The engine spec was chosen pretty early on. I was always happy with my old NMS CVH, and thought about a refresh and abit more power. Karl advised though that at this age the cvh block really is coming to the end of its usable life and only sensible to be used up to 250bhp. Wanting a lot more than that it was clear we needed a different lump. I didn't want a full on 16v turbo for various reasons really and it didn't seem that karl did either. So the ZVH was decided upon. A brand new mk1 FRS crate engine was used so we have a brand new 0 miles block, crank and oil pump etc. Steel pistons and rods have been fitted. My old head is to be used and the only real change there, as it was already heavily modified, is fitting of a newer design valve seat and a newmans cam. My head is an oddball with the oversized followers needed so I had to get newmans to grind up a set of oversized followers to suit and obviously mated to Karls cam spec.

Exhaust manifold has no issues making as much power as these engines can produce so although I had sourced a tubular one that was moved on and the cast unit ceramic coated. Another reason for not using the tubular is that we don't have any room for a turbo over the gearbox as were using the mk2 FRS 6 speed unit which doesn't leave sufficient space for a turbo and plumbing.

Turbo spec is a T38, sometimes frowned upon for lag but in this application with the 8v head providing a good amount of low down torque that lag will be useful to allow the power delivery to be useable and progressive, rather than an all out boost machine.