Timmeh's RS2000 Project Feedback Thread

[Ghiadude]

dude,
i would personally do a quad throttle body fuel injected setup, quad coils, make the thing swing to ...i dunno 9 grand or so.... just a thought.


MWHUHUHUHUHAAAHAHAHHAAAA!!!:

[Timmeh]

ST170ish - Thanks, does shed a little light on the situation, good information, thanks.

tx3dude - Fuel injected is certainly on the cards, but quad throttle bodies is a bit overboard, especially when the car will be on boost. Haven't settled on the ignition setup yet, that's still to come.

The engine is mostly stripped down, will upload some photos and show you all the exciting and laughable things I found inside!

Tim

[Timmeh]

The engine on the stand, after finding a good engineering shop to get the right bolts from in the quality I wanted.



The inlet manifold with the 40mm Capri weber on it - check out the coolant port, the way the coolant never got flushed and formed a jelly gooey mess over time!



Engine minus rocker cover, water pump, thermostat and housing, crank and auxiliary pulleys. Despite the coolant marks on the outside where the water pump / pipes have leaked coolant, the engine is very what-you-see-is-what-you-get, nothing stood out in a bad way, of the parts we want to keep.



The cam and associated parts. It's all remarkably clean and tidy, no unusual wear, even no stains from oil being left too long before being changed. From what we could see, in good condition! Below, the exhaust manifold studs are a bit rusty as you expect from being 25 yrs old. All good!

More to come...

[Timmeh]

The water pump, what can I say! Very deteriorated, getting replaced.



This is perhaps the single best part of the engine! Not only is the whole thermostat and housing badly deteriorated, the middle of the thermostat is missing! The buildup of old coolant, which has turned into some sort of radioactive jelly, is laughable. This is what happens when you never flush your radiator and coolant properly, over time, and that doesn't include a hose in the radiator cap.



Engine turned over to drain some of the fluids, and to get access to the sump to remove it.

More to come...

[Timmeh]

The sump removed to reveal the internals. All looks as to be expected. On the very top (of what you can see) is the oil pump, and line that runs down into the oil, with the coarse filter on the end. We couldn't remove the oil pump due to the spline bolts, although some handy tips received today has shown me how to get around buying a whole set of spline sockets.



The crank seal, otherwise known as the oil mining company, sending its oil reserves up the conveyor belt! The oil leaking out this seal travelled up the timing belt, sharing oil with every part of my engine bay, including the underside of the bonnet. Yay for seals.



Check out piston four, at the back of the engine. Look at the marks on the bottom (well, top on the photo), looks like it has been scraping something - however, the sump baffle is the closest thing to it. Has been suggested to me it could have been grind for balancing, as there is nothing it could touch.


Well, I bought and acquired some more tools today, to get the head off (curse you spline bolts), and to get the rest of the engine apart. So back to the garage soon to keep stripping down this thing, so I can get the head sent away for X-rays and the block sent to be acid dipped.

All in all, the parts of the engine I plan to keep have been in excellent condition (from early signs anyway, testing will confirm this), and all the dodgy deterirated parts are throw away consumables, so I amhappy with the way things are going so far.

Oh yeah, and I have to add: thanks to Ryan for once again wasting the night away with me, many many laughs were had, many new terms created, including the Hey-Symmetrical Engine Mounts! : Cheers mate.

Tim

[Perana]

Looking good Tim !

Just one thing make sure you replace the oil spray bar for the cam, gets blocked very easily! and also be careful of the cam supports... they will crack or break very easily!

One thing i noticed was that the thermostat is in the wrong way.

Originally Posted by Timmeh

Check out piston four, at the back of the engine. Look at the marks on the bottom (well, top on the photo), looks like it has been scraping something - however, the sump baffle is the closest thing to it. Has been suggested to me it could have been grind for balancing, as there is nothing it could touch.

Im pretty sure they are balencing marks

[Timmeh]

Originally Posted by Perana XR8

One thing i noticed was that the thermostat is in the wrong way.

