Mk1 Escort - St170 Conversion - To be or not to be..?

[katana]

But surely if you have a leak, you have a leak whatever coolant you have - and to try driving on is folly! I've been there with SWMBO - sprung a rad leak 60 miles from home and even after 6 litres of water added every 20 miles it still cooked the engine 5 miles from home! Stop, park and get it relayed home! If anyone thinks Evans fluid will cure an overheating system they are deluded! Personally I know my Zetec is a 'hot run' designed engine - it is designed to run at 85-95 deg C ie. some 10 degrees hotter than older engines. One thing to also consider is a system can shed heat easier the higher the delta is between ambient air temp and the coolant temp - i'm used to a turbo'd Suzuki bike engine that is solely oil cooled - thick'ish oil running at 100 - 125 degrees C with a cooler approx half the size of my car rad and producing 370hp . . . . . that is a challenge on the cooling front!

[Scortedvan]

Another week and a bit more done. The fuel system is complete now, the nylon braided teflon lines are all in up to the regulator which i have had to put on the o/s inner wing due to the throttle bodies making bulkhead mounting difficult. The outlet from the tank will suffice for now, but i have the technical drawings back for an adaptor, I'm just waiting on making an order as i need to order 10 @25 a go!

The cooling hoses arrived from RF, makes life very simple to be honest as everything just fits. The heater matrix pipes were the only slightly tricky part as where the copper matrix pipes were cut flush with the bulkhead, trying to get the silicone hoses through the bulkhead hole was tight. I ended up slackening the heater box mounts to give a bit of wiggle room. Im just waiting on my radiator which Im having repaired for now - id like a big alloy job but its not immediately required, something for the future once its running.

Decided to order a HPE exhaust manifold and system, it works out cheaper than RF, piper etc and the manifold looks fantastic! Hopefully ill get that in the next few weeks. And then,  i just need the ME221 management, but i suspect i need another pay day to arrive before i can buy that! 
 

In the meantime I’m just tidying up bits under the bonnet and making things as neat as possible. 

[Scortedvan]

Small update on this, again just to keep things recorded as much for myself as anything else!

The throttle bodies are now bolted down hopefully for the foreseeable! I have roughly connected the throttle cable for now, it needs cutting down properly but I just wanted to see where things sat initially. 

I have also sorted the ht leads and coil mounting out. This is one area where as great as RF are, they could probably do with reviewing thier prices a bit. I got an under inlet coil bracket for £20 delivered from D A Engineering, RF are closer to £40 delivered and they are obviously identical. The longer HT leads to suit the new coil are around £80 delivered from RF though which i find hard to swallow. I ended up getting them from MR Retro Leads - £33 delivered. These leads come with the sparkplug boot fitted and 24” of lead, so you can route them however you like. You also get the coilpack boots and terminals so you terminate them yourself once you have cut the lead to your required length. Once the leads were done, a cut a small slot in the Sparkplug cover so, everything looks neat and tidy.

I have also managed to prime the fuel system to check for leaks and ensure the static pressure is correct. Thankfully no leaks were present and i got a nice steady 3.2bar which should suffice. It was really nice to hear the pump run actually, with that and the engine cranking from the key now it feels very close to being complete.

Finally i have just ordered my exhaust - a HPE manifold and HPE full 2.25” system - very pleased! I spoke with James at length and he was really helpful. For those that don't know, the system and manifold are produced by piper and they get really good reviews. The only alternatives are mega bucks for a bespoke systems/TLE/Simpson, or an Ashley which is gramted cheap but will (guarantee) just not fit. That should be with me within the next 2 weeks and I’m really looking forward to fitting it!!

Im hoping to be able to order the me221 management in the next week, so there is a small chance before July is done ill be able to go for a start but we shall see - Im in no rush really. In preperation for that im running in a decent supply to a small fusebox with a main relay for the ECU, and a fuel pump relay. The main relay will just be aux controlled, and the fuel pump relay will be operated by the ECU. 

[katana]

OOOOOH - that exhaust manifold is an exact copy of the 105E Performance manifold that they had Piper make for them. Piper then upped the minimum order numbers which 105E couldn't justify. They are obviously selling them under the HPE 'brand name' - i'd love to know who holds the copyright!

