bradsescort

Hey all, this is my first post over here at this great forum. I live stateside, and as a lot of you know, early 90s here, ford switched over to a mazda chassis and detuned the cvh.

What I'm curious at is the compatibility of valvetrain components over to stateside cvh's. Also I was curious if you guys have a camshaft angle trigger/flipper on the cam for a camshaft positioning sensor, that's teh only problem I see as of now. More specifically the Piper 285T2.. here's an ebay auction I've been watching and asking some Q's there.

I currently have a RST exhaust manifold and garrett t3 that I'm setting up. Also going with a standalone megasquirt2 box when it comes out to rid of stock ecm ford "detuning for economy" issues, so to put it .

Thanks for any and all info you guys can give me regarding this issue, I will be browsing this site more and more and it seems like a great place to be for me, since I am trying to get as most performance as I can out of the split port induction cvh.

Checkout www.feoa.net if you want to see what we've been doing with our us-spec cvh's and mazda bpt's

-brad

CasperR

Welcome to the site

Just signed up on your forum

Not to sure about your cam question

DazC

iTrader: (1)

Hello and welcome. Another American user.

Have you got any pictures of this split port CVH head?

We didn't have many different head types over here apart from mild changes to the port shapes and a lean burn head wich had a heart shaped combustion chamber. It would be good to see this split port head.

As standard the RS Turbo 1.6 CVH ran on Bosch KE-Jetronic and Ford's own ESC 2 ignition ECU. They used a hall effect sensor in the distributor to trigger the spark rather than a crank and cam position sensor. They then switched to EEC4 management on the Fiesta RS Turbo but I can't remember how, if at all, they monitored the cam position. The later blocks had a crank position sensor below number 4 exhaust port and monitored notches on the flywheel.

I have looked on your cardomain site and noticed a couple of things. The CVH RS Turbo standard turbo has a 0.36 turbine housing and a 0.42 compressor housing. I assume your turbo you have is nopt a standard unit?

Also the Cosworth YB engine has no similarities with the CVH at all. It is a Pinto block which is a 2 litre variant of what I believe is the Lima engine in the XR4Ti's. The head casting is one on it's own. The 16 valve Zetec is very similar the the CVH however.

There are countless topics on here related to the RS Turbo CVH. People on here have a lot of experience with them and convert them from Bosch KE-jet to Autronic and various other engine management systems. The RS engine is only a 1.6 litre engine but has been known to produce over 300bhp using steel internals. Some people use the 1.9 engine and others use the Zetec block and modify it to fit the 8 valve CVH head and make a 2.1 litre engine. Others just build a complete 2.1 litre full Zetec turbo.

bradsescort

Heres a pic of the head on the bottom, and the SPI IMRC controller on the top. Idea here is to iscolate the torque and hp powerbands hence enhancing them, which it does quite well. The backward's D shaped ports are kept open for lowend torque while the circular ports arent open (the imrc unit on top has a rod type actuator with butterfly valves here) these arent opened till about 3500-4000rpms but we vary opening them due to different setups.. also checkout one of my buddies sites www.cardomain.com/id/jeffescortlx he's done a lot with the cvh stateside in the 2nd gen us-spec scorts, right now he has a 1.9block mated to a 2.0 head (since he blew the block :-x) running 20psi on a hybrid ihi.. sorry to make this sort but this is what I got right now, I'll be back in a lil' while got to run, thanks for the info. Anyone overthere successfully mate a getragg quaffe german mtx75 6speed to a cvh/zvh setup? I'm thinking about doing this.. focus svt's here have them equipped fwd and i hear it's a solid addition to the mtx75 family..

bradsescort

Checkout www.cardomain.com/id/jeffescortlx/3 and other pages on his site for more info, he has a lot of it. The intake and exhaust valves from the 1.9sefi -> 2.0 cvh was a BIG increase in size, as well as a more hemispherical combustion chamber (similar to the true hemi shape of the 1.9ho cvh stateside)

That's good to hear. Our 2nd gen and onward escorts (on the mazda protege chassis) utilise the eec4 technology with the maf, crankshaft positioning sensor (located on the block, magnetic pickup off of the harmonic balancer [accessory belt pulley]), camshaft positioning sensor (this reads somewhere after the #4 intake/exhaust on the camshaft, and i believe ford fitted it where the oldsetup fuel pump drive was located, i believe it is also a magnetic pickup, not too sure), o2, etc.

You are correct. I believe my turbo was off a mid 80s volvo, and was rebuit. It's in pretty good condition and I don't believe it needs a rebuild. The specs of it are perfect I think for starting off and then some as well.

