The Trade In- '89 L Driver, Clean Up & Upgrades

[BustaBust]

can i get the info for the escort carb you swapped? part number or model and engine its from. i want to do the same thing but need more details about the exact one to get. any thing you would do different? What kind of filter should i be on the look out for, yours seems pretty one off. your difficutly rating 1-10. im a novice diy mechanic and am a little intimidated. dont real have fabrication skills. thanks in advance

[theastronaut]

can i get the info for the escort carb you swapped? part number or model and engine its from. i want to do the same thing but need more details about the exact one to get. any thing you would do different? What kind of filter should i be on the look out for, yours seems pretty one off. your difficutly rating 1-10. im a novice diy mechanic and am a little intimidated. dont real have fabrication skills. thanks in advance

I had to quickly throw a filter together to get it running before Isanity, it's just a peice of aluminum holding a generic filter element down on the carb flange... I need to find an Escort filter housing still. A Weber DG series filter might fit. The inner stem on the fuel cut solenoid needs to be trimmed an reinstalled. You'll have to open up the idle adjustment screw port; it comes covered by a brass cap. The throttle cable bracket will need to be cut and welded back together, and the throttle linkage from the stock Festiva carburetor will have to be tack welded onto the Escort carb's throttle shaft. I'm running the carb mounted backwards from the way a few others are running theirs though, it may be easier to set up the other way around. I think you have to buy a linkage kit to make it work that way though. I posted pics on page two of the throttle linkage, accelerator cable bracket, and fuel line.


This is the carb I used and it's running great.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Genuine-NOS-Carburetor-L4-1-6L-E6PE-ABA-81-85-Ford-EXP-Escort-Mercu-Lynx-LN7/252959529882?epid=1049384245&hash=item3ae5901b9a%3Ag%3A~YEAAOSw9OFZKHc8%3Asc%3AUPSGround%2129625%21US%21-1&rmvSB=true

[theastronaut]

The A/C had leaked down over the winter so I put some dye in and charged it enough to find the leak. The leak was just a o-ring where the hose end bolts to the compressor, simple fix. It's never been converted to r134 so I bought a drier and orfice tube to convert it. I'll pull everything apart to add all new o-rings when I flush the system.

I knew the air wasn't blowing out of the vents as hard as it should have so I thought that the evaporator might be clogged... wasn't expecting it to be as bad as it was though. I stuck my phone up to the recirc intake with the flash on and the pic was pretty ugly so I ended up dropping the evap housing.







I really don't know how it could ever get that bad, it was filthy! I brushed off as much as possible then backflushed the fins and soaked/scrubbed it with purple power until it was clean again.





I also cleaned out the evaporator box and glued new foam (upside down headliner material) on the recirc/outside air door so it'll seal up like it should.

[FoMoCoMotion]

Very nice "restoration"! Another one saved!!!

[william]

Looking good what drier and orfice tube do you get for the conversion? I need to do mine and didn't realize you had to change out the tube.

[theastronaut]

Very nice "restoration"! Another one saved!!!

Thanks!

Looking good what drier and orfice tube do you get for the conversion? I need to do mine and didn't realize you had to change out the tube.

Just standard replacement parts, nothing special. Mostly just changing the orifice tube to make sure the old one isn't clogged, and they're only a couple bucks. I'm overly OCD about things like that...

[theastronaut]

Forgot to include it earlier... I've started buffing the paint.

[bravekozak]

If I were you, I would install a cabin air filter, so that I will never have to purple the evaporator again.
Also, please post an mp3 of your engine/header/muffler combo. Thanks.

[theastronaut]

[TWFodor]

Sounds good!

[Thebrandonbeezy]

very nice!

[theastronaut]

Got my race seat mounted, the R888's mounted on the new wheels, and fixed a blown rear shock. I've been running the car too low with the Escort wheels which killed the shock inserts in the front coilovers as well (no compression damping), but I didn't find that until the night before Saturday's autocross. I raised the car back up to it's optimal height for grip and stuffed soft bump stops on the front shock rods to add some compression resistance. Not the best solution but I didn't have extras on hand to swap in.

