302 Escort Cosworth project

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 9:03 pm

I know my garage is in a poop state in these pics but I'm trying to renovate my house at the same time and have run out of room

The garage is now cleared for the car

The EsCos has always appealed to me but after having a Sapphire Cosworth I hated the lack of grunt at low revs hence the V8 idea. The original plan was to use a 3.9 Rover V8 engine but the front diff hits the engine casting if you keep it in the same position relative to the crank CL as on the Ford setup. The 5 litre/302 Ford V8 has over 2 inches less hanging below the crank centre line than the Rover V8 giving lots more space for the front diff

Donor car bought for £300 in the small ads

Engine out and the rest dumped

Next I made an adaptor from HE30 aluminium at work that will fit a 302 V8 to the MT75 4x4 gearbox, I'm using the 2.9 V6 box as it is cheap and has a nice long input shaft.

I've just finished the flywheel, it's made from P20 tool steel, I used a lathe and CNC mill to machine it as it has an offset weight for engine balancing.

Adaptor fitted to engine

Flywheel on

I have not had a chance to make the sump yet to take the front diff but it will be made from parts of a standard 4x4 casting welded to new material.

Picked up a sorry looking EsCos today in need of some TLC.
It has no engine, gearbox, diffs, clocks or front brakes but suits my needs.

After a quick wash and some slightly better temporary wheels.

Any updates will be slow in coming as I now have to build a shed to put all the crap in that was in the garage

Mark

Eliot · Post by **Eliot** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 6:35 am

nice work.
The bit i cant work out, is how you pickup the center for making engine/gearbox adapters - calculation or some cunning method?

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 8:54 am

Eliot wrote:nice work.
The bit i cant work out, is how you pickup the center for making engine/gearbox adapters - calculation or some cunning method?

That part is a real pain, for the gearbox dimensions I cut the front off the auto box that came with the engine, skimmed it flat and clamped it to a CNC mill, then measured the holes centres using a DTI and the machine readout. After machining the adaptor it would not fit

Turns out the gearbox casting was 0.015" out on the dowel positions and it only fitted the engine because it was springing over the dowels

The cylinder block was too tall to fit on the CNC mill so I had a cunning plan.
I tuned up two bushes with a reamed hole in that fit over the dowels on the engine and then turned up a bush that was an excact fit in the main bearing tunnel with a tapped hole in the centre, this I bolted to a peice of melamine (kitchen cupboard carcase!) as it is engineered and fairly stable.
Now I put the reamed bushes on the engine dowels, smeared them with Arraldite and placed the melamine on top with the bush located in the main bearing tunnel, left it overnight then took to work and measured the positions on a CNC mill. A bit long winded but it has to be right, a guy on an American forum also gave me some sizes he had measured directly from a block and we were within 0.001" of each other so I called that good enough. The MT75 gearbox positions were far easier, I just stripped down a spare gearbox (£30 on Ebay

) and bolted the front half to the CNC and took measurements directly.
There were more hours spent measuring and drawing than actually machining the adaptor plate.

regards

Mark

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 6:45 pm

I had a bit of spare time and have trial fitted the engine and gearbox together, gearbox is a scrap one I bought for measurements so excuse the oil and muck.

Sump to do next when time and spare cash allows.

Mark

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Thu May 22, 2008 10:06 pm

Some new bits

I ordered an aluminium sump from Real Steel with the intention of chopping it up and welding the Sierra bits to it but the die cast wall section was way too thin, big thanks to them for taking it back and letting me put the cash towards this

I'm waiting on a set of injectors from US ebay ten I can machine the manifold to suit.

Back to plan A with the sump and I've just ordered a big lump of ali through work that wil need plenty of CNC work to form a bridge between the 302 and Sierra parts.

Mark

v8man1 · Post by **v8man1** » Fri May 23, 2008 7:11 am

mate they all look the nuts well done get some more pics on here keep up the good work!!!

Eliot · Post by **Eliot** » Fri May 23, 2008 7:17 am

Thats good work. I didn't appreciate the fact that the front diff is part of the sump, so extra bonus points for difficulty.

I've converted a manifold to injection - fairly straightforward. Use the Ross Machine Racing fuel rail stock. Adrian at americanv8engines.com stocks it.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Fri May 23, 2008 6:22 pm

Thanks for the comments and the tip on fuel rail.
Would I need Dash 6 or Dash 8 ???

cheers

Mark

Eliot · Post by **Eliot** » Fri May 23, 2008 6:45 pm

I think I'm running -6 on a turbo'd 350 sbc with 60lb injectors - which seems to be working fine at 9-10lbs of boost, but I could do with much bigger rails TBH. So use the -8's

Here's my conversion:
http://www.mez.co.uk/ms4.html
http://www.mez.co.uk/ms5.html
http://www.mez.co.uk/ms8.html
Sit down with a cuppa and your injectors to make sure you clear everything, especially the throttle linkage.
(my rails were from Jenvey - which was all I could get at the time, not as nice as the ross stuff)

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Fri May 23, 2008 8:28 pm

Thanks for that, I had not considered the difference in height of the runners with the performer rpm. It might be worth spacing the top of the injector down keeping the injectors closer to the runner ?

Mark

stevieturbo · Post by **stevieturbo** » Fri May 23, 2008 9:34 pm

Why havent I spotted this thread before !!!!!

Some nice work there, what exactly do you work as ???

As for fuel rails. Do you mean rail diameter itself, or feed going to the rails ?

Id opt for 1/" diam rails at least. Although a single -6 line will easily flow enough for 1000bhp with suitable pump or pumps.

I flow tested my pair of 044's at 66psi, and they flowed circa 486 lph through a single -6 line. I was rather impressed !

Do you still have that scrap gearbox ? Is the bellhousing the same as a Pinto ? I need one for a DIY Skyline conversion ( that will probably never happen lol )

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Sat May 24, 2008 7:06 am

Hi Stevie, I work as a toolmaker making plastic injection mould tools and can use any of the machines in my spare time...... which is handy if your some kind of an engine weirdo

The gearbox won't fit a pinto as I used the 2.9 V6 version, it's far cheaper than a Cosworth one and has a longer input shaft that makes up the difference on the adaptor plate.

I was refering to the fuel lines in Eliots link, it's the size of the inside of the rail. When I turbocharged my motorbike I made a fuel rail with 0.625 inch inside diameter fuel rail and had no problems will it going lean. The Dash 6 in the link is 0.5 inch ID and the Dash 8 is 0.690 so Dash 8 looks the safest choice ?

cheers

Mark

stevieturbo · Post by **stevieturbo** » Sat May 24, 2008 8:42 am

Yes, I would opt for the larger diameter fuel rail. It probably doesnt need it, but the larger the reservoir of fuel above the injector, the better.

But a -6 line feeding both, would be ample.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 6:45 pm

Really quiet at work so I made a start on the sump adaptor.
Dodgy phone pic but I will take a proper camera to work on Monday

£220 worth of NP8 aluminium, here's hoping I do not mess it up !

Mark

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 7:02 pm

Busy day at work today, allthough I did not get as far as I would have liked !

Plenty more to do

Mark