I have a question for you guys that has been floating around on feoa, were the t3's that came with the rst's offset on the turbine flange meaning making the turbo sit level? Or was it left at a slight angle? Lot of guys over there say that's a disadvantage causing earlylife shaftplay issues, but I don't buy it.

Yea you're right, but I just had to throw that up on the cardomain because they do resemble each other, but don't all blocks typically? I got a little carried away with my new friend cardomain, gunho heh

I've heard a lot about the ZVH varients as well. Sounds like you guys are there with the ingenuity aspect of things Hopefully I can leech a lot of info from ya's more down the road So you guys import the 1.9 block from the us? you guys should also have a look at the spi.. it is truely an upgrade over the 1.9 both in headflow design and the lowerend.

DazC

iTrader: (1)

I understand what you say about the heads now. I have seen them before. I take it that there is another throttle body as well as those individual port flaps? I can't be too sure but I think Karl on here who is an engine designer by trade has studied the heads but I can't recall the outcome of his findings.

An engine builder over here imports them or at least has a source who imports them but I am not sure if they import the head a swell. I think it was just a short motor they imported.

With forced induction though, the capacity isn't the restriction on power as the turbo compensates for the lack of capacity. The advantage of a larger capacity engine is the ability to spool up a larger turbo lower down in the rev range due to the larger gas displacement.

I personally have stuck with the 1600 CVH as they rev a little better than the longer stroke engines, producing more power higher up the rev range when the other engines start to die off. It helps with traction with the cars only being front wheel drive.

A few people over here have managed to fit the MTX75 5 speed box into our European Escorts but I don't know about the US Escort or the 6 speed box. We have the luxury of being able to fit the Quaife ATB diffs in our origional boxes which is what I have done. The car now drags you round corners, makes it a lot more interesting to drive.

ON-UJAH

Fiesta Turbo Ford EEC-4 is wasted spark, there is no cam sensor. The only sensor is on the flywheel, similar to a Zetec. People have been known to mod a CVH camshaft to run a sensor, but this is a specialist job.

DazC

iTrader: (1)

It will be something I will have to over come myself as I need cam position sensing with the management I am using.

bradsescort

Yep sure is. notice the intake manifold, and where the injectors and fuel rail are that's the intake manifold runner control assembly. also notice that is the exp/egt turbo stateside log (two runners inside) ihi manifold

Here's a shot at the SPI on a stand. Notice the oil filter placement on the oil pump housing (backside)


Here is a nonintercooled rst manifold w/ t3 on a 1.9sefi




That makes a lot of sense, in fact, a boosted spi has a powerband up to 6250ish rpm but it depends of course. I was looking at some of the solid lifter kits available and found this, any of you guys have these installed? How about in unisen with double valve springs? http://ferriday.co.uk/performance/solid_lifters.htm

That sounds inspiring about the diff interchangability. Which gearbox came stock in the rst's? Yeah, I've found a ford escort zx2 guy over here successfully transplant a mtx75 5speed from a focus zx3, and the zx2 being built from the same platform (mazda bg chassis, protege, 323 familia) It would be mimicable to the 2nd gen us-spec's. I hear he had to have the zx3 block and oil pan for it to boltup appropriately, modified tranny mounts, modify the car to use the cable-shift mechanism as well as different clutch slave operation, mix-matched axles and a few little things here and there as well as engine mount. Since I've heard of 5spd folks swap to the svt 6spd, and the svt engine being a built 10.2ish:1 cr zetec engine basically, the bolt patterns should be the same. It'll be something for me to dig into once I torque out the mazda m5 gearbox.
Here's a gearratio listing of our box that i cut from a powertrain .pdf, FS was the fuel saver ratioed tranny. The egt and zx2,spi use the model g m5 where the 1.9 has the model f, just to sorta show what we have over here (limitations)
Also in this pic, don't let the bellhousing boltup pattern (mainly the top two bolthole distances not being a length of ~5.2" fool you. That drawnig schematics is from the mazda 1.8l bp engine's tranny bellhousing.)

You guys have any pics laying around of the valvetrain by any chance? Also how about any other misc. stuff associated with what I'm looking for. Thanks a lot

brad

jeffescortlx

That red Escort is beautiful.

I tried to tell him that to. lol

DazC

iTrader: (1)

I'll reply later on. Just need to go and see a man about an engine rebuild.

Rick

What's an Spi then? Capacity? Guess it's still a nasty long stroke unit?

Rick

Just had a look at those sites.