[Scortedvan]

One of the more exciting packages arrived today - the exhaust from HPE/Piper. It took a little under a week to arrive which is pretty good considering everything, and was packaged really well. Ive had the manifold and 2 1/4” system. 
 

I immediately offered the manifold up, as i have been looking at the gap the down pipe has to fit through, and to be honest i couldn't see this bit being straight forward, especially after previously trying an ashley  manifold which (no exaggeration) did not fit anywhere, even the head flange was bent and the holes were out. I neednt have worried though, it fits perfectly! I dont think it could fit any better if it had been made on the car. Its absolutely perfect. And the rest of the system was just as simple, it all just slid together in no time and hung perfectly. You also get a cotton reel mount for the centre pipe which i think mk2s use, for the sake of 1 hole in the rear floor pan i will fit this as it will make the hole thing much sturdier, not that it really needs it. 
 

In other news, the type 9 us filled back up with oil, and ive fitted a new cambelt kit. I dont normally use the locking tools on these and zetecs, but as Ive never heard this engine run i thought id better. It was out, but not by much, and to be fair its easily done on these due to the VVT pulley not locking when there is no oil pressure (so when you tension the belt it pulls the pulley round a touch). 
 

I still dont havey radiator back which is a pain as i could finish the engine bay cometely if i did but there we go! Only big purchase left is the ME221, and if things go well in the next couple of weeks i may be able to get it this month :)

[Scortedvan]

Yet another small update! I'm just working through a few little bits that are outstanding whilst I wait to have enough cash saved to buy the engine management. This time it was the wiring. Firstly where I moved the original fuse box to inside the passenger foot well, there wasn't much spare cable to fit it nicely anywhere, plus it was pretty fragile anyway so I replaced it with a standard blade fuse box. This has enough spare slots to take the output from the fuel pump relay, and also a main relay output to power up the ECU on ignition on. I needed to extend the cables that originally connected to the fuse box in the engine bay, but the rest were ok. I just need to tidy the wiring up to it (still pretty messy in the pics) and fit the cover for it, then find somewhere neat to fit it permanently, initially I'm thinking under the dash out the way. Then the ECU and relays can live there aswell. The wiring to this fuse box I've done exactly as standard with the fuse positions the same as they are in the original fuse box, so the original wiring diagram is still applicable. This means the fuse ratings can be kept the same (the 20A fuses in the pic were all I had at the time so I could test). 

I also got hold of a battery terminal fuse box from a Renault Megane Scenic, so that I can fuse the main power line to the front of the car, and also the independent battery lines (one for the fuel pump relay and one for the main relay). This is really neat and I've been meaning to do it for ages. Its silly there never was a fuse to the front but this was how I bought the car and I never got round to sorting it before.

So I'm very close to the end of the actual work at this stage... i still need my radiator back (6 weeks to swap the inlet and outlet connections over and leak test it!) and then the front of the car can go back together. Then the management fit, should take long as I'm preparing the connections for it in advance, then hopefully start it and go through the preliminary checks and snagging...  and then hopefully I can get it over to NMS for mapping!

[katana]

Don't tuck the fusebox too out of the way - last thing you need beside the road having to stand on your melon to find a popped fuse! Top of footwell, high on inner wing / scuttle - discrete but out of the way?

[Scortedvan]

Yeah, no doubt where ever I put it, it will be easily accessible. Although I should need to look at it far less often than I did with the ceramic fuse box, a ritual on the car used to be to re tension them! Behind the dash is very much 'open plan' in my car so I can get to it fine. Though in general I must admit, I am a sucker for trying so hard to hide things away, I make life more difficult 

 

[Scortedvan]

