Ford Escort Cortina 2.0 Litre Pinto Performance Engine for Sale
One of the best things that the whole Type 49 Racing magazine experience has had for me in last six months is that it has got me back into the garage twiddling with spanners and fooling with engines again. Back in the day I used to race and being a bucks down racer I did most of my own work and learned how to build my own race motors. I could churn out a fair 2 litre Pinto making around 190 to 195 horse running a big valve head and my favourite cam being the Crane of the USA 322 grind which as stated had 322 degrees’ duration and had a theoretical valve lift at zero lash (that is valve clearances set at zero) of a shade over 0.560 of an inch. A pretty serious cam and it made good power on 45 DCOE Webers choked to 40mm. I used to run a little cottage industry building and re-building Pinto 2 litre engines from mild (stock) too wild (full race as best as I could do them) and I built over 40 motors in that time. But times change and life moves on and when I decided to move down from Blackburn in Melbourne to Gippsland to be closer to and help support my parents who are into their 80’s all the engine building parts that were easily stored and moved were packed away for use at a later day. After the better part of five years waiting that day arrived when I walked into the garage, saw once again the Pinto cylinder head that forms the basis of this tale and decided that it was about time I did something about it, that is built a bottom end to suit it.
A bit of history about this particular Pinto cylinder head. When I was racing I got to know most of the guys that were running Escorts at the same time including Phil Showers (whose BDG powered RS 1600 was featured back in the September issue of Type 49 Racing) and also Allan Sornig and Steve Knight who were running the fastest of the Escorts in the Club Car class in Victoria at the time. There were also other Escort runners including a fellow called Stewie who will remain unidentified beyond that because his story is not the most flattering. Stewie decided to go racing in a pretty much road going Mk 2 2 Litre and did some suspension mods and upgraded his brakes and fitted an LSD and a roll cage and decided to get some more horsepower. He didn’t muck around and spoke to Frank Lowndes and priced a motor and decided that he could do it cheaper. He elected to spend large on the head and cam and followers but skimped drastically on the bottom end thinking that a standard bottom end would suffice. He had Frank Lowndes cylinder head porter of choice Gary Hepper modify a head to big valve configuration and flow bench assisted port the head and Stewie approached Clive at Wade Cams to supply an American billet 520X grind cam and new followers. The 520X grind goes back to Australian Group C Touring Car days and is designed to be used on single valve springs. It has a lift of a little under 0.500 inch at zero lash and has 307 degrees of duration. A pretty tidy cam much used in Australian club motorsport and still tractable enough for a fast road car engine. The head the 520X went into got new cam bearings and new big valves (44mm intake. 38mm exhaust) were fitted with new valve springs. All in all, a pretty tidy head that owed him over three grand at the prices of the day for the head, flow bench porting, cam etc, and Vernier cam pully that went with it and when fitted up with side draft Weber 45’s and a free flowing exhaust gave an honest 185 horsepower.
Stewie went out to Calder which with its long drag strip front straight is hard task master on engines and did his first five lapper no problem. In the ten lap feature Club Car race of the day disaster struck on the main straight when the stock bottom end cried enough and lost the head of a rod bolt that led to a leg being thrown through the block and a terminal and total loss of the bottom end. Luckily for Stewie. (and for me) the head survived unscathed by the carnage that had erupted beneath it.
Stewie took the car and the wrecked engine home, took off the head and bolted in a stock motor and gave up on motorsport. The head sat around for a month or two till one day he rang me to ask if I wanted to buy it and we settled on a fair price and I took possession of the head vowing that I would do something with it one day. The head was oiled up and placed in the workshop at Blackburn and in due course it too took the trip down to Gippsland and sat in my garage for about five years unloved but not entirely forgotten until about a month ago I vowed that at last I would do something about it and use it as the basis of a how to article in the pages of Type 49 Racing. I just had to build one of my “patented” YB Cosworth rodded bottom ends for it.
Now about the bottom end. About 9 months before leaving Blackburn I was still building engines and hunting through EBay as you do when I came across a listing for a forged rod that was suitable for use in a Pinto or so the listing said. It was by a bloke in Queensland and the rod was made by a Chinese company called Spool. Spool are pretty well known now days but back then it was the first toe in the water here in Australia by the importer of the Spool rods. The rod in question was designed to fit into a Cosworth YB engine which shares pretty much a common block and crank with the Pinto. The YB rod is identical to the Pinto rod in terms of big end bearing size and layout but differs from the Pinto rod in the little end in that the gudgeon or wrist pin fit on the Pinto is by interference and the YB Cosworth uses a slipper pin type setup that allows the pin to float. The standard Pinto wrist pin fits, it just need to be retained in some way to stop scouring the walls of the cylinder. The other difference with the YB Cossie rod is that it is 1.5mm longer than the Pinto rod and would therefore at first glance require expensive custom pistons to be made up to use the YB rod in a Pinto. Given the fact that I was a bucks down racer the thought of custom pistons at well over a grand a set made me think that the Spool YB rod was going to prove too expensive to fit. But the Spool Rod sure seemed a nice thing and certainly would save on the time spent modifying the standard rod and fitting ARP rod bolts (the Spool came standard with ARP rod bolts) and even after modifying a modified Pinto rod is still a source of common failure on a hot to race Pinto.