So, from what i can see, the Spi is a derivative of the CVH, and is still being used? The CVH was discontinued a while ago here. What is the bore and stroke compared to the 1.6? I wont use the 1.9 as it is simply longer stroke, and offers no more breathing potential - the factor that limits power on turbo'd engines.

Does a normal CVH head fit onto the spi?

ON-UJAH

This is a modded double valve spring setup:

DazC

iTrader: (1)

Yes, apart from they both have 4 cylinders with a cast iron block and a cast aluminium head the similarities end there!

The Zetec and CVH share the same bellhousing bolt pattern. I assume the boxes should just bolt straight up to the block. Obviously we can't comment on the mounting and drive shafts/gear linkages as the US Escort is completely different in almost every way to our European cars. As long as the SVT Focus has a Zetec and not a Duratec engine then it should bolt to the engine with no problem. The Duratec has a Mazda bolt pattern. European Focus/Foci use bothe Duratec and Zetec.The newer cars use the Duratec.

Your SPI heads use a different rocker cover to our units. Ours have 9 bolts round the edge of the cover an bolt down to the head instead of the 3 central bolts on your pictures.

We have CVH's that don't produce peak power until after 7000 rpm. One of our tuners has produced a high power unit which revs over 8000 rpm.

Why is there no intercooler on the red car? It would benefit from one.

JesseT

Don't worry about the cam if you're running MS 1/2.

bradsescort

Well, what I can say about that if you guys imported a spi head, you would also need the intake and tb setup, which would then force you to reroute the intake as well as the throttle cable. You could probably use it on a 2.0zetec block. I would say it would be worth it tho. What type of electronic stuff do you guys have on your engine harness for the tb? tps, iac.. etc? How about yoru fuel rail? FPR? 1/2" fuel line in and 3/8" ish fuel line out to the tank?

Man that's some impressive stuff. Thing about it with me and countless other spi owners, we're going to be looking for upgraded internals. They pretty streetable?

He has one, you can see some of the intercooler piping in front of the rad support.

That's it for me tonight. Been a long weekend, talk to you guys tomorrow probably when I'm more sober/awake.

DazC

iTrader: (1)

Yes, there would be far more complicated issues than a rocker cover!!!

The reason why your SPI heads probably won't be used here, or at least not unless our heads become thin on the ground, is because once our heads have been ported they flow a serious amount of air and I believe no one has reached the limit of the heads.

We have some pretty trick stuff over here for the CVH. Including a reduced stroke/conrod combination. It reduces the capacity from 1600cc to about 1450cc but allows the engine to rev and rev. This mainly for competition uses though as it is designed to be reved.


My own engine currently uses the standard crank, steel forged H section conrods, Cosworth forged pistons, stainless steel big valve ported head, Kent CVH36 cam.....

I'll post some pictures of the rods and pistons later...

jeffescortlx

The SPI head will fit the normal US 1.9 block, but it does make it low compression and an interferance motor. The regular US 1.9SEFI head may fit the 2.0 SPI block, but there may not be enough valve clearance because of the SPI pop top pistons. The reason no one really know's if the US 1.9 head will work is because it's the worst flowing head the US has ever had on a CVH, so we usally dont bother much with it. But the US SPI head is the best flowing head we have ever had on a CVH, so we like to use that head instead.

The 2.0 SPI was used from 1997-03 or 04. Now the CVH is discontinued.

The US 1.9 and 2.0 CVH make all of there power down low in the power band, mine makes most of it's power at around 3000-4500 RPM's, it feel's like a torqy V8. But my small turbo may be the reason for that.


There is.

bradsescort

What was the displacement and bore sizes of the yb engines? Were the pistons a direct swap to your 1.6l bore size or did you have to increase the block bore?

Got any good shots of the cvh36 kent cam? You guys utilise hydrolic lifters or solid lifters, or swap over to solid lifter setup? How about applications where you had to modify the cvh36 to use a camshaft positioning sensor? Do you think kent, piper, or any other cvh camshaft producer will custom make one with this cps?

pulled from feoa:
Our SPI intake valves are 44.14mm in diameter, where the exhaust valves are 36.98mm. The 1st gen escort's 1.9 ho (similar layout to your rs series 2) has 41.96mm intake and 37.06mm exhaust.

DazC

iTrader: (1)

The pistons in my car are made by Cosworth for the CVH, they are not YB pistons. They still needed machining to obtain the correct compression ratio for the spec we are going for.

I don't really have any pictures of the CVH36 and I don't know if they will machine one with a CPS sensor pick up. They use blank cams which don't have the pick up but have a circular lobe on the end which was used to drive a lift pump for the carb fed CVH's so it could be possible.... Try sending them all an e-mail, see what they come back with...

