300+rwkw mk2 cortina

Hello guys and gals.
My name is Jordan .. a self confessed ford nut... esp the old skool ones.

Car : 68 Mk2 cortina
Colour: Nissan blue
Engine : Toyota 4age turbo
Engine management : EMS 8860 with O2 sensor and FULL laptop data logging.
Gearbox : 5 speed supra ( W57 ) with ceramic button clutch
Suspension : Bilstein coilovers front and rear.
Wheel : 16x7 performance superlites in the pictures but have changed the rims since then.......... now same wheel but 16x8 and dished offset
Tyres : Bridgestone potenza RE540's semi slick track tyres
Brakes:FRONT wilwood 4 piston superlite calipers with 13inch (330mm) x 32mm rotors.
REAR wilwood billet dynalite calipers with 12inch ( 297mm ) x 10mm rotors
Diff : Ford Falcon 7 3/4inch with billet Moser axles from the US and Billet Full spool center ( perfect for track days! )
FUEL: ELF turbomax
HP: 313 rear wheel kW ( 420hp at the treads ) est 550 at the flywheel



Note : the difference in colour from the guard to the door is just the flash from the camera :wink:






This is a run down of my setup

ECU: EMS 8860 with full data log, o2 sensor and electronic boost control.
M&W CDI ignition
50mm AVO blowoff valve
Injectors are 870cc run at 55 psi fuel pressure.
Tial 44mm external gate with 2 inch screamer
1szfe shimless bucket cam bucket conversion
I run the big port head on the latest Gze block ( with oil squirters) The head has been extensively modified ( ports and combustion chambers) and over size valves fitted ( 1mm on inlet and 1.5mm on exhaust). I use performance valve springs , HKS vernier cam gears and Crow cams. 265deg and 9.5mm lift


I also use a 2mm HKS steel head gasket, standard pistons, rods and crank although the rods and crank have recieved a big work over too. (linished , lightened , shot peened and sonicly releaved for stress.)


The whole lot has also been balanced and blueprinted paying particular attention to bearing clearence. (9000+ RPM and 30 psi u cant risk anything) The head and mains have been studded with ARP. The conrods are also using ARP.

On the outside i have a custom inlet plenum and a GT3540R pumping upto 30psi, Large front mount cooler (500*450*95) and 3.5 inch stainless dump pipe. 3 inch straight through system with no cat converter.





You can see how the Carbon heat bsheilds i made. It was my first attempt with carbon fibre and it didn't come out too bad!

The shield actually folds over at the ends and follows the contour of the radiator. This was hard to achieve . I ended up making a radiator shield out of alloy with no folds on the ends to follow the contour of the radiator. I then filled all the gaps in between the alloy shield and the radiator with bog waited for it to set and pulled it off creating a mould in which i could create a final piece from carbon.

I never took photos of this process as it was a bit of a learning cure for me and i wasn't even sure if it was gonna work.

This one shows the heat sheild i made that is attached to the bonnet ( so when i close the bonnet the excess heat from the extractors wont effect the paint on the bonnet.)
* carbon fibre dosent conduct heat very well so its perfect for a heat shield application ;)




NOTE the big valves and modified combustion chambers. I cc'd the cumbustion chambers also.




some more pics of the under side of the car



A pic of the gearbox x member / chassis brace i made. The brace bolts to the chassis plus also bolts up through the floor to add extra rigidity.


This is the new fuel pump setup. I have gone to twin 600hp bosch motorsport pumps . This was for two reasons the first being the thirst of the engine :D
And the other is incase one pump is to die i can pull a fuse for the dead pump and still get home on the other.
I use a Bosch EFI pump as a lift pump.



The supply for the lift pump is not the best setup i have ever made but it does the job. It is one of the few things left from when i did the inital conversion when i was 16. ...... Guess you could say my engineering skills have progressed a little since then :lol:
I will eventually make a custom alloy fuel tank but it is alittle down the list of things to do.

The surge tank setup



I have recently cut my inlet manifold in half! (which isnt shown in the above pics)As i had NEVER been able to stop it from cracking due to harmonic vibration. It is a prob that has plagued me for years now !!!!!!!!!!.. The motor runs very stiff urethane engine mounts to stop it torquing ... so this doesnt help + neither does 9000+ rpm.

I have tried EVERYTHING imaginable to stop it cracking.Even though its braced it still cracks!
so no suggestions please :x


This time i was about to dyno the car and the day before dyno i notice another crack!!!! -- needless to say there were a few choice words said.

I decided to do what i had thought of some time ago and cut the unpleasant individual in half !!
I then joined the runners with silicon hose to allow some movement in the runners and hopefully counter act my problem !
like i said i had thought of this solution some time ago but kept putting it off because it may ruin the look of the manifold but it came down to an easy decision. Looks or performance ??? ---- Performance wins every time in my books !!!!






I have used better clamps and different silicon hose on the end product plus had the runners welded at the ends to stop the hoses from blowing off.
Here is a pic of the plenum finished with decent clamps etc ready to bolt on.

Im pretty happy with the way it turned out and should have cut the thing sooner !



Now i knew that having the manifold joined with silicon hose would allow some up and down movement in the manifold still even though it is braced but what i didn't count on was

not up and down movement like i talked about but backward and forward movement, Which was causing the plenum to be pushed back into the firewall from the incoming boost rushing in from the IC and hence causing my runners to be skewed (out of line) :x
This is something i hadnt thought of ..!

So i ended up making braces up out of 1 inch square alloy bar.
Ill explain how i have designed them to stop the back and forth movement as well as the up and down movement of the plenum.