Then one evening I was reading David Vizard’s how to book on rebuilding standard Pinto’s for some long forgotten reason and came across the page and table that spelled out how compression ratios are altered on standard factory Pinto’s. It is done by the simplest method possible that saves on modifying blocks and heads and is simply done by altering the compression height (the amount that the piston sits above the centreline of the gudgeon or wrist pin) of the piston and as it turns out the compression height of an 8.2 to 1 Pinto piston sits about 1.5mm lower than the compression height of a 9.2 to 1 piston. At that time the 9.2 to 1 cast piston was the basis of all the race Pinto’s myself and others such as Steve Knight were building so this little revelation resulted in the epiphany that the Spool rod could be used in a budget race motor by simply using the low comp (8.2 to 1) Pinto piston. The only issue was how to secure the wrist pin and stop it fouling on the cylinder walls. There are two possible solutions one being having circlip grooves cut in the pistons by a machine shop or two lathe up some high temperature resistant Teflon “buttons” that sit in the wrist pin tunnel and ride lightly against the cylinder wall. So a simple solution was available and more on that latter.
Now to wrist pins. Reading Vizards how to Performance Modify a Pinto book I had come across his reference to reciprocating mass in the rotating assembly (that is the rod and piston and crank) and how any weight saving in the area of the piston and wrist pin would aid the acceleration of a vehicle. Horsepower would be the same but the engine would get to maximum rev that little bit quicker if the piston and pin were as light as possible. Modifying the piston was pretty much out of the question as alloy is light and great amounts would have to be removed to have any significant impact but in regard of the wrist pin major weight savings in any engine, but particularly a Pinto could be made. The standard wrist pin in the Pinto is very over engineered and weighs in at a whopping 152 grams. Vizard spoke in his tuning manual of using a pin sourced through Esslinger engineering in the States that was around 60 grams lighter that the stock Pinto pin so I (through the modern wonder that is the internet) had contacted Esslinger and sourced a few sets of these pins for use in my and customer race engines. The wrist pin would suit the YB Cosworth rod from Spool so they too were earmarked for use in any engine using the Spool rod I was to build. A final advantage of using the Spool rod and the low compression piston combo is that given material (and quite a lot of material) is effectively removed from above the wrist pin of the piston with the lower compression height the piston is lighter and again that would impact on the acceleration times of any vehicle using that type of piston in the build in the bottom end of a Pinto fitted to that car.
By the time I was to leave Blackburn I had built a series of 4 engines using the Spool rod, low comp 8.2 to 1 Pinto piston and lightweight Esslinger wrist pin and I had had good results with them and they certainly accelerated notably crisper and a little quicker to the tune of two or three car lengths than a Pinto engined car on the standard type wrist pin and piston. I had elected to go the Teflon button route for the wrist pin retention issue and had a series of Teflon buttons churned out by a local machine shop at the cost of $80 a set, much cheaper than having the circlip grooves cut into each piston. This run of engines was built up like a mini production line and also used a lightened stock flywheel on a standard crank that had been doweled for extra retention and security of the flywheel bolts. I had a couple of these crank and doweled flywheel combo’s left over when I moved down from Blackburn and they too took the trip to Gippsland.
So there we stand with me in the garage looking at this as new 520X cammed big valve flow bench ported head and electing that it was time to build a bottom end to bolt it onto. First step was to find a local machine shop to undertake the necessary machine work and then once I knew that was covered I could hunt down a donor Pinto to provide the block for the engine. I had left Blackburn with the guts of these engines but no suitable blocks to s**** them in to. I found a machine shop in Morwell called the Davey Street Head Shed and they seemed like they could perform any machine work and balancing that was required to finalise the build of the engine.
Second stage in the trail was to strip the 520X cammed and ported head and change the oil stem seals for some Felpro items as after 5 years of sitting around unused and pretty much unloved the original seals fitted would be (and were) pretty hard and unserviceable. Next I gave the valves in the head a light lap to freshen up the valve seats and return them to as new condition. The seats were (as to be expected) in excellent condition so it really was a light hand valve lap, new oil stem seals and re-assemble the head and re-set the valve clearances. First mechanical process in the journey completed!
So then on to Gumtree and a suitable Pinto for rebuilding was found down near Sale and I dutifully went off and picked it up for $150.and brought it home and stripped it down. I was to replace the crank so I knew from the crank I had (and the doweled flywheel that goes with it) what bearing size (standard all round) and thrust washers were required so off to Repco Morwell to source the parts. (A list of parts costs is featured below) While there at Repco I bought a new Pinto Mellings oil pump ($215) and my favourite shade of Ford Blue in a can being Ford dark blue. I was extremely lucky with the engine I had sourced from Sale in that it was an extremely low mileage unit on the standard bore that had no wear and would freshen up with just a hone beautifully so a set of standard Pinto rings (90.8 MM, $80) were also purchased from Repco Morwell. As far as pistons went I used a set of new standard bore Pinto 8.2 to 1 compression Mahle pistons I sourced out of the UK for a cost of $455 landed.
