OUR CARS
New engine time for Mike and Adam’s drift-spec Mk1 Sierra.
This hobby can be really testing at times. Not only do you have to invest a lot of time, effort and money, but your also emotionally tied into the car and with that, comes all the ups and downs. Adam and I spent a day mounting the new pink ST170 engine in the JellySlider Sierra — a landmark step in the right direction. However, right after we exchanged a high-five for our achievement, we noticed the clutch pedal felt really lumpy and neither of us were convinced it was right or that we would be able to put up with it while driving. That night we decided the engine would have to come back out to investigate and if need be, swap the clutch cover and release bearing for one that Adam had lined up for his Mk1 Escort project.
In and out again
The next session on the car involved removing the engine, replacing the clutch cover with a new release bearing and reinstalling it all. The pedal now felt as it should, but with one issue resolved, the next issue was our newly-acquired Cosworth propshaft…. It was too short. In an attempt to solve a high-speed vibration Adam and I decided to ditch the singlepiece prop for one with a middle bearing. And not wanting to run a prop with a rubber dampener donut in the middle we opted for a Cosworth one, not realising that the tail length on the T5 ’box is in fact longer than our Type-9. So we sent the prop off to our friends at Propshaft Services to have 30 mm added to the length along with a Type-9 yoke welded on the end. With the reworked prop back, fitted and showing the right 12 mm of float in the ‘box we both felt we could now set about getting it running. Another long night making a downpipe, fitting hoses, oil lines and plugging in various wires, we were now at the point where we could add oil and see if it would fire up. Before this I wanted to see that we had oil pressure, so we decided to crank the engine without spark plugs in. No oil pressure! We then tried back feeding the oil pump with a syringe in the oil feed line to the turbo and even through the threaded collar in the oil filter. Still nothing!
Calling it a night we asked a few contacts for advice. Apparently this is a common problem with freshly-installed Zetecs and it was recommended to try pushing the oil up the pick-up with a compressed airline over the breather take-off in the rocker cover while cranking. We tried this, still with no luck, then Ben Szanto said, “Stop being a wuss, just fire it up and within 6 seconds you will have pressure”.We tried it and eureka we had oil pressure finally!
In next to no time, the Sierra was booked in with Power Engineering for an MoT. Half the lights weren’t working, but Power Engineering persevered and after an hour of replacing some lengths of wires, we had the lights back on and an MoT pass.
Rolling on
Now with a fresh ticket, road tax and working lights, we need to get the car booked in on the rolling road. This will allow us to get all the full throttle tune set-up and we can see what sort of power its actually making. I’m really looking forward to getting some time in the car. It already feels very lively on just part throttle and it really wants to go sideways and every given opportunity.
When things don’t go well it can be disheartening, but when you get it working and the turbo comes on song, it makes all those problems fade away.