Why does that not suprise me. Like they say, if you want something done properly....

Thanks for your advice, will take note of it. :

Tim

[Timmeh]

Just a minor update, pulled off the head now that I found the 12mm spline socket I bought to get the thing off.



Oil spray bar looks good, not clogged. No complaints there.



Engine with the head off it - looks as I'd expect for a 25 yr old engine. Of course, it will all be replaced.



The underside of the head...



You can see the top of the valves inside the ports.

Nothing really stood out ripping the two halves of the engine apart, as expected! Just need to strip the remaining parts off the block and head and send them away for testing.

Tim

[XP6]

If you install aftermarket cam replace the stock spray bar, the lobes can hit it!
I think crane do a extended lenght spray bar(sorry cant remember exactly it was 7yrs ago...)if you try and bend the stock bar it will spray in the wrong area, as I found out after killing the cam and followers on mine(costly mistake).

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

Your water pump looks very much like the one I removed from my engine a little while back:

I wish I had the $$$ and knowledge required to rebuild my engine, not to mention somewhere to do it. No doubt I'll have all three sooner or later, in the mean time, I'll be following this thread, learning as I go.

Great pics, keep them coming, and best of luck with it all.

[Timmeh]

Originally Posted by ST170ish

If you install aftermarket cam replace the stock spray bar, the lobes can hit it!
I think crane do a extended lenght spray bar(sorry cant remember exactly it was 7yrs ago...)if you try and bend the stock bar it will spray in the wrong area, as I found out after killing the cam and followers on mine(costly mistake).

Sounds like good advice, thanks!




Here the retaining springs and cam followers are gone, releasing the cam to slide out from front to rear. The timing belt tensioner on the front also came off now that I have the right tools. That was holding on like there was no tomorrow!



Removing the valves...

Head's almost reading to be sent away, tomorrow will pull out the pistons and crank from the block to send them away together.

Tim

to re move gearstick pry up metal tabs and turn base anti ways GENTLY as thread is nylon and breaks easly

[Timmeh]

Hey everyone who reads this:

There is a new project section in the forums, and I will be updating my thread on the RS2000 there.

The link to the new thread (which is dialup friendly, believe it or not!) can be found here:

http://www.fordforums.com.au/showthread.php?t=9391

I've decided that the small pieces of feedback that you guys give me along the way is too valuable to not have, so I am going to keep this thread going again.

Tim

[Timmeh]

Ok, just a bit of a summary whats happened while I suspended this thread. As I posted above, I am re starting this thread for the feedback that you guys give me along the way. It's valuable to lose, so don't be shy to reply!

Basically, I found one of the valve guides on the original head had small cracks at the top, and bought another head, thinking the original was not useable. But when Ryan came up again, he saw it was just the valve guides that can be replaced, so we stripped both heads and the block and sent them away.

(Click on the photos for a larger version)



The pistons removed from the engine. You can see the number two piston rings were broken in half, for whatever reason. The bore of the cylinder does not appear to be damaged though, but I'll reserve comment until it goes under the X-ray machine. I do know that the engine bore is still at its factory width (90.88mm), so I do have some room to play with if I need to get it bored.



The crank mains and the crank bearings, top and bottom halves. These bolts are what destroyed my old breaker bar, who knows what soft lame brand it was, but instigated the mass acquiring of top quality tools for the completion of the project. I do admit to having an extra three foot of extension on the breaker bar to apply more torque to it, but still!



Two heads, one block, in the boot of the Focus, ready to be taken to work to begin their cleaning, investigation, and then machining should they prove to be all good.

More to come...

[Timmeh]

(Click on the photos for a larger version)



Ok, so things never go to plan! I was expecting the block and heads to be gone for a week or so to let me start on other things, but this morning I picked all three up, completed. I walked in to see how they were going, and was asked if I knew about this... and so I turned the heads up to reveal the underside.



