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Do you have a Ford Escort and want to easily (and cheaply!) go like the wind? If so, you've come to the right place. I have been building Ford Escorts here in Australia for a number of years, and people are still surprised at how quick a "crappy" old Escort can be. Mark 2 Escorts in Australia were available in a 2 litre version which was the same "Pinto" engine used in Mark 4 Cortinas, for example, and later also used in mid '80s Sierras. It's a very good engine, and most Mk2's here had it - even Ghias!, rather than the wheezy old 1.6 Litre Kent engine. In the notes below I'm assuming you are modifying a Pinto engined car. If you have a Kent engine, I strongly suggest you upgrade to a 2 litre Pinto. The conversion can be a bit tricky, so it may be easier to buy a car with one already in it. I once have a Escort that was originally a 1.3 and had been converted to a 2 litre pinto. Whoever did it cut a few corners which caused me problems later on, so beware! Step 1 - Tyres. Tyres are the one thing that will give you the largest performance increase for your Escort. They won't make it go faster in a straight line, but good tyres will improve handling immensely and also improve your braking. These two things are very important when you are throwing your Escort around the street or on the track. Escorts tend to handle pretty well as standard anyway, and an improvement will help you go straight around that bloke driving a Commodore next to you when going around a fast bend. If you are really keen you can find a set of larger wheels in the classified papers. A cheap option for Escorts is a 13"x7" configuration. Tyres are easily available for them and most mags that will fit the Escort will be this size. A good starting point.  Step 2 - Exhaust. The standard exhaust system has a cast iron manifold with a two inch pipe leading into a muffler with second muffler next to the fuel tank at the rear. It has two right angle bends under the front seats which adds a fair bit of restriction to the system. The first step is to buy some extractors. You should be able to find some 2nd hand extractors in the classifieds, or if you are desperate, buy new ones. Most exhaust manufacturers will have one to suit an Escort in their books. Once you have the extractors, get an exhaust shop to make you a 2.25" system with a muffler in the standard place and a "hotdog" resonator next to the fuel tank. Make sure you get them to not replace the two right angle bends! I had a system that bent slightly under the tailshaft and it didn't cause problems with changing gearboxes. I strongly recommend getting two flange joints installed. One at the outlet of the extractors and one over the rear axle. This will enable you to dismantle your exhaust system completely at home without the need for a welder or oxy. Now the trick - Most people who upgrade their exhaust think their engine will automatically run better. Not necessarily so. A new exhaust system will help your engine breathe. This will usually cause the fuel mixture to become lean. This means that the fuel to air mixture has changed so that you are no longer burning as much fuel per unit of air as before. If the air:fuel mixture is not correct, your engine will not run as well as it should. If you have the standard Weber downdraught carbie, try buying larger main jets. You can get these from any Weber dealer. You may have to choose the right one for you by trial and error, but I have found that 2 or 3 sizes larger should be enough. You will notice an increase in performance immediately once you fit the larger jets.  Step 3 - Suspension. The standard suspension in a Mark II Escort is pretty soft and therefore you get a lot of body roll and tyre squealing when (trying) to go fast around bends. With a few relatively inexpensive mods, you can rectify this. The first thing to do is to replace all the rubber bushes with eurathane ones. This will reduce the play in all the suspension components and hence improve handling. This type of bush will also last much longer than the traditional rubber ones. Make sure you replace ALL of the bushes including the ones in the rear leaf springs. This will help the car to stop skipping sideways when driving over rough surfaces. While replacing the bushes in the rear springs, it may be a good time to add one or two leafs to the springs. Most spring manufacturers will do this. In Sydney, businesses such as Allsprings, Lovells or K-mac will be your best bet. You will also need to replace the front springs to stiffer ones - probably 20-30% stiffer would be OK. If you want the car to be lowered, then I suggest to go no lower than 4 centimetres. If you do go lower, the car will sit on it's bump stops and you will lose most of the effectiveness of the suspension. I know it looks good for the car to be really low, but don't over-do it! You can probably get away with the standard shock absorbers if you are on a tight budget. If not, I recommend Koni Sport or Billstein. Most of the mods mentioned for the suspension