Fiesta Mk2
Pub talk states that front-wheel drive cars are for girls – try having a go in this absolutely mental 425bhp frontdrive Fiesta and say that... after you’ve stopped shaking of course!
Retro sleeper that’s packing serious firepower.
Front-wheel drive is for girls. Real men prefer rear-wheel drive. Real men can power-slide a tail-happy drift weapon using throttle alone. Or so a load of bluffing internet machismo would have you believe.
But let’s be honest: front-wheel drive isn’t just efficient, it can also be bloody great fun. Especially if you’re blasting 400bhp through a pair of 15in tyres…
Drag-racing addict Dean Hyndman is hugely in favour of pulling-not-pushing power delivery, revelling in the feel of reigning in any car’s wayward behaviour. “I’ve always been a massive front-wheel drive fan,” he grins. “Slam it into first, light the tyres and you’re off, torquesteering through the gears!
A Cossie will scare you in fourth in the wet, but a 450bhp front-wheel drive will change lanes!” he smiles.
One glance at the spec of Dean’s turbocharged Fiesta, and you’ll realise he knows how it feels to have a steering wheel ripping
through his hands at over 100mph – enough to declare this ultra-light, bigpower front-wheel drive machine virtually undriveable.
A bold statement, maybe, but Dean has decided to call it quits with his mental Mk2. Within days of this Fast Ford photoshoot, this 12-second monster will be stripped for bits, and its rocksolid, 29,000-mile shell ( still wearing its original blue paint) flogged to a mate for use as a mild road/track toy.
enjoy the ride
Is Dean sad? Of course. But he’s already planning a replacement, and, besides, he’s had a whole load of fun throughout the fierce Fiesta project.
Dean started his Blue Oval builds aged just 18, with a Q-plated Series 2 Escort RS Turbo. Learning as he went along, he converted the car to 200bhp with an engine bought from ZVH guru Ian Howell, then got bored and bought a rear-wheel drive Sapphire Cosworth. He groans, “It was the biggest mistake ever – a money pit. I was trying to tune to stage three on a 19-year- old apprentice’s wage. The engine spun a shell before I’d even got to the first corner…”
Disaster struck again when the Cossie’s replacement – a wellknown purple RS Turbo – burst into flames on Dean’s driveway. The mechanical remains were transferred into an Escort cabriolet, but not for long… Dean’s bad luck bit back, when he managed to write off his mate’s Subaru; the only way to pay for the damage was to break his own car for spares.
Wisely, Dean retained the engine – a turbocharged two-litre Zetec. Better still, he planned a project to put it in.
Dean says, “A few mates had Mk2 Fiestas. They’re nice and light, so chuck an engine in and away you go. Every Mk2 with a Zetec turbo is quick – always a 12-second car with 300bhp.
“I wanted a base model, and in 2009 my friend had this mint, one-lady- owner
“On boost it’s traumatic. I get home feeling sick!”
1.1 parked in his garage. It even had the standard Ford stereo in it.” He continues, “It had to be a sleeper. The only giveaways are the rare, genuine-Ford, Austrian boot spoiler and the intercooler, which you can’t hide.” Dean added a set of fivespoke Escort GTi alloys, but later upgraded to anthracite Compomotives. They sit so nicely within the wheelarches that the performance potential goes pretty much unnoticed.
At first, he chucked in a 1.8 Zetec he had lying around, using tried-and-tested transplant techniques. If any engine will fit a Mk4 Escort, he reckons, it will bolt straight onto a Fiesta Mk2.
The 1.8 didn’t last long. Its oil pump failed on the way to Santa Pod, and Dean had to get the car towed home.
mix and match
He says, “I started building it as a two-litre, just thrown together with standard rods and head, Vauxhall Z20LET pistons, Cossie T34 and intercooler, 200SX manifold that I’d cut and welded, 1.1 radiator, coilovers, caravan assisters to stop it dipping at the back, 888s, Escort gearbox and Quaife diff. Lots of swapping and bodging.
“It was quick. On boost instantly, and really ripping through the gears. It ran a 12.6 at RSOC Central day, and was the
“It’s wasted Evos and RS4s off the lights”
fastest front-wheel drive Ford in 2010 with a 12.1-second quartermile at 119mph.”
He continues, “I’m religious to the drag strip. I take the car five times a year, and do as many runs as it will manage. It normally blows up, to be honest!”
And that was the problem. Those pesky pistons – thought by Dean to be forged but in reality just cast – kept popping. What’s more, his quarter-mile record was beaten by his pal Luke’s Mk3 Fiesta, and the challenge was set to drop into the 11s – with a mutually-agreed avoidance of nitrous oxide or sticky drag tyres.
So Dean decided on a top-notch rebuild, spending two years researching his
ideal spec, sourcing the best parts and spending late nights in the garage piecing it all together.
Passionford advice helped him to pick an 8.5:1 compression ratio, and ordering JE pistons from America got them to Dean’s door for only £600. An Area Six cam was carried over from his old engine, while a GT3071R turbo was chosen for instant boost rather than outright power.
He then took the car to his mate Gary, who fabricated a manifold to fit the miniscule space available. “It’s really tight in there,” says Dean. “Everything was built for the car and properly alloy mounted. It looks really neat.”
box of delights
The transmission is also a masterpiece of ingenuity, being created from various bits to mix durability with exactly the right ratios for drag racing – maxing out at about 120mph, but getting there like lightning. Based on an RS2000 MTX75 gearbox, it includes a Focus RS ATB differential, AP six-paddle clutch, along with parts raided from various Mondeo petrol and diesel ’boxes. Dean made an engine mount (using box section and a Mk1 Fiesta inner wing mount), and specced professionally-built shafts to allow for 5500rpm second-gear launches.
Will Pedley mapped the Omex ECU to run 425.9bhp at a safe 1.9 bar boost. Dean says, “It had another 40bhp to give, but Zetecs start chewing oil pumps at 450bhp, even with billet gears. My engine is good for 550bhp with a dry sump kit fitted, but they cost £2,000…”
Dean’s finishing touch was a 38mm screamer pipe, which means deafening, grin-inducing burnouts with flames spitting from every orifice. “It’s like a jet!” he laughs. “People are gobsmacked, wondering what’s in it, and tuners come over to see what’s under the bonnet. It’s wasted Evos and RS4s off the lights, but it’s a struggle to get the power down.”
maximum attack
He winces, “On boost it’s traumatic. I get home feeling sick and dripping in sweat puddles from driving it, and a trip to the Pod gives me a two- day hangover after smelling the fumes.”
But what about that allimportant 11-second quartermile? Regrettably, it will never happen – during Dean’s first run with the new engine, he smashed a mount and ran into big bother while swapping cogs. He groans. “With slow changes and hell of a lot of wheelspin, it ran a 13.1 at 116mph. I missed fourth gear, went from no boost to two bar, lit the tyres instantly, crossed the drag strip and nearly clipped the car in the other lane!
“That was it – I’m cutting my losses and breaking the car. I would’ve been chasing my tail to get into the 11s, so I’ll attack the strip in years to come instead.”
This Mk2 will live on – albeit a shadow of its former glory – and there’s no doubt its bits will find their way onto several other fast Fords nationwide.
Meanwhile, Dean’s latest project will progress into unchartered territory; a Mk5 Escort with transverse-mounted YB powerplant, MTX75 gearbox and good old front-wheel- drive. It’s definitely not for girls.