I thought personally the last 1600 efi in the xr3i was 108bhp and apperantely a much more driveable/torquey motor compared to the older mfi variants.
still nowhere near as good as the ST170 for power per litre but the cvh is far from dead and buried as far as being turbo'd goes
i've got a few cvh spares so will probably stay cvh but if your starting a fresh imo Zetec is the way to go cus at least your cams will last more than 5mins for a start