These are the braces i had to make up to stop the horizontal movement in the manifold.

i milled some slots in the bar so that they would fit either side of the tangs that have been welded to the inlet manifold.

So basicly the braces will work like the ones in the above pic but will be far more direct in contact (will sit either side of the tang) with the manifold and will allow no flexing.
Here is a pic of the old braces next to the new.

You can see how milled groove allows the braces to sit either side of the plate stopping any flex that can occur. When only one side is used to stop movent ( like the old braces) It was still allowing some back and forth movement ...... which was far too much hence the runners dis-aligning.




Coilovers:. The shock is a 40mm item which i had valved to suit the weight of my car and the rate of the springs .......... i could do jumps with these puppies :D





Here is a pic of the alloy hubs i had made up to suit the 330mm rotors and my new 5 stud deep offset rims
I had em anodized for good measure. I choose to switch to 5 stud ( 5x 114.3mm pcd) for two reasons. The first is it gives a far wider choice of rims . This stud pattern is very common .... toyota / nissan / ford / opel all use this pattern so stockies and different offset rim are plentiful. Reason number 2 was the falcon diff is std with this pattern.


Pics of my new rims....... They are the same design as the originals in the pics but are a inch wider / 5 stud and dished style offset. ( they look tuff ) They required custom offset front hubs to make them fit the front.
NOTE: the one with the tyre is the 7 inch rim so you can see the offset difference.


I recently finished milling and turning up the other little bits and pieces for my brake conversion... Incase you haven't realised i do ALL the fabrication work myself. Im a mechanic by trade and handy with a welder and milling machine 8)

So here is some pics.

First is the caliper brackets i had to make up. The wilwood caliper sits at a zero offset to the factory mounts ( caliper sits inline with the mount)..... meaning a straight forward caliper adapter wasn't going to happen...
So i had to make one , which i ended up making out of 25mm x 65mm steel blocks.
The end result is a offset bracket which took some time to machine up but came out really good !!

These are of the bracket before the finishing touches.





The old Vs the new in this pic.. Not that the old brakes were bad...... I just couldnt pass up a set of wilwoods all round :D
You may or may not beable to pic it but i even made billet bearing caps for the hubs......... im a little obsessive compulsive .
The old front brakes were nissan GTR skyline items which i machined the original cast cortina hub to make fit.


Pics of the rear brake conversion and the new diff im in the process of doing.
Note: the rear rotors are just for dummy fit. I have new slotted rotors the same as thr front for the rear.




This is a pic of the diff girdle / backing plate for the diff. It actually has retainers on the inside that push up against the bearing caps to stop them "walking" around uder extreme load.
I have also welded on that plate with all the holes drilled and tapped onto it. This is for the watts link so i can adjust the rear roll center of the car up and down :wink:



Last of all....... pics of my full spool diff center and billet axles





recently I have had to cut the floor pan to keep some travel in it and fit the new diff as its on it guts - well and truely now.

I had previously modded the rear floor to stop the diff hitting the floor under acceleration.

First pick is of the upper arm mounts. They tie in from under the floor as well as the structural x beam across the floor.



This is of the rear watts link setup (notice all the surface rust:o )..... Dont mind the below average tack welds :D ,the welder was set way to cold (for welding the floor) and i couldnt be bothered slideing out from under the car to change the settings..... (its hard enough to get under it with a welding helmet on!)

Ill just grind em back before i weld it properly.





this is the floor have been making..... i didn't fold the sides or roll the beads, I basicly just had a flat piece of sheet cut and had em fold the sides. I ended up folding the front section and shaping it to the tunnel myself. It has come up pretty good.



Notice how the beads/ swage doesnt match up with the original ones in the floor (at the top)


Idiots can never do ANYTHING right! I told them 510mm apart but do you think they can get it right !!!

Like i have always said...if you want a job done correctly ,........ do it yourself !-- spewin in this case i couldnt !
Anyhow ill beable to make it work and look pro still ........ I seem to have nack for that.. (lol to myself) ----- i have a few ideas up my sleeve of what to do with the miss match ;)











A bit of bracing.


I have seam welded the rear shock towers so that they are now strong enough to cope with being used as a strut tower for the coilovers. I also added some x bracing to really give the rear some stiffness.

This is the box section i made.


I have now cut the whole floor to make a complete new section that will have room for the upper control arms and allow room for the larger diff.
I had toyed with the idea of just running turrets but decided it would be easier and better in the end to do the whole section in one piece.



Here are some more pics of what my engine used to look like with the Turbonetics T60-1 and old exhaust manifold etc etc.





As you can see by this pic i used to use a fuel pressure gauge attached to the reg. They never lasted long though as the reg is bolted to the manifold they would just rattle themselves to pieces !!

I forget which rebuild this was :? ( i have broken more engines than most have had hot dinners!.... I was only running a std 4age not the stronger 4AGZE back then....... I was still making 300 odd hp to the tarmac though :thumbsup: )

It was the first of the "attention to detail" builds :mrgreen:
I look back at these pics and smile. This was when things were simple and cost effective...... now there just out of control.

With this setup i made 283 rear wheel kw (380hp)


This is where it all started and my first magazine shoot way back in 2000..... This was 2 years after the initial conversion


I was running a RX7 13b turbo with a 12a exhaust housing to aid in response. This was a good little setup and was making some grunt for the time. Back when 200rwkw was a bench mark and only a few of the 2ltr's were making this sort of power:D let alone a little 1.6L ----- I love putting it to the 2ltrs!

wow have things changed!






"Even higher power figures are in the offing"............ ha ha ha ha no poo poo they are :D

current power but soon to change !





A bit of photoshop fun....what you think ?