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M_C's '69 Escort V6 Coupe


M_C

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Cheers,

Planning it as a "Friday Car" Get her going, then re-complied for the road. Mental health days driving to work on a short Friday, track days learning to drive properly -hopefully before my enthusiasm overtakes my driving skill... Then casual racing. Targa eventually.

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Welcome to Oldschool

Nice project mate looking forward to updates :)

Whats your warning sign say?, i do the same anytime i have something critical un done or removed.

Are your hubs 5 studd as well. Keen to see how you go about brakes :)

Square headlights look cool. Looks like you should have some good air flow on the front. All holimigated?

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Is that an Essex or one of the slightly newer variants? If it's an Essex i have a workshop manual covering them and would be more than happy to scan the relevant pages and send them to you.

Definitely old old school. Car came with 80's declaration cert saying engine and gearbox are from Mark 4 Zodiac so early Essex. Cheers for the offer, one of the first things I bought was a Zodiac Mark 4 Hanes manual to work out how to put the engine back together. Essential piece of kit!

Engine is pretty standard appart from warm cam so not huge hp, but should sound great and have a few torques for the light bodyshell. Corners may be interesting with the weight up front? Guess I am about to find out. Picked up a mates bare essex block to the other day and wasn't as heavy as I thought. That's what I keep telling myself any way...

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Welcome to Oldschool

Nice project mate looking forward to updates :)

Whats your warning sign say?, i do the same anytime i have something critical un done or removed.

Are your hubs 5 studd as well. Keen to see how you go about brakes :)

Square headlights look cool. Looks like you should have some good air flow on the front. All holimigated?

Cheers for the welcome guys. Impressive how active the forum is.

Flew to CHC to sight and pay for the car planning to help bleed the brakes for transport. The front callipers were not bolted onto the struts so no front brakes. Turned out to be a good reason they weren’t bolted on as would not fit over disks, and if they did they would hit the hubs.

So isolated the front circuit by butchering the line and folding over itself. Trying to bleed the rear brakes and couldn't get any pressure. Master cylinder perished? Ah well, there is the handbrake. Ah, no. The skyline callipers on the rear have no provision for cable handbrake so the end of the cable is just taped up. Ah well, maybe engine compression may slow her down? Ah, no. the heads are just sitting there and not bolted on as the engine is in pieces... So the sign was "WARNING, no front brakes." Then crossed out to no foot brakes at all, then added no handbrake, then added no engine compression braking, -NO brakes at all!" Minor stress over the transport back to AKL but arrived without a scratch. My first ride was down the transporters ramp slowed by the guys from the factory, then pushed into the warehouse.

Yes hubs are five stud. Custom front hubs must have been done to match the Hilux rear axle. I think the rims are Hiace ones? They are growing on me. Brakes have been a bit of a saga. Will post more later…

Not my first choice for airflow at the front, but long way down the list to change it. Besides the Essex will generate a bit of heat.

No go on the cage. See the “enthusiastic” cage welding pic posting now. And no papers and main hoop too small for new rules. Will do a few track days once the car is running then have to pull the cage out and start from scratch. Douh.

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That welding is something else.

With the amount of people who have been killed by cages over the years, even legitimate ones early in the piece, I would say any cage is definitely not safer than no cage. If the bars protrude into the passenger cabin or extend past the front or rear axle line it could be very dangerous even in only a minor crash.

In saying that, it doesn't look like that would be the case with that cage, just looks like the welding is crap. A look on the motorsport website gives some dimensions that will be safe and where to position the seat, so checking this out should be able to give you an idea as to whether the basic design of the cage will be safe.

Then you can just grab a cage kit from Racefab Engineering in CHCH for $550 and have it welded in. Done.

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Oh my god. That is disgusting!!!

It's unlikely you'll get into any MSNZ events for the reasons pointed out by Mikuni above...

Those cage kits are reasonable. Just bear in mind that you'll need at least an extra length of tube to do the extra bars and most engineers will charge something like $1000 to put it in - still a cheap way to do it.

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Yeah, the welding is definitely a WTF?

As a forum newbie, what is the protocol for naming guys and firms you have had good experiences with? Is this a good thing, or nono to post in the forum?

One of the first things I did was get a experienced motorsport guy and scrutineer look the car over. The cage design is good with nice runs for the tubes, hence I am happy to do basic events, but nothing serious. But the welding…? When re-doing it I’ll add a few more tubes. Likely double door bars and tie the bottom of the main hoop to the bottom of the rear uprights.

Above the basic cage design, what are the best additions for driver safety? Is this a personal opinion thing? Been discussed before in another thread?

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Eeek!

Thats why i didnt even contenplate making my own cage would have probably ended up looking like that :rabbit:

Sounds like you need to start brakes from scratch? Drop this bias pedal box in; http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/car-par ... 257548.htm

(The reserve price was: $350.00) otherwise you may never get the brakes working with std masters? What disks are on the front, something vented/decent? Do you think they could have modified standard front hubs, so that you know what disk you could make work?

Check my project thread if you want to see how to fit FXGT calipers with handbreak & S14 disks onto hilux housing with 5 studd axles. Can even do you a scan of the bracket 1:1 so you could get it cut and the thickness so it will all bolt straight on.

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This is the design i gave my cage builder, Connecting to the suspension members escpecially the front turrents seems important to me especially with the flimsy front ends for track use.

Actualy ended up sligtly different,can scan log book if you want to see design

77106705.png

Disclamer,I'm no expert im still new to all this stuff also :)

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I wasn't too worried about my brakes Low'n'slow unitl I read your build... I have a new standard 2 circuit escort master cylinder. The size is about the same as the Mazda RX7 one the brakes came off so fingers crossed. New brake lines throughout, Cheers Just Brakes in Onehunga. New exchange brake booster plumbed into the front line, Mazda RX7 aluminium 4 pots on the front with dia 283x22 disks, Skyline rear disks. Most of the setup was already there. I figure I will get the car going with the minimum of alterations and see how it works. The posts are a bit behind the build progress so will try to catchup. I just had the brakes tested on a rolling road and they look good. But not sure on how they balance front to back or will perform on a track. Side to side balance is good and effort seems good?

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Your cage sketch is pretty much my ideal cage. Has there been much discussion on cages? I had a quick search for roll cages in the forum but didn't see one amoungst the heaps of results. I am thinking along the lines of, for example the cage to shell gussets. Are they cheap and easy to do and have a big benifit, or diffucult to do and have limited benifit?

Starting out with the basic 6 point cage, what are the best bang for buck additions?

My goals are a budget track day car, safe, basic racing and eventuallyTarga.

Cheers

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