above are fairly inexpensive. If you have a few dollars to spare, I highly recommend that you purchase adjustable control arms. With these, you will be able to adjust the camber easily without have to get your struts bent or whatever. The added beauty is that as you increase the amount of negative camber, it increases the amount of positive castor, and also loads up the front sway bar, giving less play under braking. This all adds up to better handling and braking, therefore making your Escort FASTER! The control arms are available from Burton Power at http://www.burtonpower.co.uk/home.html  ............. Step 4 - Brakes. Brakes are very very very important. Without good brakes you could easily end up dead. Don't laugh! Most people who upgrade their cars make them megga powerful without thinking of the brakes, and end up crashing. YOU NEED TO UPGRADE YOUR BRAKES BEFORE YOU UPGRADE YOUR ENGINE! Most Escorts I have driven haven't stopped very well. They either dance around under heavy braking or they lock up very easily. Having already upgraded your suspension should have helped to improve any braking problems you may have had. The first step if you are on a limited budget is to fully recondition your standard brakes. This includes the wheel cylinders, calipers and master cylinder. Totally clean them and replace all the seals. Check the bore of the master cylinder, wheel cylinders and calipers for scoring or uneven wear. If there are problem here, most brake shops will be able to reline them moderately inexpensively. Also flush out the brake lines to ensure there isn't any crap floating around in the fluid. I strongly recommend the replacement of the front disks. You can either replace them with the original type or go for Group1 ventilated disks if you intend to do a lot of heavy braking. The ventilated disks will not make your car stop any quicker when braking normally, but instead will keep your brakes cooler under heavy repeated stops, such as in club racing and minimise the chance of brake fade. Buy yourself some pads and shoes that are made of harder material - commonly called "metal". These will wear out the disks faster but will add dramatically to fade resistance.  Step 5 - Differential. Now that we have finished with the boring stuff, it's time to give your Escort some real mumbo! Without touching your engine at all, it is possible to give your Escort a significant boost in straight line acceleration. All you need to do is change your diff ratio. Australian 2.0 litre Escorts have a ratio of 3.54:1. Escorts with smaller engines (1.6 and 1.3) have higher ratios which can easily be fitted to a 2.0 litre model. The last time I bought a second hand diff from a wrecker, it cost $50 AUD. Pretty cheap. When you buy one, make sure you have the ratio you want. Some wreckers don't know what they are talking about so be careful that you buy the right one. I bought my 4.11:1 crown wheel and pinion from Small Four Spares in Padstow-Sydney. They know what they are talking about 'cos they specialise in Escorts , Capris etc. The only problem with replacing the diff with a higher ratio is that it will drop your top speed and cause you to cruise at higher revs on the freeway. If you mainly drive around town, then definitely do it. If you drive often on the freeway, you can still do it, but you may need to fit a 5 speed gearbox (See below). This will make the car less noisy at high speeds and reduce fuel consumption. Traction may also be a problem. The fitting of a higher ratio diff will give you more torque at the wheels and the car will easily wheelspin. To fix this you can get a limited slip diff (LSD). These are a bit pricy and can be hard to find, so this may not be a good option for you. With a normal diff, once one wheel starts to spin, the power is taken away from the other wheel and the effect is that you slow down. With a LSD, both wheels will always spin together and therefore give you more traction. Be careful in the wet with a LSD though. :-)  Step 6 - Engine. Hmmmm, engines. I'm sure anything I write here will open up a can of worms, so I'll try to keep it short and sweet. Everyone has their own pet ideas about which is the better option, so I'll just outline a few of them briefly in order of cost. Before modifying your engine, I recommend that you fit some kind of rev limiter. These can be purchased as separate units, or are incorporated into your engine management computer (if you use one). A rev limiter will protect the engine from YOU and save you many $$$$$ For more detailed technical information, check out the links to other pages at the top of this page. 1. Standard rejetted carbie setup with performance camshaft. Probably the easiest mod with the least cost. Works well with the performance exhaust detailed above. 