I hadn't driven on the R888's before the autocross so I wasn't used to the extra grip. My first two runs were pretty smooth and fast even with the added weight of a passenger, running low/mid 53's which was about 3.5 seconds behind the quickest times posted so far. I pushed the car harder on the third run and noticed that the car was cutting out in the corners; the carburetor wasn't fueling properly from the added grip of the stickier tires. My last run was with no passenger and a better idea of how the car handled with the new tires so it was my quickest at 51.6. They weren't annoucing everyones times like they used to but after asking around a bit we think 49.9 was the quickest of the day set by a modified S2000. So it did pretty good for having blown shocks and running low on power through the corners!

I have a pretty good idea what I need to change on the car to make it stick even better for the next event- taller rear bump stops to decrease body roll and increase the amount of weight on the inside front tire to keep it from spinning when on power out of a corner, and less toe out in the rear so it's not quite as loose. I'll probably have to go with a different carburetor setup to fix the fuel slosh issue; I've been looking at sport bike carbs and building my own intake manifold to fit them.

Intake would end up similar to this, four individual carbs on a simple manifold. I'm pretty sure the stock intake is a restriction now that I've done port work, cam, header, and exhaust work so there should be a gain in power with bike carbs.




Busted rear shock.




Fronts height set too low- even chewed up the bump stops.




Momo race seat mounted. This made a huge difference in driving the car- I had to learn to just steer with the wheel. With the stock seats I was having to hold myself in the seat with the wheel and steer so it made driving difficult.




Old ride height on the new wheels/tires. Looks good but rubbed the fenders, and the suspension geometry isn't the best for grip.




At the autocross at race height. Blake brought his GoPro and had it mounted in the car for three of the runs so I'll post those once he get them on YouTube.

[w4rkry]

Nice work John! I think it's great that you had more grip than the carb could handle haha. That tire/wheel combo is looking stellar!
Can't wait to see the YT clips.

[Smoker]

Got my race seat mounted, the R888's mounted on the new wheels, and fixed a blown rear shock. I've been running the car too low with the Escort wheels which killed the shock inserts in the front coilovers as well (no compression damping), but I didn't find that until the night before Saturday's autocross. I raised the car back up to it's optimal height for grip and stuffed soft bump stops on the front shock rods to add some compression resistance. Not the best solution but I didn't have extras on hand to swap in.

I hadn't driven on the R888's before the autocross so I wasn't used to the extra grip. My first two runs were pretty smooth and fast even with the added weight of a passenger, running low/mid 53's which was about 3.5 seconds behind the quickest times posted so far. I pushed the car harder on the third run and noticed that the car was cutting out in the corners; the carburetor wasn't fueling properly from the added grip of the stickier tires. My last run was with no passenger and a better idea of how the car handled with the new tires so it was my quickest at 51.6. They weren't annoucing everyones times like they used to but after asking around a bit we think 49.9 was the quickest of the day set by a modified S2000. So it did pretty good for having blown shocks and running low on power through the corners!

I have a pretty good idea what I need to change on the car to make it stick even better for the next event- taller rear bump stops to decrease body roll and increase the amount of weight on the inside front tire to keep it from spinning when on power out of a corner, and less toe out in the rear so it's not quite as loose. I'll probably have to go with a different carburetor setup to fix the fuel slosh issue; I've been looking at sport bike carbs and building my own intake manifold to fit them.

Intake would end up similar to this, four individual carbs on a simple manifold. I'm pretty sure the stock intake is a restriction now that I've done port work, cam, header, and exhaust work so there should be a gain in power with bike carbs.

Is there a specific bike you'd be looking for as far as a donor? I know a lot of the vw guys have been running early R1 carbs on their aba's for years. I know there's a reason they go after those specifically, but I forget what that reason is...

[Dragonhealer]

Racing:
An engineering exercise to determine what part breaks first.

Amazing. Keep up the good work!