My original head has been heavily ported and polished, plus oversize valves fitted for a much higher flow. The quality in the extensive work is there, you can clearly see a huge difference. All the burrs have been removed, ported for a much higher flow, oversized valves for a higher flow also.



Here you are looking into a port of the spare head, in standard trim. Rough, restrictive.



Same photo but in the original head, smooth, high flowing.



We didn't pick it up at the time, but side by side, you can clearly see the difference in valve size.



The block, all clean and pretty.

Next up is to send the block and head away for testing and machining. But that's not where we stopped on the car...

[Timmeh]

(Click on the photos for a larger version)



It was time to start looking at other parts of the car. I knew for a fact the heater assembly was not working correctly, so my aim was to get that out so I could start working on it. That was easily done, just by undoing some bolts, hoses, and pulling it out. Ryan (AusXH) showed me how well an 8mm socket and extension fit inside the heater assembly during removal, but it was good laughs and straight forward removing it.



While Ryan was testing the comfort of the Recaros in an alternate position, with his head under the dash and feet up at the roof, he made the discovery we'd been waiting to find. There is some minor rust underneath the dash way up in the corners, so that will have to be attended to when the car gets tubbed. The steering column came out fairly easily, Ryans much wanted trophy for the night, to get the thing out! Not sure I want to keep the ugly factory steering wheel though.



The interior minus the heater, heater console, glovebox, centre console, steering column, and other assorted bits of trim. The actual dash is metal and welded to the chassis, but the instrument cluster can come out, to be restored.

At least it gives me some toys to play with and get working, while the engine work continues on the side. I expect at this stage to continue to strip the car of as much as possible, but keeping the chassis on wheels so I can tow it to a panel beater and get the car tubbed and rust removed while everything is out of it.

Ok, it's question time for you guys:

Engine:

I heard K-Line Bronze Valve Guides are the go for replacing the ones from my original head. Anyone disagree or know something else here?

When converting a leaded engine to unleaded, I have been told by a couple of high performance engine builders that you only need to get the exhaust valve seats hardened, is that generally accepted or do people do all of them?

I need to start looking for a good set of rods and pistons for the 2.0L Pinto, does anyone have any advice as to good manfacturers / retailers of these?

How strong is the crank? It looks like a touch beefcake, are looks deceiving or is it tough?

Interior:

No real questions at the moment, but any comments are appreciated!

Tim

[DavO]

hey, i'm currently rebuilding a 2ltr pinto to put into my current 1.6ltr eskki atm

cranks are tough as guy at my dads work used to rally a few escorts and he told me the stock crank is good up to 8000-10000rpm with no problems at all as long as its balanced

and i picked myself up a complete rebuild kit for the bottom end including
Pistons
Rings
Mains
Thrusts
Full gasket set with front and rear seal.
(only cast pistons though) from gwengineparts.com.au for $378.97 AU including GST and they are based in qld so from the day i paid it was at my door about 3 days later so great service and prolly stock forged pistons if you are looking for soemthing a bit stonger

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

Originally Posted by Timmeh

Not sure I want to keep the ugly factory steering wheel though.

If you don't want it, I'll have it, it's in much better condition then the RS wheel I already have, and I'd love to replace the Ghia steering wheel I'm using at the moment with a RS wheel - the only reason I havn't swapped the Ghia one I've got for the RS one I've got is because my RS one looks older then it is, by 10-15 years, lol.

So yeah, if you don't want that "ugly factory steering wheel", I'll gladly have it!

[Perana]

Head looks nice Tim!

Im not sure about the Valve guides... As far as the valve seats from what ive heard as well that is the case but im not sure...

Accorging to a book I have on the 2ltr... "The crank can for short periods, take the punishment dished out by a 210HP circuit race engine at 8000rpm. For shorter periods, such as drag racing, it can safely withstand 25psi boost and 10000rpm." this would require very good balencing and clearencing though as well as very good rods and pistons. Im not sure on what pistons and rods are good though but definatly go forged pistons.

