Just wondered if any fords are going to be turning out at all this year, in any of the classes?

Cant the very quick mk2 escorts give it a go?

There must be something out there with a ford badge that wont embarass itself?

 

I think there is an old school ford team seperate from the actual ford team.

 

ye the ford boys need to shape up, i wanted to do the mk3 for this but i cant compeat with all the jap car companys, seems a shame they run the show

 

Chip,
There are loads of old school cars entered, but none of the high powered UK cars are ready or want to do it . I think they just don't want to be shown up by the Jap cars .

Even the Scandinavian cars that expressed an interest won't be ready this year .

The only high calibre car that is ready and is up for it, is Lee's Martini 3dr .

 

Thats a shame if there effectively is never going to be a proper ford prescence there again other than the old skool guys, but glad to hear they are going at least.

I guess the problem is these days:
4wd - will get murdered by the greatly superior evos and scoobies
rwd - will get murdered by the supras and kitcars etc
fwd - will get murdered by the vauxhalls and vw's

So there just arent any fords that are competitive in ANY of the classes any more


Fords used to be a MAJOR part of this event! Sign of the times I guess

 

the retro team will surprise a few jap cars this year,

 

The trouble is Ford have not released a decent performance car since the Escort Cosworth, and a year is a long time in technology let alone 12 ..

Cosworth is no longer really about ultimate performance, it's almost a classic car now ( barring stuff like martin/ porkie/ rainbums car etc) , the limits of the original design are showing and its BIG ŁŁŁ to go beyond the usual 500BHP and half decent suspension will cost 3k at the least.

 

as Will said the cosworth is now more of a classic and the people that do have high spec. cars are probably not daft enough to want or need to trash their car for the sole pleasure of a burberry capped sea of chavs

 

all the top cars are company owned arent they ???

so all the ford owners can compeat with the ŁŁŁŁ that gets thrown at them

 

Stop slagging off Fords chipster!!! you're only fishing for a fight again!

Vauxhalls are shit, the XE and LET are inferior engines to Fords best, the YB...FACT!

a nova might be quicker than an Escort but i know which i'd rather be seen in! (actually scratch that, i wouldn't be seen dead in either )

 

TOTB turned into a commercial event just after the 1st ever run, how can joe blogs be expected to compete at such a high level without company backing, and no company in their right mind is going to plough money into a 14 year (at the youngest) ford to try and compete.
plus its a totally boring event anyway (did that come out loud ?)

 

So true at totb1 we turned up with nothing not even a toolkit my car had never been in a competition before & we had no idea how it would go.
It reached the RWD Drag Final & was beaten by a Supra despite leading cos the clutch cable went on 2nd/3rd change. We beat all the Scoobs on the drag that day yes all of them. Today we would be made to look silly on the drag strip against what are basically competition drag cars.
If there was still a Topspeed event we could still get close to winning it, but there aint. My aim at Fighting Torque is to beat Joel English's totb Topspeed record of 204.9 in the standing mile.

 

the event lost its roots as soon as they realised they had created something that would create them vast amounts of cash imo.

 

Things move on, if the vauxhall lads can still win the FWD class, the ford guys should be able to as well, but I agree the 4wd class is mega competitive now, and ford just dont do any cars or engines that are any good performance wise in 4wd format

 

ford still have an engine in the YB that is capable of the power albeit with a little modification, and they have the 4wd system, just people refuse to pay for it.

 

How many 700bhp+ UK YB's are there realistically? compared to the number of evos?

Sheady seems to turn 700bhp+ evo's pretty reguarly, and has mapped one over 1000bhp
and loads of other companies doing the same im sure.


I really dont think the YB can cut it.

 

lets go back a little and say how many Evo's are in the uk compared to usable cosworth powered cars these days ?

this is where the differance is, we just have to face facts that there just isnt the interest in tuning an old ford these days, bar for the real enthusiasts, then most of them are rallysport enthusiasts, not drag racing enthusiasts.

But another thing you have to look at and consider is the type of person who will be driving a performace car these days such as the Evo/impreza, in my time we had old fords, we did 0-60in 10s if you were very fast and 120 and you where the bollox, and we street raced them everynight, up hill, down dale and got towed home on a regular basis to fix the car at the roadside outside the house for work the next day, we came sideways round everycorner, and did RWD burnout on a regular basis, now,

Your average performance car will run rings round what we had as std, it will drive for you in most cases (ESP/EBD/EBFD/TCS/DSR-need i go on?) so the average performance car driver doesnt actually know how to drive a fast car without driver aids, he prefers to spend more money than we ever had at the likes of MAD tuning his EVO to 5/6/700hp and has a mega sound system looking the bollox on his lowered car and alloy wheels, at this point - fook me he can go rapid in a straighline - VOILA TOTB is his sport.

you get where im coming from here ?

