1300cc. Replace or rebuild?

So, I'm in need of some honest opinion here.

Plans were to 2L silvertop zetec my 1300 automatic escort. Then I looked a little more into it ... nuff said

Thought about pinto but don't want the monster weight that comes with one.

And then there's always the option of building on what's there. The motor is actually in amazingly good condition. 60,000 genuine miles. Clean, no leaks, always serviced, runs like a dream. It just needs some extra "poke"

But that poke comes with a hefty price tag aswell. Best part of a grand for a rebuilt weber sidedraft carb & manifold. Then there's headers/ exhaust. Then get the head redone, bigger valves etc. Where does it stop? Before you know it, the money spent on a little 1300 could have paid for a shop to do a zetec conversion!

So tell me whatcha reckon thanks..

only real reason to use a 1300 is if you have to for racing historics ect, personly im building a 1600 kent, as i want the orignal look and im not a fan of the wait of the pinto, no its not the cheapest way to created big horse power, but its orignal,looks the part, and sound great

This is a tough one. Had to make the same decision. Went with the warm 1600 mainly so I could teach my lad a thing or two. But honestly an import MX5 Duratec/gearbox/OEM ECU combination would have been cheaper,more power/torque, sig more reliable and probably easier. But hey depends on what you want to achieve. Not at all unhappy with what we decided to do. Good luck.

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Originally posted by ratta tat tat

Thanks for all your comments. I've bought a 1600 engine, runs nicely. No smoke or strange noises :-D

Plans are single side draught manifold with 40? 45? weber and pacemaker extractors. Keeping the internals standard for now. I'm hoping this will get things moving a bit quicker.

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Good move. Track down a down draught weber manifold ala GT and run the 32/36 on it. With a stock to mild cam that will flow enough and save a few bucks for the other parts.