As far as boring the block with these engines there is plenty of room for boring as well..

[Timmeh]

Davo - Thanks for the link mate, I'll definitely be going all forged gear - it's going to cost me about 5 times what you paid easy, but it's another place to get a price from.

The Maddest Man - I'll put you at the top of the list for the RS wheel when it gets replaced.

Ben - Yeah, I have talked to some people who beleive the crank is good for pretty much anything I want to do so long as it's nicely balanced. I am sending the head to hopefully be X-rayed at work, if not, then the time has come to get both the head and block decked, the block honed, oversize if needed, the head have the valve guides and seats installed, and then time to fork out for internals that will never die.

Thanks for your input guys, much appreciated!

Tim

[Timmeh]

(Click on the photos for a larger version)

This post is a good one for those of you that have never seen what metal testing is like. I'll explain what we were doing to investigate our engine parts, to see if they were strong enough for the high performance buildup.

The process of Magnaflux testing involves running a localised magnetic field through the metal being tested, then saturating the metal in a liquid with tiny metal particles that will align themselves to the variations in the metal. These particles glow under UV light. The process only works in one direction, so each process has to be repeated twice, one 90 degrees to the other, in every area being tested. As we are testing about 30cm x 30cm areas at a time, you can imagine it takes hours to complete. It took us two days to do all the engine parts.

:monkes:



The first photo is of the good original ported and polished head, under normal light. I have marked an area between the two green lines for you to have a close look at, to show you what you can't see under normal light with the naked eye. It looks like any other part of the head.



Under the UV light however, you can instantly see a minor crack in the number three exhaust port. Bear in mind this is the head we want to keep, so it wasn't what we wanted to see.

Look back at the first photo and you can see how minute these cracks are, as you can't see them with the naked eye under normal light. This crack we found will be a point of failure if left unattended, so we will port out the crack to remove it, de-stressing the area, and the valve seat is being replaced with a hardened one anyway (so the head can be used with unleaded fuel).

As this was the only fault with the head, and can be removed, I am fairly happy (no faults would have been better but hey), and it's at the machine shop now being worked on.

The crank had a very minor crack (less than 1mm long and deep) on the side of one of the journals, which we will machine out and re-balance, otherwise that showed up quite ok.

The block was immaculate, thankfully, the block itself, mains, and main bolts were all good.

Now, for some good photos! These are both taken of the spare head (the one I bought when I thought my original head was worthless).



The photo above is of the number three cylinder combustion chamber (seems to be a common theme with these heads, I wonder if it's cooling related or not). You can see a huge crack extending across the exhaust port, from one side to the other. You can also see some smaller cracks stemming from the spark plug hole. This head is a complete write off, no way would you stick this thing back onto an engine. And this sort of potential failure was invisible under normal light, if I had seen it at the time, I wouldn't have bought it, obviously.



In this last photo (number two cylinder), you can see yet another crack in the exhaust port, only this one branches off into two cracks. Also some cracking around the spark plug hole can be seen. The big glowing buildup of fluid above the spark plug hole on the machined bottom of the head is not a crack, just excess fluid.

The block and head are now at the machine shop, getting this work done to them:
Head:
Valve guides removed, K-Line bronze valve guides installed (integral guides for the ones I rooted)
Oversize valves ordered
Valve spring sets tested, to be kept if within limits, to be replaced if required
Hardened valve seats inserted, porting work done to exhaust port 3 to remove the crack
Head decked

Block:
Existing bore is 20 thou oversize, re-bored to 40 thou
Block decked

I'll be machining the crank myself and re-testing in the magnaflux to ensure there are zero possible points of failure, and then it will be time to pass it on to the machine shop for more work, measuring and balancing.

How much fun is this high performance engine building! It's so addictive. And expensive LOL.

