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Yellow Track Mk2 Fiesta XR2 Project

Robert Saunders

Author: Robert Saunders | Photographer: Robert Saunders

An empty garage

This afternoon the car was towed to Field motorsport for Tommy to setup on Tuesday, after the easter weekend. This is the first time in 3 yrs the car's been away from home, and I must admit im just a bit worried that it will be ok!

He's promised me he will look after it though. But im looking forward to a phone call next week hopefully saying it's all up and running and to come a pick it up.

While the car is out of the garage I'm going to re-paint the floor, so it's got a nice clean dust free surface to come back to.

Spraco Competition seats and a adjustable strut brace

No turquoise rockercover for me (Field Motorsports signature colour), it wouldn't go with the yellow and black colour scheme.

There are some excellent mk1 & 2 Fiesta's being built this year. In all my year's of being into mk2's (15yrs now), I've not known a year were so many excellent project's are going to be finished. This year's show season is hopefully going to be a good one.

Thought I would post up a couple of picture's of the latest Sparco competition seat that I just bought for the XR2.

Sparco competition bucket seat Sparco seat for Ford Fiesta XR2

Modified the alloy block's that were fitted to the seat when it arrived, and now the mk2 Fiesta seat runner bolt's to the bottom.

I also got my order of black anodised alloy socket bolt's thru from Tek hardware who sell on Ebay.

black anodised bolts

These are for the rocker cover, and area's like the bonnet catch plate etc. Nice item's and weigh bugger all compared to the stainless bolt's that I had already fitted.

I've also been modifying a Mk3/4 Escort adjustable front strut brace to fit the XR2.

Mk4 Escort strut brace modified to fit Mk2 Fiesta adjustable Mk4 Escort front strut brace

Has gone on with hardly any modification's which has suprised me, as I thought the Escort was quite a bit wider then the fiesta. All I needed to do was remove one of the small securing tube's on the end of the center section, turn it around and weld it back on in the correct position for my engine layout. The center section comes nicely between the back of the weber 45's and the rocker cover.

Picture to follow once it's been powder coated in semi-gloss black, and bolted into position.

That's about it for now, until the car is back from getting the engine setup.

Automatic Crank Position Sensor troubles

Well in about a hour's time im popping back to Field motorsport to bring my XR2 home, but im afraid it's not all good new's.

I was told to phone today in the afternoon to see if it would be ready for me to collect tuesday morning. But first thing this morning I get a phone call from them.

Conversations goes some thing like this;

Field " Hello Rob, how are you"
Me "Fine thank's, yourself. Is the car finished already?"
Field "mmmmm, no weve got a problem."
Me "Oh, what's wrong ( in my head im thinking oh fook!!)"
Field "We cant seem to get a signal from the crank position sensor? We spent all day saturday on it trying different thing's. We even tried another full management system on it as we thought your's may of been faulty. But it's the same? Have you got the correct fly wheel in the gearbox?
Me " Yeah i've got the correct one with the cutout's on the back for the sensor"
Field "Oh, that's strange. Hang on Tommy's going to have another look and get back to you in 1/2 hour"

So now im worrying myself stupid at work what it could be? A little bit later Tommy phones me back.

Tommy " Hi Rob, i've just taken your starter out and yes you've got the correct flywheel in there"
Me " Yeah im sure it was as I had to source that and got it skimmed up"
Tommy " Were did the engine come from?"
Me " Out of a Mondeo from a salvage yard"
Tommy "Did it have a automatic box on it?"
Me "Dont now as it did'nt come with the gearbox? Oh hang on it did have a weird flywheel which was basically a tin plate with a ring gear round it."
Tommy "Yeah that was a auto then, and that's your problem. The crank sensor is put in a different position in the engine. And now with the correct flywheel you have, it's no were near the flywheel cutout's."
Me " Oh bugger."
Tommy "Im afraid your going to have to come and collect it and drop the gearbox, and flywheel etc. Then drill the correct position for the sensor."
Me " OH BUGGER!!!!!!!!!

