retroandproud, the cage has now gone but you may end up having the seats if you are still interested
. A RWD Escort? Now that that sounds interesting!
In other news upon the departure of my BMW this has now become a daily(ish) as of this week when I am not able to borrow a car. It does feel pretty silly driving something that can rot on these roads in all honesty! But on the other hand I guess I did make my choice in driving an impractical car as a sole car prior to me buying the BMW. Ah well, the Escort is a stupid amount of fun!
However, there is still work to do or at least there is in my mind! It would be interesting to see some RR input on this as to whether you can suggest improvements or whether things require improving at all!
Whilst this car clearly has had some money thrown at it some of the items as always with a retro can be questioned, since some of them appear to be lacking much thought with a 'try and hope approach in some places) Maybe the original builder ran out of money or simply got fed up in the end. But I guess it is my duty (should I choose to accept it!) to rectify these. After all, is this not what RR is all about?
. I shall disclose these small areas in time. These include on this car:
-The breather system
-Mismatched silicone hoses (most of the hoses are Samco bar the heater hoses which are unreinforced silicone hoses (Yikes!).
-Old(ish) tyres - Toyo T1-S
-Getting the remaining interior bits (thankfully not many!).
BreatherSo the breather I hear you ask? Just what is so wrong with mine? I have a catch tank, a filter and fancy tubing, just how can it be improved? Upon giving the engine some thought with the changes it has quite few can be made! It is time for a mini history lesson, without boring you lot to death!
The CVH breather system originally looked like this on the carburetor cars in the rear side engine shot:
For the purpose of the explanation I shall call the ports (as you are looking at the shot);
Breather operation:
A - Engine idling
B- Engine at full throttle
Port 1 for the upper Left port (on the flywheel side of the engine)
Port 2 for the port going into the air filter
Port 3 for the upper right port (in the rocker cover on the crank pulley side of the engine)
Port 4 being the sump/crankcase port (at the bottom of the engine).
Have we got this? Excellent.
The filter in that shot (the part with three hoses coming off) appears to be a PCV of sorts as well as filter, a consumable if you may in CVHs.
This changed with the injection cars where they tried to improve idle quality, something which was flawed on the earlier cars. It eventually culminated with the MkIV breather setup which in all honesty was quite similar to the carb setup in the end!
With the RST, the breather setup was more like the carb item as show with the filter in this shot:
Of course, forced induction meant that a 1 way valve had to be added in to make this setup work without pressurising the engine's crankcase!
The long tube in this shot goes to the metering unit (where the air filter is), the short hose to the crank pulley side of the upper rocker cover breather and the bottom one with the valve to the inlet manifold.
Normally, this setup is not too horrific if the engine is running below 170BHP (as a rough guide) and is a stock 1.6 CVH. What is my engine again? Oh yes, not quite falling into either.
With my car, the tube from the crankcase still goes to the flywheel side of the upper rocker cover as stock but the other upper port goes into catch tank with a filter on as shown:
For getting fumes out it is great ; I can smell the fumes for ages ; I tell everyone it is my new aftershave
. For ensuring the oil level does not drop, and stays cleaner for longer in addition to causing leaks (due to the gases being released not flowing out quite as they did before) this setup is said not to be great, potentially venting less than the stock system in a number of instances, especially since tuned engines in this application (as per a CVH) tend to have more blow by crankcase gasses present. Did I mention that ZVHs tend to breath heavier than CVHs naturally as well? I'm off to a great start!
It seems the receipts would agree. This car has had 2-3 sump gaksets changed in its life on this engine! With this in mind something had to be done.
Behold the magnificence:
OK, maybe not so magnificent. To make matters worse I paid quite a bit for this since Bailey seem to be no longer making these! Why would I do such a thing?
-To prevent future leaks from occuring with my car
-Stop myself from draining the tank at every service (Boy, that is fun...)
-Add more bling
-Make the breather work better overall
-It was a Bailey item? - These tanks seem to have a reputation for working well and fitting good too. They are now also made of unobtanium, with the closest match being Oddkidd's (which seem to come with a variable reputation) or Pro-Alloy (no one seems to have used these, but cheap these are not!).
I guess with the above it was choice made? Did I mention it was a Bailey tank and blingy?
How do I fit this? That's simple:
In theory with two outlets for the engine to breath from most of the above issues should be resolved, and it should free up practical engine space to boot! I may keep the catch tank and hook up the bottom connection to this but we shall see.
In other news, I bought a cambelt cover:
OK, it is dirty and it may 'spoil' the engine bay. OTOH whilst nuns and kittens may not be killed I personally do not fancy taking a chance on a stone etc. getting into the engine and throwing the belt off
. Fitting this cover to a ZVH shall be fun, or at least the bottom part shall be.
As for the other bits? We'll see what happens.