More Horses for Courses

[Dereksjoint]

After deciding to keep the Fez and the track day at Knockhill not far off I thought it was time to spend some of my hard earned on it since the Escort is sitting untouched. I've had the Fiesta running Standard, Stage 1 and Stage 2 power at various points of ownership but every time the power is turned up it never seems quite right. This time round I've decided to invest a bit more cash making the car both faster and smoother with a few new upgrades.

I started with my Big Valve Head which I've had sitting up in my loft for a year or so I decided to strip the bad boy down and clean it up then went on to port and polish the inlet and exhaust ports.

Here's how she looked at the start










I used my dremmel and a few differently shaped grinding stones to remove all the casting marks and scars then used the light gauge sanding rolls to polish down what the grinding stones had missed. After that I polished each port down with a small wire brush attachment on the dremmel and brushed down the inside face of the head cleaning up the valve seats etc.

















I was well chuffed with the end results so set about cleaning up the old valves





With everything cleaned up I set about reseating the valves which is a great job I was told to spend a good 10 mins on each one but ended up spending 10 mins with the coarse paste and 10 mins with the fine paste just to make sure lol

[Dereksjoint]

Here are a few more of parts waiting to be fitted over the next 2 weeks





Got a full head gasket set, studs and bolts, new timing and alternator belts, uprated fuel pump and some nice oil





This is one of the better upgrades a Gotech Mini Pro ECU, wiring loom and connectors. Since I purchased a load of cable and braided sleaving for the S1 build I thought I'd wire this one up myself. I will be making more progress with this over the next week or so before the car go's to Sitech to be live mapped

[Stu/RS]

Some good mods on the go Derek, nice one

[SHIFTY]

Fair play to you mate for having a go with the dremmel
Look forward to more updates, nice one

[peterRST]

Good work Derek, looking forward to see how the Gotech does!

[Dereksjoint]

[mikeymikeyp]

u should have used a drill on the ends of the valves it wouldnt have taken u long

[andy-mac]

doing a good job there derek , now get it stripped out that is the best way to make it faster

[Dereksjoint]

Got my Inlet manifold off today and gave it the same treatment as the head, ground out all the casting marks and scars and then polished up the inner walls










My brother managed to get the head finished off too while I was down south so thats all cleaned up and ready for fitting now

[jimmyson]

a few coats of laquer and that would look great under my bonnet........

[peterRST]

[Dereksjoint]

[boeb]

nice 1 mate that fez has you hooked bad that the s1 on the back burner again

[Dereksjoint]

Well managed to get the main body of the loom braided last night which was about as much fun as I had anticipated I must admit though it does look pretty good

I did start to fit the pins for the EG1 connectors but soon realised that I'd made a bit of a fook up as they need to be crimped with a certain tool to be able to install them into the injector style connectors. I'll need to order the crimper tomorow on another 24hr delivery and just hope that this one arrives in time as the car go's to sitech on Wednesday morning so it's going to be tight





Once the connectors are fitted thats the engine bay loom complete which is about 90% of the loom done. The remaining wiring will be run behind the dash inside the car for fuel pump control, ignition lives and relay connections etc

[rosco]

nice work Derek, hope it all goes well on the 21st!

[mikeymikeyp]

gettin closer to the end now roll on wed

[Dereksjoint]

Another late night trying to get every thing sorted on the Fez for Wednesday but thats the loom as far as I can go without the crimping tool to finish the job off. Hopefully the crimper will arrive in the post in the morning so that it's complete for going to sitech





I managed to get down to my brothers today and we got the old head off the car and got my Kent cam and vernier pulley swapped over along with my tappets and lifters as they are pretty much brand new.








Tomorrow it'll be a case of getting the new head fitted and replacing all the gaskets and belts as we go then get home to hopefully crimp all the ends on my loom fingers crossed

[SHIFTY]

Coming on a treat mate - bet you cant wait to see how she drives once all this done

[Dereksjoint]

[fastfordrab]

thats a bummer derek just when every thing was goin so well