Here is one of our suppliers which has a large stock of performance Ford parts including a lot for the YB which you keep mentioning! Have a look round the site.

https://www.burtonpower.com/default.aspx

DazC

iTrader: (1)

Here is a couple of pictures of my engine......






This is the bore/stroke info as the engine is...

Engine measurements after machine work:
Bore 81.020mm
Stroke 79.6mm

Swept volume: 410.3808cc

Clearance volume on all 4 cylinders is: 63cc

bradsescort

That head is clean.

Thanks for the site as well!

Here is what I know about the 2.0l SPI's dimensions

Cylinder Bore: 84.8106mm (3.339inches)
Crankshaft Stroke: 88.011mm (3.465inches)
Connecting Rod Length: 131.9403mm (5.1945inches)
Valve Diameters (Int/Exh): 44.1452mm (1.738inches) / 36.9824mm (1.456inches)

I'm curious (guess any general engine builder would know this) if I used the yb 2.0 connecting rods in my 2.0 spi, would i certainly have to get taller pistons to keep my cr roughly the same since it seems the stroke is less? Also, where the conrod connects to the crank, that hole, is the diameter generally the same with cvh's, pinto sohc and yb's?

DazC

iTrader: (1)

YB rods are completely different length, diameter of the little end and diameter of the big end and larger.

Near impossible to fit because they only fit a YB crank. 99% of parts on the YB are unique to the YB. The only engine some of the bits will fit is the 2 litre Pinto.

It would make much more sense to have some new rods machined.

bradsescort

i was curious what's the most boost or hp/tq you guys have produced using the erst exh. manifold

there has yet to be a person in the usa (that i know of) to complete the combustion chamber on our us-spec cvh's.. they are setup from the factory with the lean-burn setup, looks like a D
this picture illustrates the D shaped, lean-burn cc better (also has an intake valve seat drop issue, but alas just look at the cc shape


With the 1.9 block and 2.0spi head, running 18psi on a vj11 hybrid, with no engine management just fuel upgrades, with the leanburn cc we have seen 212whp and 263ftlbs with stock, restrictive 1 7/8" exhaust as well.. (well, jeff did )

Here's a shot of our pistons

I think they will do fine.. once we release more power-compression to the part of the piston that is hidden from the added alluminum in the head (or alluminum that wasnt milled out when they designed it) it should produce considerably more power.. which is the reasoning why I think we havent seen much better numbers with our stroked-stock setup, bigger displacement.. what do you guys think

this is your head setup (well, DazC's )


Here's another shot of our head (this one is the 2.0spi combustion chamber)


Thanks to Jeff for illustrations

bradsescort

Also wanted to show some other things... here is an adjustable camgear BDR makes here stateside.. allows +/- 10°


Here are double valve springs (from a 2.3L thunderbird turbocoupe) on a 1.9sefi head


Here is a better shot of our CC's.. except this is the 1.9sefi head


Thanks to PonyExpress for the pics here..

DazC

iTrader: (1)

Our lean burn head have a continuation on the flat bit of the 'D' to create a 'heart shape'. I am not sure this is a restriction to be honest but any thin or sharp edges need to be removed to reduce rick of detonation....the only advantage of having the smaller combustion chamber from what I can tell, is it creates a 'squish' area (the flat bit on the 'D')to move the air/fuel mix closer to the spark plug. We generally run a lower compression ratio and wind the ignition advance up with more boost so the engine runs cooler. The only disadvantage of this is the slight loss of off boost drivability as there is a small torque defecit. Once it'son boost, it's a different story. All the RS Turbo heads where a complete circular dome type (same as mine) and not the lean burn. This obviously drops the compression ratio as a big lump of metal is missing compared to the lean burn. Standard RST compression ratio is 8.3:1. My own car is 7.5:1.

I believe the lean burn heads have also been used to create some decent power but I don't know who's cars they are on....

If I recall correctly, the most we have seen using a standard (except a bit of manifold to head port matching) RST exhaust manifold is around 315-330 bhp at the wheels from the 1600cc engine. This was not using a T3 turbo though (a T03/4 was used).

bradsescort

Thanks for the info Daz.

Have any of you successfully converted a lean-burn head to a full, hemispherical cc?

Also, any other 'good to know' info, as far as pro's and con's go for both a hemispherical setup and a lean burn (whether heart or D) in the respects to functionality. Seems if you remove the specific alluminum in a lean-burn head to make it a full hemisphere, it would nolonger limit the force applied to the piston and flow considerably more.. I imagine this will open a lot of doors for us.

Thanks goes to you guys over there 10fold.

