Allo chaps & gals, first time posting here.

I post most of my stuff to a build thread on fiesta-mk1.co.uk, thought I'd share it here. Hi sam.

1978 Mk1 Fiesta Model 950cc 45HP project, swapping in an ST170 with a Escort Mk5 TD / Orion 5 Speed MTX75 gearbox. Will be driven daily. Acquired the car in mid 2019 and drove it for a few months, then my brother put ideas of a Zetec turbo in my head & it wasn't long before I picked up a complete St170 + 6 speed getrag box for £200. First thing we did after getting the car was swap the front suspension out for modified corsa coilovers, quick hit up with the die grinder got them on and modified the top mounts to suit. See pictures.

Started doing my homework on how to approach it all & finally found the gearbox I wanted at the end of 2019. Rebuilt the engine over the last winter and earlier in 2020 I pulled the Valencia engine out to size up the St170. Cut the chassis rails on both sides and reinforced them with 3mm steel plate, made my own mounts with the help of my brother and father. The rubbers for the mounts are from the leaf spring setup on the back of a transit so they are plenty man enough. This was after I modified a existing CVH mount but just didn't like it in the end. Bought brand new Focus driveshafts for use with the gearbox, the half shaft is now mounted on a modified Focus mk2 bracket. Runs true. Making the exhaust manifold right now with the inlet manifold partially cut out of 45mm ally tubing, just needs tigin' together.

Next big hurdle is turning the driveshafts on the new lathe I recently setup, I've got a plan for it. After that its just the usual manifolds, breaks etc.

Engine Management: Motorsport Electronics ME100 / Speeduino. Both will be on a common loom so I can run the ME100 until I've finished writing the cam sensor decoded to run the VVT correctly in the speeduino firmware.

All of the work installing, making/designing, painting is done by myself, my brother & my father. We don't have access to any fancy water/plasma cutters or CNC mills, so my brackets may look a bit rough and ready but when the time comes I'll draw them up and order some proper looking kit to tig up when the time comes to paint the car next year.

Parts list thus far:

• 2.0 St170 Engine 110k Miles
• Escort Mk5/Orion TD MTX75
• 1.8 Zetec Silvertop sump + oil pickup
• MTX Rod Gear remote
• Zx9R Carbs with a preinstalled jet kit
• Zx9R fuel pump
• Mk1 Focus OEM Lightened flywheel
• Mk1 Focus brand new drive shafts
• 230mm clutch kit
• ME100 / Speeduino
• AEM AFR Sensor + gauge
• Brand new zetec waterpump
• Billet reverse waterpump impeller
• 45Amp Denso alternator
• Clutch arm for gearbox (was missing)
• Brand new Airtec Mk2 XR2 Radiator
• 4 pot breaks for the front
• Mk1 Focus rear hubs to attach to the rear axel for disc breaks on the rear
• God knows what else at this point

I only recently got a new camera so the early photos may be lacking in quality, sorry about that. WARNING: HELLA TON O IMAGES AHEAD

 

Wow that's awesome

 

Fantastic work so far. That's going to be great fun to drive. I love how basic the dash looks too. Any plans for the interior? Please don't ruin it by stripping it out and putting massive buckets in.

 

100% stock. Full sleeper spec. Going to get the seats reupholstered, the carpet is the original and cleans up really nicely. I will even be keeping the original dash. I might pull out the stick pattern and replace it with a digital screen to display RPM, temps warnings etc. I do want a radio though thats why the ashtray is pulled out but im going to put something in with a face that doesn't stand out as much when I get round to it.

Stainless steel tubing has arrived, 45mm for the manifold & 2.5" all the way to the back.

 

My son has just modified a standard ST manifold to fit his mk2 Fiesta paying attention to the length of the secondary’s just turning them to the side rather than going forward like in the Focus. These manifold are regarded as the best with most aftermarket ones losing power.

 

Thats exactly what I'm doing, because I have a diesel gearbox the front mounted starter fouls the original St170 manifold. I'm taking an inch and a bit off of the from the head to clear the radiator & going down into a 4 to 1 collector. No space for a 2 - 1 realistically. I will retain all of the original geometry from the ST manifold, just tweaked over to clear my starter.

The engine is mounted quite far forward in order for the MTX75 gearbox to clear the steering rack, while also not having the engine hang out underneath the car. Took a lot of pushing and shoving to find where it would finally live with an acceptable amount of room on all sides, this is also why I sunk the engine into the drivers side chassis rail so that the outer drive shafts would remain almost equal.

 

had no choice but to make a drastically different exhaust, in the future I'll spend the time to make a proper one but this will do for now.



Adjustable clutch on the original clutch cable

carbs mounted on the original ST170 manifold with some modifications. 51mm to 45mm reducers.

Radiator mounted

Header tank located

 

2 week deadline to being on the road. Got my brother to weld up the manifold, the tig is problematic but this is good enough just to get on the road.






2 weeks to go, this all needs doing. Foregoing brake upgrade depending on if I can get them machined in time.

