Ive built the bottom end of my silvertop zetec turbo for my series 2 escort.

1mm oversized forged pistons
Steel Rods
ARP bolts
New oil and water pumps
New shells, gaskets ect

I have a stage 3 T3 turbo on the CVH manifold, Rover TomCat Turbo inlet manifold, Pace intercooler, alloy rad, omex 600 ecu.

Now that its come to the head, what do you guys recomend i do? I was going to leave it standard apart from port and polish and flow the manifold adaptor plates to suit. (alloy weld and grind out) then fit uprated valve springs.

With the parts i already have, i was hoping to achieve around 300bhp?

I also have a mk1 Focus RS gearbox already mounted on the old zetec in the car. With custom shafts. Just got to convert it to hydraulic.

Any help would be much apritiated!

Cheers, Tom.

 

a standard head is good for 300bhp and the only thing it will need are uprated valve springs, you can get some from ian howell at area six,

 

Cheers mate, il give him a call.

 

dont mess with the head mate as said above good for 300 plus bhp, most gains are in the valve throats, ian will sort you out some springs, can put shims under exhaust side too, just in case you go for more later on. why you running a cvh mani?" lots of cheap focus rs ones about cheap now?

 

standard heads with uprated valve springs 106gti ones can be used for upto 300-350bhp, some talk about standard heads taking 500horses plus out there.
forget the cvh manifold, modify a nissan 200sx onto a new flange, much better for flow.

 

Oh cheers, il look into that! Also, could i use my t3 from my cvh manifold on a focus rs manifold then?

 

Has anyone fitted the 106gti valve springs on here yet?
I just wanted to know the limilts of them.

 

you could with a adaptor flange, or find a cheap gt25 of the focus too, lovely turbo for 280-300 bhp

 

As said above, the gt25 turbos are a really nice turbo, had one on my mk2 before upgrading it to a gt28 and it drove really nice with the 25on it, came on boost nearly straight away and held the boost well, well worth looking in to if you can find one

 

hi tom, glad to see your getting on with the build! Really want to look at that back suspension mate, could belive the rear springs were held on with electrical tape!

 

Oh cool il look into the focus manifold and turbo then.. Yeah all the old suspension is going in the bin! Avo coilovers and rear antiroll bar is on the list before its on the road!

 

I made 545bhp on std head with 1.8 n/a cams and 106gti springs,

I am on a gt35 turbo tho, and that was at 1.4 bar

When we tried for more boost we got to 1.7 bar and 586 bhp and then that was it,
Valve float and surge,
So thats there limit what i found

 

When you say standard head, I'm guessing it was ported?

 

nope. std valves. std ports,

just had matched inlet and exhaust manifolds,

only mods were 1.8 cams and 106 gti springs (without the shim on exhaust side too)

 

Interesting. Who built this engine? And what dyno was it on? Have you got a graph?

And why no shim on the exhaust side? I know they valve float on the exhaust side but what does this to do help?

 

Ive just bought a mk1 focus rs manifold, turbo and downpipe. 106 springs sound like a good plan then?!

 

i built it, GR performance did my fab work and mapping, dastek rolling road,

the shims pre-load the valve spring so it has more effort to stop valve float,
it is a bodge and the reason i didnt do it..

106 springs work yes,
use 1.8 cams too.. longer duration but not too much lift,
they just work perfectly, and give a massive power band increase over turbo cams

 

Nice power that mate, have you any times from the car? Bet its fun!

 

not at the min mate, when we had valve float and surge issues, i took the head off and decided on more mods...

so picked up a GGR head at good money,
sent it away and having matched ports, and a double vlave spring conversion,

while i am still waiting for that to return i decided on a turbo change, from my GT35 down to a GTX30, will still do same amount of power, just the turbo efficiency range will be greatly increased, also fitted a billet oil pump and hoping to rev it out to 8k rpm


i was booked in at bruntingthorpe for a feature with Performance Ford, but when we got the valve float i was pissed off so, cancleed it,
no point doing testing when i wasnt 100% happy,

but the time i had it on the road at running 1.4 bar and 545bhp, it was mental, suprised... well everything thats on the road lol

 

Look forward to seeing it built back up then. Also your review of the new turbo

 

So my plan is- get some 1.8 zetec cams and 106 gti valve springs. Then il run the focus turbo and manifold to see 300bhp. Il run that this year, then next winter invest in a gt30? turbo on a tubular manifold and bigger injectors for 400bhp+...*Comments on this would be apritiated!

 

glad to hear it! got my 300 bhp focus st up for sale if you know of any1?

 

what gearbox are you using??

 

Mtx with quafe diff from mk1 focus rs

 

in that case yes a GT30 or a GTX28 will make well over 400 bhp, infact probably touch towards 500 if coupled with a nice flowing inlet, and some siemens 83lb injectors

 

that will be a nice set up tom, i would give ian a ring about valve shims too as your in there any way, for another 20 squid its a cheap and useful mod,

 

Thanks for the advise everyone, il keep you all updated!

 

you guys sound like you know what your talking about. I recently purchased a nice little cheap mk1 focus 1.6i 16 zetec and was wondering if any of you have tips on bodystyling for the saloon and what i could do to push a little more out the engine and what would increase the handling. I'm a complete newbie to fords I used to drive a stilo 1.9jtd which was sluggish but torquey whereas this is quite nippy and dont even know what the bhp on it would be.

 

swap the engine mate,
not really much point in "tuning" a 1.6 if i'm honest