Brad

DazC

iTrader: (1)

I don't think anyone has ever converted the lean burn to hemi to be honest. I know the hemi head doesn't seem to have any problems until around the 220bhp mark and then they need to be ported. After porting, the heads are not restrictive at all. If you are having problems with the lean burn head then it could be a worth while approach in having the head milled out to a hemi. It's just finding someone who can accurately do the job. It might be worth while trying the machining on a scrap or second hand head before butchering a perfectly good head incase it all turns to shit.

One tuner here used to be an engine designer by trade and has commented that once the CVH has been uprated with a steel bottom end set up and massively modified valve train allowing it to rev hard, power outputs of over 400bhp and maybe even 500bhp are possible.

bradsescort

We are having a lot of flow issues with our heads stateside, especially the upper RPM powerbands; I take the approach that Ford created the CVH setup with the learnburn like that here in the states, which accounts for such whicked torque to horsepower ratios and the good gas milage, where they have seen over 40mpg here. I believe this is the key to unlock the power, and allow it to flow even more. I'm still contemplating getting some form of valve grind, though I will have it ported and port-matched.

I have an extra lean-burn head, a 1.9sefi that I think will be the guiney pig in this. Don't know which method of testing I will take, though. Seems to be a tricky machine job to finish the combustion chamber in it's orb-state, if you will.

I can understand once the true-hemisphere chamber is completed with porting work done how it can flow some serious air, just by a fluid dynamics approach (each of the four cylinders capped off at the top with a perfect (well relative) half-circular sphere, which has no rigidness to worry about on the compression stroke (maybe slight where the valves are, etc).

I'm pretty certain this is the route to take. Hopefully I will be making the power in a year or two to RWD it; thinking T56 (bolts right up to the CVH, if I recall correctly two boltholes vary..).

Checkout my cardomain, updated.

bradsescort

Should be done within the next couple weeks and I will make sure I let you guys know how it goes.

Brad

DazC

iTrader: (1)

Here are all the pictures of my head showin the combustion chamber...they may help you.

bradsescort

Thank-you DazC. You are the main guy making this possible for me. With all your info. Your time put in to this thread will see rewards when I post pics of the first hemi 2.0spi.

DazC

iTrader: (1)

Keep us informed!

bradsescort

I also can't get over how seckzie those stanless steel valves are.

On another note for future reference as a possible swap, what size valves are you rockin? What's the max aftermarket sized ones you guys have other there. I crave some stainless steel ones myself

ON-UJAH

Dave at Puma Race Engines fits 45mm intake valves. His opinion is that the evhaust valves are plenty big enough. He also fits different guides and seals as you can see in the pics of my head above. Bigger than 45mm is not going to fit and be safe.

For a european CVH to really rev, the valvetrain needs sorting out. There used to be roller rocker kits on the market, and if there is enought interest they might be persuaded to do another run.

Solid lifter cam kits are available, from Mike at Ferriday Engineering for example.

DazC

iTrader: (1)

All in that link mate.

I think they are smaller than the largest of your ordinary valves but still flow massive amounts of air.

I don't know who actually makes the valves but Burtons are not really cheap.....

bradsescort

It turns out working over a leanburn cc to the hemi will cost me a handfull that I could've spent somewhere else guys; talking in the $1k range just for this precision job on the curvature and all.

Now onward to plan B; the 1st gen escorts over here with the HO series cvh motor was a 1.9L hemi combustion chamber. I don't believe this will be too far off internally with the piston squish and all, and any numbers off say CR can be tweaked with elsewhere.

I can get one built up with a 3angle valve grind, probably 15 45 30 degree, which will help with the flow. If I'm not mistaken, the 1.9L hemi's valves aren't too far off in size from the SPIs, which was one of the main things that concerned me. I should be able to bolt in my camshaft positioning sensor in the 1.9L hemi head (the 1st gens didnt have this angle pickup, located where the mechanical fuel pump drive was located, past cyl4 stuff on the head)

I can grab 2.3L double valve springs for cheap and integrate them; the only thing is, I do not know which cam profile I should run with. I am probably thinking of having a cvh35 grind shipped over since I think this will be the closest match to my setup, since the majority of the cam grinds over here (crane, comp, etc) are based around the lean-burn architecture.

The 2.0L SPI cvh has twice the counterweights on the crankshaft than the 1.9L SEFI. I mostlikely can have some of the weight taken off to keep some of the reciprocating mass of the heavier crank and bring out some revablility, then have it balanced.

I can have custom forged pistons made around some type of h-section conrod which we're still trying to workout.

Thanks for the help!
-brad