Been working on the escort on and off lately, i have now put the worked head on the standard bottom end with a 2mm decom head gasket.
everything is in. i made an oil return to the sump and nearly everything is done apart from radiator and pipes and i have a few issues to resolve with the inlet manifold pipe work.
 
other than that i am itching to get it going!!!
 

looking good mate, i love how you have proved people wrong by doin it with the booster still in place
 

Its been a while!! So i have now got the car running after a lot of messing about! i still havent got it running perfect! i have a little bit of tuning to do and sorting of the idle speed!
but the car runs.. i have only taken it to about 3psi.. so havent given it a big rev yet! one day!
anyway a couple of pics of how it is now! not perfect or clean looking! i still need to sort out a filter for the SU carby but one thing at a time at this stage!
Hopefully by the weekend i can work out what boost i have it set to! i setup my pyro guage and boost guage also! all works good too!
any advice with timing adjustment on the dissy is welcome also!!! exhaust temp gets way too high i think so i may need to adjust timing and fuel mixture!!

oh and the exhaust system is way too loud!! its resonates in the cabin and im either getting too old or my ears are getting delicate because im not a fan!!

Cool , have you got a wideband oxygen sensor? And do u know The timing specs of the dissy?

The standard dissy is dual diaphragm. One side is used as a fast idle through a thematic vacuum tree on the thermostat housing. Putting on one way checks in the right direction should give you advance and retard.

If the exhaust temp is too high you have too little timing. I would set the engine with 10 deg initial as a starting point

Unfortunetly i dont know specs. i can only assume the dissy is standard! i dont even know the specs of the head/cam so it makes it very difficult! (for me) i timed the engine to TDC and it fires first go everytime.. BUT the idle is near impossible to get right (for me)
i will do some playing around with it on the weekend and report back. i might even set engine to 10deg to see if that makes much of a difference i will admit i havent played with pinto timing or dissy much before!

Decompressed motor will need at least 10deg. Standard dissy is very conservative even with 15 deg on a na motor Standard is a very slow advance curve I think it stops close to 5000rpm. At about 5psi you want around 30deg total.

i set the timing as far advanced as possible before the engine starts to die... exhaust temps were a little bit higher on pyro guage i think i only hit around 7-8 psi reved to about 5500 wasnt that impressed! i have a bit of work to do tuning wise, the fumes the noise... im getting over it lol!
 

Spigot, thanks for the advice also!! very helpful! the engine when i bought it in pieces came with a dizzy i should probably give that a go also as it may have had the curve re done?!