Classic Ford – August 2019

72 August 2019

Downpipe, tunnel, quickshift, brace... Secret

codenames? No, Mike’s joblist for the month.

rogress on the Fiesta has been

slow and steady, and I’ve been

gradually tackling all the jobs in

little bite-size portions. If I looked at the

whole list that’s left to do, I get a little

overwhelmed and then I don’t really

know where to start. Now I’m setting

achievable weekly targets and in recent

weeks I have restored the fuel tank and

installed it under the car, and have made

up a new larger downpipe from 3 inch

pie-cut stainless steel that weaves

round the front of the engine, squeezing

past the block breather, radiator fan and

the cradle. I have even manage to

designed and make a new turbo brace to

help support the weight of the two

turbos over the gearbox.

One night after work I stayed late to

fabricated a recessed aluminium panel

that mounts in where the original bonnet

release latch once sat. This will house

the reservoir bottles for the Wilwood

pedal box that is also now fi tted for the

last time. The engine bay is pretty much

P

“DRIVESHAFTS ASIDE, THE ENGINE

BAY IS NOW PRETTY MUCH DONE”

there, all that’s left is to re-route the

wiring loom, bolt everything back on the

engine for the fi nal time and make up

the oil feeds and returns to all the turbos

— oh, and the big task of getting some

custom driveshafts made up.

On rails

Other progress inside the car includes

the new custom seat rails that tie into the

inner sills and bridge over to the tunnel.

These have laser cut brackets welded on

that align with the seat runners on my

new lowback RSR bucket seats. I’ve also

carefully cut out a section of the car’s

fl oorpan and welded in a new raised

section to give more clearance on the

driver side for the ‘boom tube’ side-exit

letterbox exhaust. With help from Zak at

Power Engineering we even managed to

swage some ribs into the top of the

panel that align with the existing reliefs in

the old fl oorpan, and also implement

some much needed rigidity to the top of

the panel.

A friend, Nathan kindly donated a

Central Florida Motorsport quickshift

gear selector from an ST170 he was

breaking, so as soon as he dropped it

off, l set about mounting it onto the

raised gear selector tower I’d already

built months back. I routed the cables

through the bulkhead and clipped them

onto the gearbox end. This gives the

gear engagement a tighter, shorter

throw and was just what I was after to

help rip up through the gears when it’s

all up and running.

Working towards the back of the car I

have mounted the rear charge cooler

radiator and the aluminium shroud cover

into the boot well. The ducting will link

the pipes on top to clear NACA ducts

bolted into holes CNC machined in the

new polycarbonate rear quarter

windows (yet to be fi tted). I have

included two small electric fans to draw

air in when the charge cooler temp gets

above a certain temperature although

I’ve yet to fi gure out how to get the ECU

auxiliary inputs to do this.

All seemed to be going swimmingly.

That is until I went to fi t my freshly

powdercoated rear anti-roll bar. One

thing I hadn’t accounted for when

designing and positioning my stub axle

conversion was the proximity of the

drop links on the anti-roll bar which foul

on the rear bolts! Frustrated with this

oversight I had to step away from the

car for a couple of days. But speaking

Quickshift now installed on the tower.

Mike’s Mk1 Fiesta

Whats been

done this

month:

Made the downpipe,

fabricated a tunnel

for the exhaust,

fitted the quickshift,

couldn’t fit my

anti-roll bar...

Next on the

to-do list:

Fit the new seats and

windows, crack on

with all the wiring

Thanks to:

Zak at Power

Engineering

(01895 255699)

Nathan for the

quickshift kit

http://www.orbital

motorsport.co.uk

for the new

anti-roll bar