Fiesta XR2s....

timbob

timbob

timbob

Soldato
Joined
27 Nov 2002
Posts
3,127
Am I mad for wanting to buy an old mk2 XR2, rip the interior out and bolt in a rollcage, lower it on pepperpots, stick a whopping great carb on the engine and a loud exhaust on the back then proceed to hoon around the countryside and do trackdays in it?

Went to Combe today and got chatting wih the g/f about doing a project car together, we both quite fancy the idea of a stripped XR2 - something cheap to buy and easy to fix/modify, and not worry too much about bending...
 
hmm i have some research to do on fords...in the states they are a bunch of slow, POS, unreliable junkers.....except the older muscle cars..they're great...

But here ford seems to be QUITE popular and the models are so much better. lol american cars are so much better in europe
 
Find an old 1600 MG Maestro, pull off the Weber 40 DCNF's, locate the correct manifold and lob them on the XR2 along with a cam and a decent 'zorst and have some fun...
:D
 
timbob said:
Am I mad for wanting to buy an old mk2 XR2, rip the interior out and bolt in a rollcage, lower it on pepperpots, stick a whopping great carb on the engine and a loud exhaust on the back then proceed to hoon around the countryside and do trackdays in it?
Click to expand...

Not mad at all - go for it :D The XR2 even in standard guise is a fun car :)
 
Not mad at all. They are great little cars with a lot of potential.

Enginewise if you go for a Mk1 they have the Kent crossflow which is one of Ford's better engines. Get some serious headwork done, race cam, twin Webers or Delortos, paper thin flywheel and a balance and basically you've got a race engine. I have almost the exact same engine in my Anglia with a slightly older style head from a Cortina but it's got 150hp with power throughout the revs which is what the crossflow is good for. In a car that weighs 750kg it's good to see off Porsches and basically wastes most things on the road. In a Fiesta it would be a WILD ride and you'd have to hang on tight!

Tuning goodies for the suspension are readily available for next to nothing on eBay and new from Leda, Koni and Bilstein. Wheels are plentiful as are tyre combos, cut slicks etc.

Best be would be to get a mint granny spec 957cc or 1100cc and fit the XR2 running gear. They rusted to hell and were ragged from new but most of the little cars were well looked after and god examles are around. The engine, gearbox and suspension is completely different but you could pick up a shagged XR2 cheap and put the running gear in the good shell.
 
Lies, don't listen to HIM :D

Better but not as retro, depends how fussy you are really. And I like scaring children with my big ugly carbs.

Edit: Anyway on a properly built 1760cc (+90thou overbore) crossflow you want 45's or 48's. 40's are for road engines. Don't think bike carbs come that big :D
 
Last edited:
The idea as it stands at the moment is to use an XR2 to learn about cars. I can do a few things at the moment - change brake pads, changed a radiator once, helped a mate change my cambelt - but nothing major really.

I figure on spending £500 on a reasonably solid XR2 as a second car and doing everything to it myself. Buy a MIG welder and learn how to weld, fit carbs, strip it all out, fit new dampers and springs etc. To keep it as cheap as possible, using only 2nd hand parts, or scrappy bits.

As it's a 2nd car, it doesn't really matter if it's off the road for a fortnight whilst I faff about putting a new clutch in or whatever, it's all part of the experience.

The only problem is space - there are 3 of us here, each with a car. We only have 2 spaces on our driveway (which is flat and level), so someone always has to park on the road. We don't have use of the garage (rented property) although there is a decent sized wooden summerhouse - used as a shed - a few yards through the gate into the garden for storing bits. But essentially, a project car would need to take up a space on the driveway and would be an eyesore for our neighbours.
 
Jonny69 said:
Lies, don't listen to HIM :D

Better but not as retro, depends how fussy you are really. And I like scaring children with my big ugly carbs.

Edit: Anyway on a properly built 1760cc (+90thou overbore) crossflow you want 45's or 48's. 40's are for road engines. Don't think bike carbs come that big :D
Click to expand...

Bike Carbs are a different design to car carbs; a Weber 45 is actually sleeved down to 40mm (if my memory serves me correctly) whereas a 36mm or 42mm bike carb is that size all the way through. You also get one carb per cylinder, giving even better flow ;)

Bike carbs are good for about 550-600cc per cylinder (up to around a 2.2 litre 4-pot engine...). Look at how much they flow on a sub-1-litre bike engine (awaiting irrelevant comment on revs...).

They're the future, I tells yas!

*n
 
timbob said:
loud exhaust on the back then proceed to hoon around the countryside and do trackdays in it?
Click to expand...

This is the kind of mentality thats causing tracks to close :(
In motorcross they lost 4 tracks this year, basicly because the public are against bikes in general, due to idiots hooning around the countryside with loud exhausts :mad:
I used to do enduro racing amoung other types of motorsport, and the organizers used to encourage the racers to look after the countryside, Ive always re packed the exhaust silencers on my bikes regurlarly as not to bring attention to myself.
Its very sad when trackdays apply road legal noise limits, and car modifiers think its accpetable to use loud race exhausts for the road .
Sooner or later we'll loose the tracks and modifying cars altogther, there needs to be a compromise.
It should be noted that properly tuned track cars are useless on the road.
 
I love these car's !

Even when me Evo is finished I doubt i will take her out as much as the xrpoo :D

cheap to fix, easy to work on.There a perfect first car to practice on.

fantastic cornering and can brake soooo late into corners compared to the Evo.

Only used the car at haynes so far but I came around 4th/5th with MLR and was only a few tenths down on quickest tuned evo of the day, although the track is more suited to the xr.
Need brake upgrade before I hit some bigger tracks.

Noise on vid is clutch rattle. Couldnt give her stick in car due to driving one handed but the cars quick enough to hold off a low power scoob/S14 :p

http://www.evocarl.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/fiestars.wmv :D
 
Personally I'd look at a Mk1 in preference to a Mk2. It's a bit breathless in standard form but the old Crossflow is well known and cheap to tune compared to many engines - it also doesn't suffer the chronic oil and breathing issues that plague the CVH.
One of THE most fun cars I've been in was a Mk1 Supersport with BVH and rally cam on a single twin choke Weber. You need to keep it pinned though, like a 205 GTI. Backing off is for gays.
 
Lopéz said:
Personally I'd look at a Mk1 in preference to a Mk2. It's a bit breathless in standard form but the old Crossflow is well known and cheap to tune compared to many engines - it also doesn't suffer the chronic oil and breathing issues that plague the CVH.
One of THE most fun cars I've been in was a Mk1 Supersport with BVH and rally cam on a single twin choke Weber. You need to keep it pinned though, like a 205 GTI. Backing off is for gays.
Click to expand...

apparently the mk1 handles better than the mk2 as well ?

Friend owned a mk1 supersport, at the time was an awesome little car.
 
Good luck finding one for a reasonable price that isn't utterly rotten. The inner wings on Mk2 Fiestas dissolve before your eyes, as do many other parts.

I'd like to meet the berk at Ford that designed the exhaust layout as well, he/she needs a slap for routing the exhaust *under* the rear axle and then relying only the slip joint at the front to stop the whole system rotating downwards and dragging along the ground...which they do quite regularly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom