Hi Guys, newbie here, hope ya can help.
Long story short, i got a 1.8 zetec escort with dead engine to compete in autocross championship.Bought a so called good engine but after a few months of slow work putting it in and so on, i then found the headgasket has gone, so got the head skimmed and new gasket, oils, etc.
Took it out on saturday and i revs whilst idle all throught the rev range sounding fine, put it in drive and she moves but it very sluggish and will not pull over 45mph, and sounds like a bag of shit.
Dropped the front pipe thugh it might be a blocked cat, nope
Checked plug gaps 1.3mm ok
When i dropped the front pipe to try and allow some flow if cat was blocked a massive sparked jumped from the exhaust manifold into the top of the front pipe when i manually opened the throttle, is this normal, not come across this before.
Also any ideas please im at a loss.