 

Different world these days mate, thats my point, the fords just havent kept up.

Its NOT just about straightlines with the evo's from the likes of MAD though, look at kev atkins with his time attack win last year, thats hardly drag racing!

 

fully agree about that but Kev atkins car is alot of a one off as regards to ratio of road cars vs cars used in competition.

this is a road car website, TOTB was initially setup for road cars from the public, now its disguised drag cars from tuners, please correct me if im worng here.

 

You are correct Mark.

 

You arent wrong at all mate, even 3 or 4 years ago when we first ran Rob's astra there we were standing there watching people pour race fuel into unsilenced monsters running on enormous semi slicks and then antilagging their way off across the pits and were just chuckling to ourselves "oh look, there goes another road car"

Its a serious event, and IMHO to a certain extent is effectively a victim of its own success, winning it carries prestige in the world of fast road cars, therefore tuners are prepared to pay for the priveledge.

FWD class currently is still in the spirit of the event, but give it 2 or 3 more years and it wont be IMHO

 

The way I see it is, if someone is prepared to pump as much money into a Cosworth as the top spec Evo's and Scoobs, then the Cosworth will be up there with them. Just no one is prepared to spend.

The suspension has to be one of the most outdated parts of the car that needs massively improving on to start with. Thats a fair few quid up the shitter......

Then for the 4x4 cars you need something like an FFD dogger and diffs the size of my cock to take the power. Again, mega money to someone trying to run a Cossie on 18 grand a year whilst paying a mortgage....

 

Daz, we dont use small diffs mate

 

been there got that bit sorted

 

LOL!! I knew something like that was coming!!

 

One of the best bits about your car is this fact mate. My own car has a very similar set up fitted to it and has for a while. Shame the owner can't go around corners as fast as the car car now!!

 

Thats the thing though. Before you even start looking at anything over 400BHP on a 4x4 cossie, you need at least 5-6k in the transmission before you even think about using it hard, and as I'm sure tim/mark etc will say 5-6k in transmission is not a lot really, and serious kit costs serious money , look at yum, huge engine, but the transmission is light years behind it , the MT75 and the upgrades for it are still limited by the original design.

EVO's etc dont have to worry about much under 500 BHP.

 

Would cost MORE money to match the faster scoobs and evo's IMHO as you are starting from so much worse a position.

 

Quite possibly. Without knowing what the equivelant Evo or Scoob cost, we have no idea.

With some of these entrants spending mortgage figures on their cars though, I'm pretty sure someone could get a cossie somewhere in the ball park...

 

do you fancy the challenge ?

you go to mitsubishi and take you 30k and i will build my escort with a 30k budget - what do you think in realistic terms ? (a serious question - not the challenge)

 

You are asking me if a 30K standard new car will match a 30K modified old car?

Of course not.

But buy a 10K evo as a starting point and spend the right 20K on it and I think it will beat your escort at a TOTB type event where power (and the transmission to handle it) is so important.

 

i would like to see it for my eyes, for 30k you get a pukka escort with pukka transmission as well, i think the problem with the cosworth world of tuning is that, yes it came from ford with shit transmission, where as the evos etc doesnt, the new age technology shows with age of the vehicle, so your average street guy goes to tuner xyz and spends 10k on a 600hp engine and puts it straight into a complete peice of shit, where as your evo chap spends his 10k and puts it into a half decent transmissioned chassis to begin with, we only have to look at the recent times set down by Harvey's escort, do you think that would be hampered by an Evo ? i dont think and evo would stand a chance with a good driver in the escort.

 

Nail, head.

 

You are aware that simon norris's evo is doing 0-150 in about 10 seconds where as harveys escort takes about 15 seconds?

 

no i am not, but im still talkin an average budget as well, not above average for a modified bodyshell as well.

and still pound for pond the ford is a better option, how much has the norris evo got in it then - just a rough guess ?

 

over 120k at least is the last figure I heard bandied about....

 

Talk shit central by the looks of it.

 

Mines probably the only one..... That's not currently broken

 

We will see