by Mr Orange
how much of the £4000 budget is left or have you gone over it with the restoration?
Originally Posted by PF NICK
It's looking mint now Si
As for the engine, I personally love how the 1600CVH engines drive, but I'm ditching mine (well it kind of ditched itself) for something a bit more modern.
Go on, chuck a Zetec in it, and I'll organise that Grudge Match at the Pod, or maybe a time attack around a circuit somewhere
As for the engine, I personally love how the 1600CVH engines drive, but I'm ditching mine (well it kind of ditched itself
) for something a bit more modern. Go on, chuck a Zetec in it, and I'll organise that Grudge Match at the Pod, or maybe a time attack around a circuit somewhere
I'll wait for Fudgie to kill the CVH before deciding what to do, but you and I both know that if we go down the Zetec route then every other bugger on here will be playing us off against each other.
17-05-2007, 12:01 PM
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that looks stunning simon, nice wrk mate. Must be good fun modding a car for ya job lol.
i wondered, is there any difference between 88 and 90 spec rear bumpers? i thought they were the same, just the fronts that are different.
i wish i had done a proper resto thread on my radiant red s2 but never mind. Will be sending u pics over when its completely finished, which, by s2 standards these days will probably be never lol
i wondered, is there any difference between 88 and 90 spec rear bumpers? i thought they were the same, just the fronts that are different.
i wish i had done a proper resto thread on my radiant red s2 but never mind. Will be sending u pics over when its completely finished, which, by s2 standards these days will probably be never lol
17-05-2007, 12:27 PM
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Originally Posted by EssexMikeSi
i wondered, is there any difference between 88 and 90 spec rear bumpers? i thought they were the same, just the fronts that are different.
Edited to suit.
17-05-2007, 02:44 PM
#21
Grey Mk4 Early XR3I
guys i bet u lot at ff get some serious discounts on ford parts dont ya
ooo and on a brighter note u dont have any photography or editing jobs going do ya? :P
ooo and on a brighter note u dont have any photography or editing jobs going do ya? :P
17-05-2007, 03:06 PM
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Originally Posted by orion_crazy_carl
is it very faded or is just the camara your using?
Dunno why.
20-05-2007, 06:10 PM
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nice car and a good little read. i think the new st engine would be good and very different. why not try a yb but keeping it FWD and using an mtx75 box if one would fit.
20-05-2007, 09:56 PM
#34
why do i ALWAYS get the blame for breaking stuff!
i have only driven the S2 about 5 times!
i fi recall, SI was the one driving it back from bernies with a new box AND clutch, to fry the fucker and it started to slip on boost!
as for the engine, its runing 190bhp at 13psi, so at 18psi it should see around 220+
just crank it upto 30psi and be done with it at 250 lol
that CVH does sen strong, but if it does ever blow then i think a FRS lump would be good
or you can buy my big spec Zetec turbo for lots of cash off me and fit that lol
i have only driven the S2 about 5 times!
i fi recall, SI was the one driving it back from bernies with a new box AND clutch, to fry the fucker and it started to slip on boost!
as for the engine, its runing 190bhp at 13psi, so at 18psi it should see around 220+
just crank it upto 30psi and be done with it at 250 lol
that CVH does sen strong, but if it does ever blow then i think a FRS lump would be good
or you can buy my big spec Zetec turbo for lots of cash off me and fit that lol
21-05-2007, 02:44 PM
#35
Fast Ford snapper
Originally Posted by Simon@FastFord
Originally Posted by orion_crazy_carl
is it very faded or is just the camara your using?
Dunno why.
As for the car, love it.... and keep it CVH, always like to see original engines taken to their limits
21-05-2007, 02:47 PM
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Originally Posted by Ade
Originally Posted by Simon@FastFord
Originally Posted by orion_crazy_carl
is it very faded or is just the camara your using?
Dunno why.
I have to use iPhoto to resize images for the net, as the suits are too tight to license more copies of Photoshop.
iPhoto is shit.
Simon
21-05-2007, 02:54 PM
#37
Fast Ford snapper
Simon I'll include a copy of CS2 when I send my next shoot in 
How about Infranview.....? Sure that's free and does batch resizing, I tried it before, made things a bit pixely but didn't fuck with the colours at least...
How about Infranview.....? Sure that's free and does batch resizing, I tried it before, made things a bit pixely but didn't fuck with the colours at least...
21-05-2007, 02:59 PM
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Originally Posted by Ade
Simon I'll include a copy of CS2 when I send my next shoot in
How about Infranview.....? Sure that's free and does batch resizing, I tried it before, made things a bit pixely but didn't fuck with the colours at least...
How about Infranview.....? Sure that's free and does batch resizing, I tried it before, made things a bit pixely but didn't fuck with the colours at least...
21-05-2007, 03:04 PM
#40
Fast Ford snapper
That's seriously lame 
Pah, bloody suits....
You should have just went with the deliberate cross processed look story! Looks quite funky in some of the pix anyway
Pah, bloody suits.... You should have just went with the deliberate cross processed look story! Looks quite funky in some of the pix anyway
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