2. Twin 45mm Webers with performance camshaft, ported head, high compression pistons and lightened flywheel. A bit more tricky to set up. Needs a complete engine rebuild. Make sure you know what you are doing with the Webers, or know someone who does. 3. Sierra fuel injection, programmable ECU, hall effect ignition, with cam, ported head, high compression pistons and lightened flywheel. A lot of people reckon Webers work better than injection. I don't think so. Injection with a programmable ECU and electronic ignition is infinitely more tunable and you can tune the car EXACTLY AND EASILY. I plan on using the Sierra injection manifold for a while, and plan to put a bigger throttle body on my car when needed. I reckon this will give more power than Webers. We'll see. An alternative to the Sierra injection manifold would be to use sidedraught weber bodies with fuel injectors fitted. There are a few commercailly available kits available. This is a great mod if you already have twin Webers and are sick of spending big money on buying different jets whenever you change something. Here's something for the Weber purists - If Webers are so good, name one modern performance car that uses them. You'll find that ALL top performance cars use FUEL INJECTION. The guys that design these cars aren't idiots you know! :-) 4. As above but with a turbo. Now this is starting to get a bit serious. You can get big horsepower with this option, but you will have to know what you are doing, or know someone who does. I have seen a MKII Escort with a turbo on it and yes they are pretty quick! 5. Sierra Cosworth twin cam with big cams, fuel injection etc etc etc. If you have a fair bit of money to spare, this is the option for you. You can get a lot of horsepower out of these engines, but you'll need to upgrade just about everything else like your gearbox, axle etc to be able to cope with the power. 6. Sierra turbo Cosworth etc etc Full on shit. Pretty much out of my league, so I won't comment. big bucks required to do it properly.  Step 7 - Gearbox. The best option for your gearbox is probably the 5 speed from a Pinto engined Sierra. There are kits available to fit Celica 5 speeds to Escorts, but they are quite expensive compared to the Sierra 5 speed. The Sierra box bolts straight on to the engine without any adaptor plates. It needs some modification at the rear of the box though, 'cos it's a bit longer than the 4 speed. Most of the work is in modifying the rear mount. The gearing in the standard 5 speed isn't really great for performance/race driving, so get yourself a set of close ratio gears. Quaife make a set and you can get them from just about anywhere - Burton in the UK or Quickco in Australia. Another performance mod you can do for your gearbox would be to fit a quick shift kit. With a quick shift, the pivot point of the gear stick is raised, thus giving you shorter movements of the gear knob when changing gears. Less gear shift distance = faster gear changes = Faster car! Inexpensive kits are available from Osella.  Step 8 - Learn how to drive.Actually, this step should probably be number one on this list. Learning how to control your car is of paramount importance to performance driving. Doing a basic driving course is something I feel should be done by everyone who drives on the street. You all know how many crappy drivers there are out there! For those of you who have had rally/circuit experience, you could do a more advanced course that will teach you racing skills and advanced car control. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. In Sydney you can go to schools run by Ian Luff or Peter Findlay. I think these both run from Oran Park. I'm sure there are similar courses run in other cities/countries. Joining a car club is also a good idea. There are general racing type clubs around or clubs for specific models such as rear wheel drive Escorts, Dunnydores or whatever. They give you access to spare parts, technical information, social outings and such. A good way to meet like minded people.  Step 9 - Nitrous. Nitrous Oxide is the next step if you still can't beat your mate in his Commodore. I haven't used it myself, but it is supposed to be quite easy to fit and gives your car much extra horsepower. It's sometimes called "blower in a bottle". It gives you power like a turbo. It's a gas that is fed into the induction system from a pressurised bottle and a small hose. Ask around before you go for this option. There may be some disadvantages I don't know about. Of course you won't be able to use Nitrous in normal competition as it's not allowed, but you may get away with it on the street and you can definitely use it at the drags.  Step 10 - Buy a Subaru WRX. All the stuff above is my opinion and may not be entirely accurate, so following my advice is at your own risk! Modifying any car can be a pain in the arse, and that's why most people don't bother with it. If you really want to go fast with MINIMAL effort, buy something like a Subaru WRX. You'll be super quick and they are great to drive, but you'll be just another Joe Average. 
KEEP ON ESCORTING!!!!!!!!!!! |
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This Ford Escort mk1 & mk2 site is owned by Bud DaDude. Want to join the Escort Rear Wheel drive Webring? |
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