So there is a lesson to learn here fella's. If you are going to do a zetec conversion, make sure you get a engine that had a manual gearbox on it. Funny thing was I bought my engine exactly at the same time as my mate. And when we both stripped all the crap of themn we had different flywheel's. Mine was a ultra light tin one, and he's was a normal heavy cast item. At the time we did'nt think anything of it, we thought maybe it was a change in flywheels in production as both of us have never had auto's (we're not that old yet).

But apart from this set back, Tommy has said all the work has been done on the engine and it was all fine. Once the sensor has been corrected I will need to take it back for it's final map and check.

So starting wed after work im going to have to pull my finger out, get this done fairly quickly so I can get it back to Tommy to finalise the setup.

Oh well, they say thing's crop up like this to test us . At least major thing's like the gearbox and managment which I bought 2nd hand have worked. So that's something to smile about.

New Zetec CPS holder

Car's back in the garage now in position to start stripping the engine, so I can drop it this week.

Had a chat with Tommy and he showed me the correct sensor and bracket it sit's in, which when compared to mine was easy to see why it was wrong. But as I did'nt now, and nobody told me about this it can't be helped. Atleast it's a straight swap over of part's. This is the item i've got to change

. zetec crank position sensor holder

As xrt-mart has said it bolt's in from inside the bell housing. So the engine/gearbox will have to be dropped to get to it. Then the clutch and flywheel will have to be removed. Then I can unbolt the one on the engine, and replace it with the correct one Tommy let me have. I then will need to source the correct sensor from a breaker's.

Hopefully if I can get it done by the end of the week, Tommy said he should be able to get it back in saturday to finish it off.

Progress update

I thought I had better update you all on the progress of the track car since my little problem.

The engine has been dropped out the bottom of the engine bay so I could split the gearbox. I could then remove the clutch and flywheel so I could get to the bolt that held the sensor bracket in place. I fitted the correct holder in, and bolted everything back in place. Lifted the engine back up into the bay. And then bolted everything back in place, and replaced all the fluid's etc.

Big thank's to my mate Kev for giving me a hand when it came to dropping the engine, and lifting it back into position. Without his extra pair of hand's I know I would of ended up scratching the paint, or dropping the engine of the trolley jack's. But it went really well with no major issue's.

I was hoping that it was going back in saturday to get finshed at Field motorsport. But Tommy was, as usual busy. So it should be going back the 1st part of this week. So hopefully in the next couple of day's, I should have a running engine.

Today I found a length of 8mm stainless overbraid left over from when I fitted braided hose's in my Blue XR2. So I changed all the cotton braided fuel hose's from the solid pipe to the carb's. Look's allot better, and most importantly better quality then the cotton stuff.

As soon as I've got more info/pic's I will post it up.

The Engine is running

Good new's, the engine run's!

Picked it up this afternoon as Tommy at Field motorsport had finished setting it up. And how nice does it sound. I'm over the moon with it. He started it up on the 1st turn of the key, and rev'ed it up a few time's and it sounded awsome. But my mate said later when we were back at mine, that it still had the XR2 characteristic exhaust note :lol: . Must be down to the magnex as they do make a nice sound. Also it ticked over really smoothly, which suprised me for a engine with a fairly lumpy cam and 45's.

He was very pleased with the engine himself, and said it should go really well. He did finish the setting up on a mate's roller's, and i've got a few graph's showing the bhp/torque figures thru the rev range. The final figure's were slightly more than I was expecting with a nice flat torque line, so I was very pleased with that. The omex managment has a inbuilt rev limiter which has been set at 7,500 rev's.

