I got the head off and now have a short motor to mock up the sump on, Heaps of cutting to do as there is lots of webbing on the girdle, still unknown if its weldable yet but I am hopeful.
The head and bores look pretty good on the 1.8 but pretty suprised how small the valves look in there. Guess Im used to big pinto valves. Post pics soon.

Bit of progress made on the girdle/sump, its really fiddly cutting and shutting the cast alloy girdle lots of webbing and odd angles, its taking for ever. Also decided to test run a weld on the cast alloy and it turned out not too bad porosity and crud wise, fairly easy to weld, If I had access to a mill it would be the go to get rid of all the bits I dont want, The end result will be far from pretty but hopefully retain alot of the strength it was designed for.

Not much to report I'm afraid but I HAVE booked into the Machine shop for Saturday morning to cut the crap out of the girdle. The Tigs up and running so now I'm just debating what thickness aluminium to make the rest of it out of. most of the cast material is 3mm thick so Im thinking 2mm to try and keep it light but also strong. Most of the strength will be in the cast webbed girdle any way.

Machine shop went smooth and way quicker and easier than my previous efforts. Leaning heavily towards a dry sump arrangement at this stage, primarily due to clearance issues and trying to keep the engine low in the bay. Still got a lot to learn about dry sumpin poo poo tho

Well its been a while, making my own sump took to much time so I went with the retor ford setup. Time will tell if it was a good or bad call. got to get ready for Bathurst come Easter.
Heres some pics.
trimming the rocker cover, I'm sure these will get in the way, not so sure about the breather.













Kind of hoping the breather will clear but ends up it doesn't, so hacked it off in situ.



This is the idler pulley I made earlier, I took .100" of the mount boss to make room and align for a support I had to make for the water rail below. Tapped out a hole and screwed a support bracket to it, sits between block and idler pulley mount.





Some mods if you want to keep your original lifting eyes to clear the raceline water rail.







Had to trim in two places the ashley exhaust flange, cause it fouled on the water rail when dummy fitting it to the motor. (note 1 & 4 cylinder mounts)



Got the crud gaurd sorted, time to mount the flywheel and cog box.


Note patent pending flywheel holding tool;)


almost ready to go in, FINALLY!


After much cursing, sweat and more cursing the flaming thing is in, on its mounts, NOTE: I had to lower the cross member by half an inch to get this fuggin thing in. Also as mentioned earlier hack of the breather at the rear of the cover. also once I got it in I find the thing sitting on my rack so it comes out to put some spacers on the engine mounts which made it even harder to get back in. I ended up spacing it about 4mm both sides, which give me about 7mm of clearance of the steering rack. Got to admit it looks sweet in there!



Progress should be a little quicker now its in, as the sump was the big stumbling block for me. Plus I got 1 day of a week to get it sorted before Bathurst.

Looking good. What are you doing induction/ecu wise? Where did the crud guard come from?

Nice to see a ST motor facing the right way!!
I have a Focus ST170 and the are quite pokey so in a Escort will be mega fun

The crud gaurd is pinto, with some cut outs and weld ins, mainly around the sump, and fillt he zetec starter hole in.
The pics should explain the induction side of things and got a megajolt ignition system using standard ford ignition, coils, pick up etc.
I made heaps of progress, spendnig time dummy fitting has paid off and getting to final stages before I fire it up. Looking for an oil cooler at the moment, happy for recomendations (just jap looks good and cheap) not real sure what to do with the ignition leads as yet, I could make it neater but likely I'll leave the black cover off, atleast until its running and tuned.
Was gunna try Mick's Motorsport at milperra to tune the ignition carbs and see what might be best for the VCT setup. Any one used him before or have alternate recomendations?
Here's where its at right now, A little window dressed as the radiator is not hooked up or are the rocker breathers.

Did some camber tweaks while the engine was out. NICE!

Can you tell me the measurement between the side of the head and the strut tower on the indution side please.... I have to make sure my plenum is going to fit and seeing my head is unavailable....