-----------------------------

I'd like to hear what people think of the testing we spent days doing, it's been very cool, another big learning experience for me, just taking things as they come. It's been hard making calls about whether or not to use possibly compromised parts of the engine, especially seeing as we don't magnaflux cranks or heads all day, so we don't know what is normal or acceptable. For all we know, we could be over engineering this car to the tenth degree.

Anyways, I have typed enough to last me a week. Your turn LOL

Tim

[LUXO_8]

thats an awesome testing procedure..... thanks for sharing it with us tim...
is it expensive to have done?

[Timmeh]

From what I have been told, the running costs of the machine, the consumables with it, and labour costs about $200 an hour. We spent two days on it, haha.



It takes ages to do the smallest job and be comprehensive with it, and I'll be back there with my crank after I do some work to it. It's a good peace of mind, it's ultra sensitive but if we can get our engine parts to pass in that machine, then we can be assured we have the best of what's available to us in that material.

Tim

[LUXO_8]

EEEP!~

thats exy!

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

Originally Posted by MADNC_8

thats an awesome testing procedure..... thanks for sharing it with us tim...

Indeed, thanks for sharing it with us Tim!

Regarding possibly overengineering it, maybe so, but it's certainly better then underengineering it, and I'm sure I'm not the only one following all this work who is learning a thing or three.

Keep up the updates mate, it's appreciated very much by at least one other Pinto owner.

[Dark Horse]

Very interesting Tim. I did do some theory on this stuff as far as physics way back in HSC in the elective on magnetism, but also more recently with aircraft accident investigation techniques at uni.

It's the first time I've actually seen results in colour. Neat stuff!

[Timmeh]

Thanks for the comments! Good to know people read the thread!

Originally Posted by Dark Horse

Very interesting Tim. I did do some theory on this stuff as far as physics way back in HSC in the elective on magnetism, but also more recently with aircraft accident investigation techniques at uni.

It's the first time I've actually seen results in colour. Neat stuff!

It's very interesting stuff. I was effectively shouldering the guy out of the way saying "Let me have a go!"

I'm always keen to learn soemthing new and play with toys I can't afford. Haha. :togo:

Tim

[Scort]

ay me and my dad fully rebuilt an rs2000 2 door

we bought the car shell in grey primmer and got the 2pac spray.

we put a newly rebuilt 2litre engine in, with 5 speed sierra box (with quickshifter) these work awsome in rs's.

its pretty mint condition, i got the orginal recardo racing seats ill get some pics up soon..

im currently looking for some new rims for it...hard to find some i like.. i dont wanna go to big..will effect performance and such

next step on engine will prolly be fuel injectors

[MorphUnreal]

timmeh just wondering how everything is going? no progress of late?

[Timmeh]

Hey there. Things have been happening but nothing to really excite anyone about at the moment! Plus I've had some other priorities, but here's what I have been up to!

The head and block are at the machine shop, getting the valve seats pressed in, the number 3 exhaust port de-stressed, new valve guides pressed in, block bored, and both decked.

We're also chasing down a set of valves for the head, Manly (who do some of the V8 Supercar valves I have been told, but believe what you will) are the best but cost $55 each, which adds up over 8 valves (thankfully I don't have a 4V V8), so I am looking at my options, but knowing me, will still probably pay for the best.

I am also de-stressing the crank at work and re-magnafluxing it to check for any tiny possible points of failure, so that's taking time. Plus all this costs alot of cash to build it to survive a nuclear war, so the project taking its time at the moment isnt such a bad thing.

Nothing I have many photos of, so I haven't posted much lately, but hopefully soon I'll have some premium quality products to show for our hard work! This stage is very important, the way we do things now will decide if we're building a hand grenade or a reliable high performance engine! It's taking longer than I expected, I know.

I've also been looking at the rear suspension and tubs, and talking to engineers, seems I won't be able to move the suspension mounting points at all, and the best I can do is Mini-tubs with the Escort Forest Pack Flares. So that sucks a little to keep it street registered, but I'm working on it!

:monkes:

Thanks for asking!

Tim