Mk1 Fiesta Hill Climb Car - daily mk2 escort resto

Well seeing as this is also my first post i best start with an intro.

My names Chris and I moved down into the area a few month back for work from Newcastle. not long after moving down i decided I needed to bring one of my toys down and put it in the garage. In came the Fiesta, this particular car was intended to be a built up into a spare for my old mk1 fiesta stage rally car but in the 7yr i have owned it other than grinding crap back and finding a few old repairs i have done nothing much to it but with moving commitments and a friend offering me good money for just my stage cars shell i decided to break her up and began planning this build. Since there is not a huge deal of gravel rallies around here without traveling i decided i was going to try my hand at hill climbing and really go bit mad with this build.

The first stage of my plan is the shell. I have built many fiesta and most of them have had high power outputs for a lightweight hatch and they all suffered the age old problem of actually putting it down. Now in Rallying I couldn't just make one of my fiesta's AWD.... Now I can so first up was deciding the best way to go about this and more of this can be seen in the pics Below.

Engine wise I have decided to go down the turbo route and i will build up a Turbo Zetec as the project develops.

Gearbox - Just a plain old Mt75 for starters.

Diffs- again just Cosworth items

Basic suspension - Front Custom double wishbone setup, Rear Mx5 subframe modified to take sierra diff and custom wishbones

Any how I best put some pics up of where i am now.

The first stage was getting the shell on a roll over spit. and cleaning 31years of crap off it.

after a long session with the grinder and zipwheel and alot of swearing

Once the bulk was cleaned old crappy repairs that looked good from the inside turned out to be shultz covered bodges no surprise there haha but it is the only real rot on a fiesta which is remarkable.

out with the old

mid repair

Done

now its not perfect but if people can see it ive done something wrong haha.

with the floor tidy the next step was to brace the shell ready for the floor being chopped out.

How low can you go? haha

so that was the basic cage tacked into the position, the last pics give away whats coming next. usually i would just bend up a tunnel but seeing as the centre diffs in the middle of a cossy box it would take a bit to cut weld and shape it all then mount etc. so i just went and chopped a tunnel out a xr4x4.

Now the tunnel currently was very wide, so wide infact it went past the chassis rails of the fiesta, 4 1mm cutting discs later and a lot of measuring we have this.

the keen eyed will notice that this is upside down <!-- s:lol: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif" alt="" title="Laughing" /><!-- s:lol: -->

and thats it for now.

Heres my old daily mk2 escort more door resto, it was a 1300gl but its now running a rebuilt 2.0 efi pinto with high torque cam and a few other goodies, its been strengthened and gusseted, panhard rod tramp bars, LSD, and has a host of other parts to be fitted when i get round to it such as Coilovers, quickrack, 2 inch lowering blocks, decambered springs alsorts <!-- s:lol: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif" alt="" title="Laughing" /><!-- s:lol: --> its had all sorts replaced on it to make it mint but it has came to a standstill since moving down here along with the rest of my projects back home.

mid rebuild

Thats all ill update soon, possibly <!-- s:lol: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif" alt="" title="Laughing" /><!-- s:lol: -->

Welcome!

Nice work man! Deffo seem to know what you are doing! Fair play. Nearly got in to hill climbing myself (was starting off with a little saxo) but I am having to pay for a wedding now! I am guessing from your rallying you already have the license etc.

No doubt will be a monster when it is finished! Will keep an eye on this.

thanks got a bit busy the other night and chopped the floor out no going back now. nice celica btw I had a st185 gt4 daily took it to 420 and the turbo went. my mate has it now as i sold it when I moved. engines out atm and im porting the head and fabbing up a new inlet track and plenum hoping for a good 600bhp+ I allready done the bottom end prior to him buying it so trying to squeeze a bit more out the top. still neef to sort a msnifold for the new turbo etc