Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5

[Papinak]

Re: Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5

beautiful car

[JimKeogh]

Re: Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5

yeah same here, im running standard 1600 sport single leafs, and they now look like a wavy S bend! but thats after 8+ years of hardship.

Unbelievably, there are no good quality leaf springs available aftermarket for escorts. any of the aftermarket springs are too hard and total rubbish.
Mark D, (in the yellow mk1 mexico) had to get springs specially made in the uk at fairly high cost in the right poundage. think i might have to go down that road myself

I would be up for getting a set made as well......115 lb is the sweet spot ? ...what were you thinking?

[onecamohv]

Re: Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5

yeah same here, im running standard 1600 sport single leafs, and they now look like a wavy S bend! but thats after 8+ years of hardship.

Unbelievably, there are no good quality leaf springs available aftermarket for escorts. any of the aftermarket springs are too hard and total rubbish.
Mark D, (in the yellow mk1 mexico) had to get springs specially made in the uk at fairly high cost in the right poundage. think i might have to go down that road myself

[JimKeogh]

Re: Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5

Hi Jim,

Great to meet you and well done on completing the event!

P.s I know you couldn't hang around for the awards, but you won the spirit of the event award!! For all your efforts getting to the event. Well done !

What leaf springs are you running?

Hope you enjoyed the event

Sent from my Pixel 7 Pro using Tapatalk

Hi Mark,

Great to meet you as well.....and your brother Mathew. Thanks for the kind words. Tremendous event...it was a baptism of fire for me and I was very happy that the car held together.

The springs are standard 1300 auto ones decambered 1 inch......but the car was sitting one inch lower at the end of the event (compared to the start) and the single leaf is now flat! I really don't know what they are rated at but I'm guessing 80Ib. ???

[onecamohv]

Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5

Hi Jim,

Great to meet you and well done on completing the event!

P.s I know you couldn't hang around for the awards, but you won the spirit of the event award!! For all your efforts getting to the event. Well done !

What leaf springs are you running?

Hope you enjoyed the event

Sent from my Pixel 7 Pro using Tapatalk

[JimKeogh]

Re: Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5

are / have you had the engine dyno'd ? be interesting to see how an fr30 does with decent head / breathing.

Yes ...engine built and dyne's by Vulcan

[JimKeogh]

Re: Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5

I took a quaife sc set out for this. I definitely thought it would be a lot quieter.....but its OK

I find that surprising aswell. I thought the point of them is to not be as noisy as a straight cut, but then maybe it is actually still quiter than a SC.

Good to know it went well though, apart from the few teething problems.

[alladdin]

Re: Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5

are / have you had the engine dyno'd ? be interesting to see how an fr30 does with decent head / breathing.

[rallyrob]

Re: Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5

The semi helical Tracsport gear kit was quite noisy in the car....I was not expecting that.

I find that surprising aswell. I thought the point of them is to not be as noisy as a straight cut, but then maybe it is actually still quiter than a SC.

Good to know it went well though, apart from the few teething problems.

[FrankC]

Re: Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5

Good to hear all went well. That’s a fair few miles for its first proper shake down.

Well done Jim

[JimKeogh]

Re: Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5

A few things I learnt after the day...the heater was plumbed in wrongly...the hose from the manifold should have gone to the bottom inlet on the heater and out the top......hence the temp gauge was reading 100 degrees and I had to keep the fan on all day.
The rear ride height is now at least one inch lower than when I started the event..ie: the leaf springs are nearly flat now! I will take out the one inch lower blocks to get it back up again.
My seat is too low.
I couldn't get the new racetec rev counter to work. if anyone knows anything about the intricacies of this please let me know.
The engine pulled well but I doubt if ever I got it near the its optimum for fear of over revving it.
The semi helical Tracsport gear kit was quite noisy in the car....I was not expecting that.

[JimKeogh]

Re: Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5

OOps Double post ...deleted now

[JimKeogh]

Re: Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5


Well the car is built and I entered it's first event on Saturday just gone.The TDC (Trial Drivers Club) Irish Classic Retrospective Trial 2024....here it is at the end of a long day driving 250km around the beautiful County of Wicklow and doing 15 special tests. The fact that the car made it round was the best takeaway from the day. The car build was only finished the night before and test driven for about 3 miles!

[JimKeogh]

Re: Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5

Yes I have a hand held one which will go just infront of the navigator's seat

here in Belgium, extinguisher must be accessible by both from their seat and needs to be a 2kg one.

[Mkdu]

Re: Road Rally Mk2 Escort No 5

here in Belgium, extinguisher must be accessible by both from their seat and needs to be a 2kg one.