He did drive the car on the road to test it, and I was pleased to hear that the brake's, gearbox were all ok. Though he did mention the clutch may need upgrading. It's got a brand new AP racing S2turbo kit which is rated for standard car's with slight mod's. Well as my XR is putting out a bit more than a slightly modded S2 :wink: , I may have to upgrade the clutch plate. But I will see how the one on the engine behaves?

Other thing's that need looking at are the gear linkage which need's a small adjustment, and the exhaust manifold to y-piece is blowing. This really needs a couple of better quality exhaust clamps. Also they could'nt get the rev counter to work, and it look's like I will have to send it back to Elliot (Ebay purchase :roll: ). But overall nothing to major. I had a quick look under the engine and everything looked dry. So no oil or water leaks.

So now it's safely back home. I had to give it a wash before it went into the garage, as it had got dirty when Tommy had tested it out on the road. But that was the first time in something like 3 yr's it got dirty. So now I can finish putting the last bit's on the car before it goes to Leda. These include the other seat, front strut brace, front skirt and bumper, door bar's and a few other item's.

Now the major obstacle for the Fiesta thrash is out of the way. I now need to get the following thing's done.

  1. Get alarm fitted
  2. Insurance
  3. MOT
  4. Tax
  5. Take the car to leda to get the suspension setup, and corner weighted
  6. Buy a set of 4, Avon ABC10 track tyre's

So overall this evening im a rather happy chap. Just got to hurry up and get it road legal, so I can get some miles on it before the Fiesta thrash.

Sparco seats

I did a few job's on it after work this afternoon. First was to remove the RS200 seat, and give the interior a good clean and another coat of polish. I then fitted my other Sparco seat in the driver's side.

sparco seat sparco bucket seat

I like the look of this one more, so the RS200 seat will go back in as the passenger seat.

The temp guage is'nt working. I now the guage work's as I've had it in a previous car. So it must be wired up wrong somewere. I think it's not been wired up correctly at the temp sender as the zetec item does'nt earth thru the thermostate housing. It has a seperate wire to a earth point. So i've attached a 2nd wire to another earth point which will hopefully make it work when I start the engine tomorrow. If it does I will wire this in permanently.

I also had a look at why i've got a leak from the y-section of the exhaust manifold. It looks like as I used nylocks for the exhaust clamp's, the temperature has melted the nylon insert, and so the nut's were slightly loose. So i've tightened them up as tight as I can get them. Hopefully this will stop the leak now.

I fitted the middle and top section of the cam belt cover.

zetec timing belt cover

The middle section had to be modified as it was hitting on the side of the top engine mount bracket. Cut a small section of the cover out, and it went back on with the top section with some of the black anadoised allen head bolt's.

I also looked at the Elliot tacho. I got a diode of Tommy and inserted it across the main power cable and the feed from the managment. If tomorrow it's still not working I will have to get in contact with Elliot, and get it sent back for repair.

Waxoyl, helmet hammock and stickers

This afternoon I moved the XR2 to the back of the garage so I can jack the front up to correct some of the problem's i've got since the engine has been running.

The tacho still does'nt work, so I will be phone'ing Elliot Monday morning. Also the temp sender is'nt working with a different earth position. So tomorrow im going to test the sender. If this is ok the problem must be the wire'ing behind the gauge.

I have waxoiled the front panel were the front section of the bodykit cover's it. You dont see the area once the kit is on, so I thought it best to protect it. Tomorrow it will of dried off enough to fit the front section of kit, and the bumper.

Fitted my safety devices sticker's to the cage. And also fitted a genuine Ford luggage net inside the car spread across behind the front seat's to use as a crash helmet net/hammock.

Mk2 Ford Fiesta XR2 safety devices roll cage XR2 crash helmet hammock made from luggage net

Today I picked up my latest batch of powder coating. This consisted of the front strut brace which I started to fit this evening. It's almost finished minus a couple of bolt's I need which I will buy tomorrow. I will post up a picture of it fitted tomorrow.

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Page Last Updated: Monday 18th of June 2018