1. Finish exhaust, find a silence that can fit under the car etc.
2. Plug the air balance holes on the carbs (solves an issue with a deadzone at mid-high revs)
3. Throttle cable + choke cable
4. Install the ZX9R bike fuel pump, wire into original loom
5. Combine the ford focus and fiesta drive shafts on the lathe., weld them up
6. Modify the break servo bracket to clear the gearbox when installed
7. Add connectors to engine loom, install the ECU with 12v from the ignition switch.
8. Finish making the header tank, turn fittings on the lathe, weld etc
9. Coolant hoses, measure, cut & install
10. Fire it up, tune carbs roughly.
11. Pull the engine and gearbox out, finish any fabrication that needs doing inside the engine bay.
12. Engine and gearbox back in, final nut and bolt check. Drive it out onto the road and rag the living daylights out of it while also not going too fast on those dinky little xr brakes..

Paint will come when we are less busy, nothing wrong with epoxy primer until then lol

 

Top work mate , what a car love the mk1 fiestas ..keep up the good work I'm following .

 

Brought some wilwood 4 pot powerlite calipers, I'm going to attempt to tackle the brakes in time depends on if the machined parts in time. Using vented XR2 240mm discs for now as at some point im going to put on escortmk5/6 gear in the future or designing the knuckles in cad to suit escort mk5/6 MTX hubs with bigger bearings accordingly. They haven't arrived yet so I cad designed the adaptors from known measurements and have the 3D printer making them now so I can test fit them, before having them machined. Done some math of the PSI required for the brakes, due to limitations on the size diameter of the brake servo I'm going to get a mazda MX5 servo and master cylinder; it should produce sufficient pressure to have a good feeling brake while staying efficient and within the size limitations I have due to the bloody massive MTX box being in the way, 13 degree angle on the whole lot shot keep it out of the way (got the ratio from xr2 inside, numbers check out). Unhappy with the plastic manifold, it dosen't kick up close enough to the engine soon enough so whipping out the ally flange I had as a backup, worked out a way of spacing them, going to make a jig. Ally filler in the gaps and match the ports with the die grinder, then some 20mm straights at the end with a bead of ally around the ends for the original bike rubbers to clap solid too. They are great rubbers so going to use them. Was at a car show in Norwich today, and picked up some handy bits like some more beefy tie bars from another ford to cut the ends off of so I can reuse the original mounting hardware modified. The metal on my original tie rods is really iffy and brittle. Planned out the wiring loom and marked where things have got to go, tested out both of the ECUs I have; electronics side is all good and ready. Engine will be running at the end of the week even if I dont finish the new ally intake manifold, I can still use the plastic setup to my distaste (airfilter doesnt fit due to clearance, fack.)

In the event that I dont get the new brakes ready, I've modified the original servo mounting brackets to sit closer to the bulk at a 12-ish degree angle, this brings the servo backwards and upwards away from the hulking MTX75 box with a satisfactory amount of clearance without modifying the pedal range. Had a quick measure up of the drive shafts and a plan of attack on how to deal with the differing shaft diameters, a simple turn down to match the size of the original shafts to sleeve on a 10 inch tube (so 5 inches of the focus shaft turned down to the diameter of the fiesta shafts) should be more than strong enough for road use. If and when I replace the hubs with MTX spline'd hubs, custom shafts it will be. Mocking up measurements for a custom rollcage that will still allow me to use the back seats and not cut into the dashboard.

Not a lot of pictures as the past days have been lots of measuring, researching & spending money. So here is a picture of the manifold being planned, all of the fiddling about with the servo and master cylinder was a two person all hands job evolving some contortions to get the measurements, checking angles etc.

So I'll cut the straights, tac them together to get the correct separation and then I can adjust the roll/yaw of the runners to line up; flatten the tops and tac the rest in place before blasting it all up. Words cannot describe how awkward these carbs are. I also went and tig'd up the middle (air ballance?) holes on the inlet side of the carbs, sorts out an issue with a dead-ish zone between mid-high revs on zetecs. My brother did the same thing on his 2.1L pinto sierra with good results so I'll do the same.

 

Huh well shit, uhh. Looks like brake upgrade will? Happen? Maybe? Wilwood powerlites. Picked up a brand new old-stock tiebar from a autojumble/carshow in Norwich on the weekend for £7. Made a new nearside tiebar to clear the gearbox completely. Exhaust manifold is finished. I cant get the adaptors machined yet so I'll just DIY them for now, when I move to bigger discs (sierra ones I think, they are at our other workshop). Just some delphi 240mm XR2 vented discs for now.






Primer and some paint later, spent nearly 4 hours cleaning up just this one knuckle and hub. Most of it with a semi-blunt blade and a wirebrush all by hand.

 

Great progress. It’s worthwhile getting the tie bars machined to give extra castor. It pulls the wheel forwards in the arch like the picture and maybe help with your gearbox clearance.

 

As it stands it seems to be working out just fine, I'll write that on the wall of the garage next to the big 'ol todo list in case I do need it. Cheers!