Well another milestone reached! I managed to to save enough over the last couple of weeks to purchase the Me221 management and st170 harness. It turned up the day after i ordered it and so i went straight out to fit it. I needed to make a couple of alterations to the harness - swap the injector connectors to the denso ones on the hayabusa throttle bodies and fit a new tps connector for the same reason. Otherwise it couldnt be simpler, all the sensor spurs are good lengths so nothings too tight anywhere, and theres loads of spare loom inside the car so the ecu can be mounted almost anywhere. I decided to fit mine on top of the tunnel just under the centre console, mainly because i wanted to save some bother when trying to connect the laptop to it. The rest of the wiring alterations i did the other week meant the supplies, grounds and fuel pump relay trigger line were all ready to connect to the Ecu. As soon as I was finished I turned the ignition and sure enough the fuel pump relay dropped in and the pump primed proving the ecu was powered. Unfortunately the lead i thought i had for connecting the ecu to my laptop has gone walkies so i cant really do much more till a replacement arrives - i dont know wether anythings calibrated and i dont know what basemap (if any, but i suspect some form of zetec as the box it came in is labelled as such) has come preloaded .... but that said i couldnt resist turning the key :) And to my great surprise it started straight up and idled reasonably well!!! I turned it off after a couple of seconds but ..yeah.. big step forward. 

So all thats left now is to get the radiator back (easier said than done) and get it fitted, sort out a proper air filter (I have some pipercross filter socks at the minute but they arent the best fit), get the laptop connected and actually calibrate/check calibration of ect/iat/tps, get a proper basemap loaded and then run it up to temp for leak checks and snagging. From that point, it should be a case of getting it mapped and enjoying it 😎

One slight issue i did find is the ignition supply that someone took to the passenger side and used for the LP pump it used to run, drops out when cranking. Ive used this as the main relay trigger so of course the ecu goes offline when cranking. Easily sorted im sure 👍

[DT36]

I've seen some people run a permanent tail out of their ECU's , so it's located in an easy to access spot.

Looking good by the way.

 

[Scortedvan]

Thanks for the comment! The location of the ecu was something that once again i took longer over than necessary... originally i had intended on doing just as you mention and leaving my lead connected permanently in an accessible spot. But upon receiving it its actually a really nice ‘thing’, so actually i don't mind it being partially visible. Nothings set in stone though, Ive only fixed it and the fuse box with number plate tape for now so it can all be moved if i wish. 
 

I still cant get over the fact it started so easily and ran so well considering I've still not checked anything in the ecu. Also in terms of TB balance, they were noticeably out when I bought them so before fitting I just roughly set them up with a 2mm rod, even that seems pretty good!

[Scortedvan]

Hi all! Pleased to say im almost at the end now with this project in terms of buying and fitting parts. One thing thats been causing an unnecessary amount of grief was my radiator.. which as ive mentioned through the thread has gone awol at the hands of a guy i shouldn't have trusted. So looking for a replacement the obvious choice was one from RF as ive used their hoses but they are insanely expensive. So a but more searching and i found a company called CoolExperts that basically custom make radiators for mk1/2 escorts. Theyre superb, they offer different size cores, with/without fans and fillers, with/without fan switches etc. So i ordered a 55mm core rad, with inlet and outlet on the pass side, with a 10”cutlass fan - £190 delivered! Very pleased with it, and the fit is great considering i don't have the cutout lower panel.

Im yet to fill it with coolant as i still need a length of 8mm hose for the degas pipe but once that arrives i can fill it and run it properly! Im hoping to have it ready for mapping in September so fingers crossed..

 

 

[Huge]

Car looks mint! 🤩 Also good to read about CoolExperts as I’ve been looking at them for ages cos I need a new Rad but I didn’t kno if they were pukka. Oh and one trick I found with my water bottle was to remove it, fill it with a cup of sand, add hot water & shake it like hell, empty out & repeat - bottle will come up like new. Loving this thread keep us updated 👍

[Monza]

That rad looks great....outlets on same side and a fan, delivered for £190. Very reasonable imo

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[Scortedvan]

Hi there, thanks for the kind words! Regarding coolex, i cant recommend them enough. The product ive received is really smart, perhaps one of the welds could be a bit neater but thats being super critical and its not at all visible. Im very pleased with it especially at the price! And well spotted on the washer bottle, every time i look at it i remember it needs sorting and then i promptly forget! Thanks for the tip 👍

[Donka]

Great build and well done as she looks stunning and know what you mean about the cost of the Retroford parts, quality however expensive. Keep the posts coming 

[Huge]

BIG thanks to you scortedvan Re CoolExperts just bought mine & it’s really nice! (Project Daisy)👍

[Scortedvan]

Well, the end of this project is incredibly close now im pleased to say! The expansion tank which was the last part i was waiting for arrived the other day, plus a few clips and bits of hose. This allowed me to finally fill it with coolant and run up to temp. Pleased to say there were no coolant leaks at all, although the system is pretty straight forward and ive not coupled multiple sections of hose together, so the only joins are where each pipe ultimately terminates. 
 

