GRAFTERS: Mk2 Escort
Your projects: With a love of track days, and B-roads too, Dave Fox is building a Mk2 Escort for every occasion. Just don’t ask him what colour he’s going to paint it...
Road and track day Duratec project.
The Do It Yourself mantra is strong in the classic Ford scene. For a lot of folk, being able to do as many jobs on your car as possible is all tied into the pride of ownership. But for Dave Fox, there’s an added, more sobering reason, too: “My Mum died when I was 17, so living in a council house on my own, I never had much money. If I wanted something, I generally had to work out how to do it or make it myself, and once you get into mucking about with old Fords, there’s plenty you want to do!”
Dave’s first classic was a Series One RS Turbo, which we’re impressed to see he still has. It’s now had three rebuilds in Dave’s ownership (he calls them evolutions), and along
the way there’s also been the odd Fiesta, including a Mk2 built out of a box of bits into a throttle body-fed Zetec-powered track car.
The love of track days has now inspired Dave’s latest build — a full-house Duratecpowered Mk2 Escort — though this one will have a dual purpose as a road weapon, and with this in mind, he’s even planning to run different sets of wheels depending on where he’s off to on a weekend. But before he can do that, there’s the small matter of completing the dry build and getting the now Group 4-andthen-some shell ready for its still-secret paintwork. Turn the page to find out what Dave’s got up his sleeve.
“I WAS GOING ST170, THEN I PICKED UP A DURATEC THAT CAME OUT OF A RACE CAR AND WILL REBUILD THIS TO 270 BHP SPEC”
How did you come across this car?
I owned a Mk1 project at the time which needed a lot of work, but someone wanted it more than I did, so I decided to let it go. I then found out about a Harrier for sale — I’ve always wanted one — but it wasn’t up to it either, then the seller showed me this Mk2 track car. It was running a Pinto on EFi, and though very rough, was on the key so I decided to go for it. I put it into use straight away on track days, at first with a Zetec on 40s, but it started falling to bits to the point where I got kicked out of the circuit at Blyton Park because one of the marshals spotted the holes in the floors... It was a lot of fun though, so I decided to steam into a rebuild. A mate came round, cut the wings off, and the next thing you know we’d replaced the A-posts, drip rails, doors, inner and outer sills, floors, but I didn’t bother taking the engine out...
What happened next?
Three months later it was back on track, and the same marshal was there — he immediately black flagged me and came over to inspect the car. He was dead impressed! Then, not long after I blew the engine, and when I took it out noticed there was a bit of grot on the bulkhead. I took the heater bubble off to repair it and thought maybe I should go through this car properly. I soon stripped the car back down to a bare shell, adding the boxes for the four-link kit, sorting the gearbox tunnel out, and adding plenty of carbon fibre including the bonnet and boot. I’m having a carbon roof skin made too — it’s the last one the bloke’s doing as they’re such a nightmare to make.
And the colour?
Ah, that’s a secret. All I’ll say is I’m a bit bored of seeing all these brightly-coloured Mk2s so I’m going for a darker shade — a modern one, but with a twist.
Had you always planned to go Duratec?
No. I had an ST170 on throttle bodies ready to go in, but I got offered good money for it, so I let it go, though kept hold of the throttle bodies. Then someone else wanted those, so I swapped them for a pair of 52 mm ones on a Scholar Racing inlet designed for a Duratec... I then managed to pick up a 2-litre crate engine that came out of an old guy’s race car. Once the shell goes off for paint, I’ll rebuild it with proper rods, high-comp pistons, Piper BP300 cams and some headwork. With that spec and a decent manifold it should be good for 270 bhp, which is more than enough.
What about the rest of the running gear?
I’ve got hold of a six-speed ’box from a 2011 Mazda MX-5, which will run to an Atlas. It was built to Baby length but it’s now been retubed to a Narrow-spec one by Andy at Arrow Auto Engineering (07891 604755) to allow the wheels to fit (see boxout), and he added a 3J Driveline LSD and Squires shafts — about the only two new things I’ve bought for the car. The Wilwood front brake set-up is the biggest
I can fit inside the 15 inch track day wheels, and should be well up to the task. And the interior? There’s a full Safety Devices cage to which I’ve added extra bars, but it’ll mostly be bare with bucket seats and a fair bit of carbon fibre. I managed to find some carbon-backed Corbeaus which were a bargain find, but you have to search and search for this kind of stuff if you want to get it at a decent price. In fact, almost everything I’ve bough for this car is second- hand — there’s no way I could have built it to this spec otherwise. When do you hope to have it finished? I want the car done for the start of the summer of next year, so I’ve got a good run of events to do. Anyone you’d like to thank? Yes, Phil Walton for doing most of the welding and pushing me to do it, Treva as always, Richard, John Mc, Ben Ogden for helping me with hours of bodywork, Jason Baker, Andy at Arrow for the pedalbox and axle, 3J Driveline for the diff (www.3jdriveline.com), the Squires at RACE (01782 523664), Chris Sutton, Szantosport for the coil-overs and everyone at Lincs Ford Group (www.facebook.com/lincsfordgroup).