Hi All,

I am thinking of trying to fit a ST170 engine into a MK3 Escort. In N/A form rather than turbo'd

My first question is, does anyone know any companies that supply a 'hardware' kit to fit it, like custom engine mounts, and exhaust manifold adapter? Maybe loom, and engine management with suitable base map? I think the MK1 & MK2 Escort guys have this sort of thing, but it does not appear like it has filtered though to us FWD 80s cars yet.

Second question, there was a thread some years ago detailing a N/A ST170 into a MK3 XR3i from memory, I cannot for the life of me find it. Anyone got any ideas where it went?

Third question, will my BC 5 speed gearbox (RS1600i G/B) mount right up to it with an S2 standard clutch?

I found this thread which is useful:-

https://passionford.com/forum/ford-e...onversion.html

But there is probably not enough detail to convince my dad to help me!

Any pointers would be gratefully received, thanks

Adrian

 

a chap not far from me bought a engine off me a few months back and has it running in his mk1 orion and is using the original 170 ecu +wiring loom too so I know it can be done

 

Thanks for the reply.

It is definitely possible, it is just whether that left hand side, inner wing engine mount has to be fitted or not. That for me would be a deal breaker as I do not want to modify the cars shell so it can be put back to standard easily..

 

I will ask him as I sell 170 engines all the time to people doing these conversions in their different cars and his mk1 orion is basically a mk3 escort so should be the same

 

Thanks I appreciate it,

 

If you use a modified cvh engine mount on the engine it pretty much drops straight in & bolts straight up.
One thing you may want to look at as well whilst your planning things is swapping the gearbox to a rear starter ib5, you can use the standard gearbox but with the 170 running a rear starter as standard you need to attack the sump with the grinder to create space for the starter to be mounted on the front so we found it was neater to use rear starter box.

Mark.

 

I run an ST170 lump in my mk4 Escort.

Rear engine mount is a modified cvh one. Bolts straight up to a cvh box which sorts other mounts (I'm using an RST box with LSD).

Exhaust manifold - the standard st170 one is actually pretty good but a Zetec one fits, so if you can get a 4 branch then I would recommend it. I use an Ashley 4 branch that was originally on a Zetec.

I'm sure a company called Chester Sports Cars do a kit to run the st and Zetec engine on bike carbs? A friend bought the kit to put in his Zetec powered XR2 and it was very comprehensive.

A quick pic of mine

 

If you can get the inlet manifold to fit and you run the oem sensors then you can use the oem ecu.

The oem ecu can be had for Ł10 and up.

 

How do these perform in the mk3/4

I should imagine without 1300 kilos of Focus to move and not going through the long ratio 6speed box then it would actually be quite quick

 

Mine is a very fast little car and you are right, comes down to power to weight ratio. Last rolling road showed 193bhp and have managed a 13.7 on the quarter mile. Never put it against it, but would murder my stage 3 Cosworth up to 100mph or so.

Before I had the ST170 lump, I ran a healthy 2.0 Zetec with all the 130ps management and it was a flying machine. The Zetec really suits the mk4 shell if you ask me!

 

A big thank you for all the replies - greatly appreciated

 

Great, thanks for that, and funny enough when googling 'St170 into MK3/4 yours came up!!' - so I really appreciate the reassurance

 

That looks superb! And actually running standard management and setup is a good idea as all those thousand of man hours Ford put in perfecting the VVTI and general map are not waisted..

 

The standard management is cheap and cheerfull. It will start and stop and pass an mot and did I mention it's CHEAP.

You can get lots more power with aftermarket management but it is anything but cheap.

 

I am really interested in doing this on my MK3 but the wiring side of it is stopping me from doing it. I mean do I use the original fuse box, ECU? I can build engines no probs but the wiring looks too complicated to me