At this point i actually felt pretty nervous, i knew it started but its almost like i was putting off running it up. After multiple checks I put a couple of jerry cans of fuel in the tank, and flicked the key. I had the laptop connected so i could make some aterations and monitor temps etc. The only things i needed to tweak on the base map was the injector flow rate, the base map was set at 300cc/min and this made the thing run mega rich. I took this down to 220cc/min and its much happier, but this will all be set correctly when i take it for mapping. I also dialled the fuel pressure up a bit - ideal is 3bar and mine was closer to 2.5bar when running. Otherwise... happy days! No leaks of any sort, and the fan cut in  at 100c and bought the temp down to 92c where it then dropped back out. I let it cycle like this a few times, and it was perfect (also bare in mind the ambient temp was 32 and i ended up seeing intake temps of around 45+ so it was working hard!).

It was a little lumpy when just off idle and whilst revving and the throttle bodies id only breifly checked by gapping the butterflies so i stuck the balancing kit on and synced them up and this made things even better. 
 

So with confidence at a high i decided to see if it would let me drive it out the garage... and it did 😎 It was also good enough to let me pin it down the road very very briefly! It was fantastic to feel it move itself and even on the base map it just felt very torquey and responsive. And again no issues, everything just worked. So for now, i just need to get it over for mapping and at some point get a proper air filter for it, im using filter socks at the moment but they dont really fit very well.

Hopefully then, the next update will be the rolling road result! As i said at the start of the thread, im not bothered about chasing numbers, but its always nice to see a result. I just want a strong reliable setup. 
 

Thanks everyone for the help, particularly answering my queries at the start of the thread. I could easily have not done this if you hadn’t  offered advice and reassurance  

[katana]

Winner winner - chicken dinner! Its good when things work out. I've had mine started and idling although I think the low end fueling is way to rich but the adjustment processes seem too many and too varied whilst the engine is idling away between 2 and 3000 rpm LOL! And to cap it all the new TPS I got to replace the one that seemed to be faulty rotates opposite direction to the old one! Can fit on other end of shaft but access is non existent - another kick in the nuts!

[Huge]

Well done Scortedvan mate you should be more chuffed than a very chuffed thing 👍 your car is beeeaaauuutiful 😍 make sure you update us on the rolling road.

[Scortedvan]

5 hours ago, katana said:

Winner winner - chicken dinner! Its good when things work out. I've had mine started and idling although I think the low end fueling is way to rich but the adjustment processes seem too many and too varied whilst the engine is idling away between 2 and 3000 rpm LOL! And to cap it all the new TPS I got to replace the one that seemed to be faulty rotates opposite direction to the old one! Can fit on other end of shaft but access is non existent - another kick in the nuts!

Agreed, so far things have gone pretty smoothly .. spooky! Bad news regarding your TPS, always the simple things that put up the biggest fight. Out of interest, what management are you using? Oddly mine also idles around 2k despite no obvious issues - air leaks etc. Im not bothered too much as it runs well despite this and can be easily sorted when i take it for mapping if i haven't sorted it in the before.

2 hours ago, Huge said:

Well done Scortedvan mate you should be more chuffed than a very chuffed thing 👍 your car is beeeaaauuutiful 😍 make sure you update us on the rolling road.

Thank you very much! I am chuffed yes, its turned out as I had hoped it might. I just want to have a proper go in it now!

[katana]

14 hours ago, Scortedvan said:

Agreed, so far things have gone pretty smoothly .. spooky! Bad news regarding your TPS, always the simple things that put up the biggest fight. Out of interest, what management are you using? Oddly mine also idles around 2k despite no obvious issues - air leaks etc. Im not bothered too much as it runs well despite this and can be easily sorted when i take it for mapping if i haven't sorted it in the before.