These pistons I have used in the past in race engines with great success and my experiences tallied with other local builders who have used the Mahle in both hi comp 9.2 to 1 and low comp 8.2 to 1 configuration. Many have used the low comp piston on standard Pinto rods by decking the block about 1.5 mm but this is a lot of material to take off the block and is a pretty expensive machining exercise costing as high as $300 depending upon the machine shop being used and how much they like you! I have also spoken to several reputable engine builders as far away as the UK who have also used the low comp Mahle piston in decked block Pinto engines and they have reported back to me regarding their good performance RE: power and longevity. As far as I am aware I am the only individual that has built a Pinto 2 litre using the combination of the Spool or Cosworth YB rod with the low comp piston. By the way the Spool rods retail at the reasonable figure of $500 a set plus freight including ARP rod bolts to suit. A little feature I used to do to all my serious performance engines was to s**** in a water inlet fitting into the drain plug hole on the exhaust side of the block that enabled the connection of the heater hose to also feed the block at its hottest point in regard of the cooling system low down on the water jacket at the rear or number four cylinder. It requires that a t-piece be inserted into the heater hose running from the water pump to the heater core but it does improve the circulation of coolant through the block and reduces temperature in the engine a few degrees. The block on this engine I modified this way by screwing in a water inlet fitting. Further fittings purchased to aid the cooling system were a hi-flow thermostat from Tridon ($33) and a new thermostat housing ($70). The thermos housing is the earlier TC TD Cortina type without the s**** in temperature bung for the temperature controlled vacuum lines as the engine is designed to work on sidedraft carbs and the vacuum line fitting is not required
Next item to complete the engine was to get a suitable Bosch distributer from my stock of old distributers that I keep for just such purposes that was to be re-built and re-curved to suit the engine and the 520X Cam. This was done by Performance Ignition in Mitcham and I dropped off a pretty sad and used stock unit and a few days later took delivery of a nice rebuilt Scorcher unit dialled into suit the engine and the 520X cam. The distributer comes with points if you prefer points but included with the engine is a Hot Spark electronic Ignition module from the States (retail cost $120).
Whilst in Melbourne sourcing the distributer on the advice of Colin Van Summeren of Cam Automotive in Seaford I followed up Derry at BGT Clutch and Brake in Dandenong and sourced a sintered button type race clutch from Extreme clutches for $440. The flywheel had been machined back in the day so required nothing more than a rub with Emery paper to roughen up the working surface. Once I had the clutch it was time to take the next step in the chain and dropped off the assembled pistons and rods and big end bearings together with the crank and doweled flywheel and the Extreme clutch cover for balancing. While Davey Street Head Shed had the crank I had requested that they give the bearing surfaces a light linish to bring to perfection the big end and main bearing surfaces on the crank going into the engine. They also honed the block. The total cost of all machine and cleaning of the block after honing was $500.
Lastly was the assembly of the engine using a new timing belt ($30) and Felpro gaskets all-round which were sourced from Jegs in the USA via their web site at $160 the full set landed.
So there you go. With the best in carburation (at least twin 45mm sidedrafts on 38mm to 40mm chokes) and a free flow exhaust and dyno time to dial in the cam with the Vernier cam gear pulley fitted you too can have a new crisp running fast accelerating long lived Pinto 2 litre engine making a genuine 180 to 185 horse or thereabouts at the flywheel. All you have to do is buy this 520X cammed engine at the fair and reasonable price of $7500 outright. The complete engine and flywheel and clutch assembly ready for induction, exhaust, alternator, water pump and fuel pump can be yours for $7500 AUD pickup from Foster, Victoria.
Average Current Day Head Building Costs
Cam Followers 200 Cam 300
Cam Bearings 65 Flow Bench Aided Port Job 1500
Valve Thoat Inlargement/Seat Cutting 400 Valves 44mm Int 38mm Exh 320
Valve Springs 100 Machining Head 1mm Skim 200
Gaskets and Seals 95 Vernier Pully 170
Total Cost $3350
Actual Costs of Bottom End Build
Oil Pump 215 Big End Bearings 40
Main Crank Bearings 60 Piston Rings 80
Thrust Washers 30 Donor Pinto Engine 150
Spool YB Cosworth Rods 510 Lite Weight Wrist Pin 160
Distributer Rebuild/Recurve Scorcher 290 Donor Distributer 50
Mahle Pistons from UK 455 Crank Machining 100
Machine Flywheel Face 40 Donor Flywheel 50
Hot Spark Electronic Ignition 120 Balancing Bottom End 350
Distributer Drive & Spigot Bearing 35 Gaskets Full Felpro Kit 160
Teflon Buttons 80 Clutch Extreme Race Unit 440
Lighten Flywheel 75 Dowelling of Crank/Flywheel 100
Consumables – Paint Degreaser Silastis 65 Industrial Spray Wash of Machined Parts 50
Cam Belt 30 New Thermo Housing 70
New Hi Flow Thermo 35 Total Cost $3840