Off-side tie bar all done. Use the threaded end from the new-old stock bar and the original bolt in end. Two into one with a sleeve.
Putting a gusset in on the near-side tie bar just to guarantee it cant budge as there is a lot more leverage on it. Rouge curbs etc.




I got a MX5 master cylinder and servo courtesy of a friend of my brother, its pretty much perfect for the job. I believe its from a 1.6 so not the double servo but I can upgrade to the Mk2 version that was used on the 1.8vvti cars if I need more grunt from the servo. Nice to have an upgrade path.


The uhh crab air holes tig'd. put a bit of filler rod inside and just did a low 65ish amp hit on them.

 

Wicked progress so far mate , love it .. do you an insta or Facebook page to follow .

 

Actually I dont, long story short I work in IT so... yeah I steer clear of "social media", I think my brother puts some photos up on instagram, I'll ask him what is name is on there. I like forums because you will still be able to find info even 15+ years later assuming the site's hosting stays up or gets archived on archive.org. After I get this on the road I have a metric fuck ton of information that I'm going to put on fiesta-st170.com when I get around to building the website. I spent a long time researching old info from the early to mid 2000s to try and work out what I would need to do and found I think it was only one or two images of someone putting a MTX box into a mk1 fes. From what I know I dont think anyone has done a ST170 MTX75 before in a mk1 fessie... now I know why lol.

 

Extra gusset added in on the nearside tie bar at the front as a precaution.


Now onto a very interesting bit, the brake situation. The MX5 servo and master cylinder fit an absolute treat with the perfect amount of travel on the pedal and a 10-20mm gap between the end of the pedal floor in a maximum stompy-stompy pucker factor 9000 moment. It feels good and if I need more assistance for increased pressure I have access to all the modern MX5 goodies for that and they will bolt on.

No modifications to the brake bar were required, just the bracket to clear the gearbox. I'm quite chuffed to bits on this one. Now I can add another vehicle to the list of parts that went into this.




"Looks good, try the pedal", "no fuckin' way", "what?", "its spot on"



Finished mount, going to pop it off and clean it all up + paint tomorrow. Had a crap day at work so time for some stella I think.

 

Had to modify the original hubs to fit the XR2 discs, the discs have a taper leading to the flat face on in the inside. A careful amount of fettle with a file to add that taper to the hubs was done and it fits perfectly. The final radius of the hub was not touched, double checked by fixing a bit of plate to the knuckle and pushed against the outside edge of the disc, span it a full 360 degrees and had no gaps created so it runs true still. Wasnt aware I'd have to do this but I'm happy with the results. I could have put this in the 4 jaw on the lathe but i really dont have the time to sit down and true it all up. Next up over the weekend is the brackets for the calipers & driveshafts. Just no time to get machined ones made so I'm going to push onward. The other knuckle has been stripped down and ready to be painted after attacking it non stop for 3 hours, along with the servo and the servo bracket. First thing ill do tomorrow is strip down the brake bar and prime it for paint.

See the last image, that final lip inside the disc is the taper I was talking about.

 

Well slightly annoyed but I've gotta kick the car out of the garage early right as I was about to start offering the loom up and putting the headlights in. God damm that down pipe is brutal. Planning to run a pair of tubes from the original cradle mounts to act as a skid plate so I dont end up clunking the lump into something. Work really isn't helping as the business I work for has changed hands so now I'm doing overtime all the time. Right on the one god damm week I wanted to spend hashing this out.



Dont think I ever posted this, but I wonder where this came from? Mike got his compound turbo back on the road recently.

 

Did you get any further with this

 

Funny you mention it, I've got the next two weeks off of work. Time to roll it back into the garage and get the bastard thing running.

I've now got access to a freshly refurbished bridgeport milling machine, suddenly a whole lot more is going to change. I can machine my own brake adaptors for the 4 pots and make some lovely brackets when the time comes.

Unrelated, acquired a Mk3 Esocrt 3 Door Estate. Thought some of your might apricate it, it's keep me occupied in the meantime along with other projects.

 

This is such a cool build good job bud

 

Glad your still pushing on with it and like the estate , that colour is ace .

 

-Looks at watch-

 

Hmmm

 

Eventually.

Quick vid.

 

Edit:
VVT doing its thing now, runs more or less spot on with no pops.

 

Chugging along.

 

Chugging alone nicely.
Bit by bit mate.

 

 

Ugly cam cover needs a cleanup.

 

Back on the road

 

Well done.
Just need to keep it “on the road” They are a handful especially if it’s damp.

 

It's really not that bad. The worst offender is the caster angle so it look like some custom top mounts are in order. You'd think torque steer would be a nightmare but after getting the tracking sorted, it just doesn't seem to really happen all that much. Equal length shafts and all that.

I'll give it a couple of weeks before I decide on ordering a Quaife ATB.

 

Have you increased the castor?
My son machined the tie bars to increase it. See the picture the wheel sits well forward in the arch now.