DTA S60 management - wasn't my first choice but came at right price! The throttles are backed right off so it shouldn't be getting enough air to run but it does. All seals, gaskets and o rings on the induction side are brand new so fairly confident no air leaks but when you do stab the throttles, the response is immediate and electric - a biker mate was most impressed for something that is, as yet, untuned! I'm currently ignoring it during the heatwave - pointless trying to tune an overheated engine using an overheated laptop in the lap of an overheated DIY button pusher LOL!

[Scortedvan]

7 minutes ago, katana said:

DTA S60 management - wasn't my first choice but came at right price! The throttles are backed right off so it shouldn't be getting enough air to run but it does. All seals, gaskets and o rings on the induction side are brand new so fairly confident no air leaks but when you do stab the throttles, the response is immediate and electric - a biker mate was most impressed for something that is, as yet, untuned! I'm currently ignoring it during the heatwave - pointless trying to tune an overheated engine using an overheated laptop in the lap of an overheated DIY button pusher LOL!

Interesting - thats exactly the same as I’m seeing, throttle all the way off and no air leaks that i can see so far (although I am yet to smoke test it), and perfect throttle response etc.  Also when balancing the throttle bodies i was seeing 15in/hg and all identical to each other after setup, so about what i would expect to see. You’ll have to let me know what you find, I was going to drop ME a call to see if they have any recommendations, it would be nice to sort prior to mapping.

 

[Mash]

Cracking job mate, I love it ! I'm in the process of doing the same job with my Mk2 Escort Estate, except I'm also fitting an Rx8 gearbox, which has challenges of it's own 😁

[Scortedvan]

9 hours ago, Mash said:

Cracking job mate, I love it ! I'm in the process of doing the same job with my Mk2 Escort Estate, except I'm also fitting an Rx8 gearbox, which has challenges of it's own 😁

Thank you! I did consider going with an RX8 box, but Ive only done a couple of miles on my type 9 since fully rebuilding it so it seemed silly to replace it in the end. 

Not really much to update on at the minute, I'm booked in for mapping at a place called protune, but the earliest slot they had was October 2nd. Ive not used them before but they were recommended by Motorsport Electronics who supplied the engine management. The guy i spoke to when booking was also really good, pretty much interrogated me about the build and parts used etc, just to make sure there was no obvious reason for time wasted during the booking. He also keeps the cars for a couple of days to make Sure cold starting is setup properly which is good.

I have now sorted the high idle i mentioned above, it just needed some fine tuning of the TPS calibration. Using the auto calibration option in the MEITE software I suspect assumes you are using an IACV, which thus assumes the throttle butterflies are 0% when released, but of course Im not using one, and so at rest the butterflies are slightly open.. this means the auto setup sets ‘slightly open’ as 0% and gives the strange idle. I just set the calibration manually and it idles fine at around 1200rpm, to account for loads being switched on.

I have also sorted the airfilter out now, i wasnt sure what to do and what would look neatest, but in the end went for a generic pipercross filter and custom backplate. It fits really well with the trumpets and gives plenty of breathing space around them.

Lastly whilst waiting for the mapping session i thought id have a look elsewhere on the car. One thing thats always bugged me is the fact that the wheels dont really self centre when driving, due to a touch of negative castor. Also when looking at the front wheels, they always seemed to sit towards the back of the arches. I did a bit of research and it seems that this is not uncommon with lowered cars, and the usual fix is to fit a twin cam ARB and mounting brackets, which pull the TCAs forward and provide some castor, aswell as putting the wheels central! They cam also be shimmed to a degree by fitting shims in front of the TCAs. I ordered a mid priced kit, as I figured this was a but of an experiment and may not work. I then stripped the old ARB off, and found it was knackered! Yet the previous owner had got it powder coated anyway... crazy. So it needs a replacement regardless. The new bar arrived yesterday and it seems ok, the finish on the brackets isnt great so will need touching up, and they also need some manipulation to fit... but they will. 

Oh and i also found a neat little pre filter i can fit in the An-10 connection from the fuel tank to the pump - the original ford in tank filter wont fit where i modified the tank adapter and its bothered me that i had nothing, so quite pleasing to find this. It was around £4 from Torques UK. 

Otherwise now, Im just waiting for October 2nd!