Bear Posted February 16, 2010 Posted February 16, 2010 Hi everybody! My name Björn, 39 years of age and I live in the Netherlands. During business hours I work as a pilot, flying from Rotterdam to London City quit a lot. Together with my (soon to be-) wife, we bought a 1992 Westfield SE with a 2.1 Pinto engine. Unfortunately the Pinto engine lost the will to live (which we knew in advance) and decided to swap the engine for a 1800cc Zetec, running standard inlet and ECU. Unfortunately putting a Zetec engine into a Pinto chassis brings along a whole bunch of problems, so it has been problem solving all the way upto now. But still, having fun doing it. We found this site, looking for information about Zetec cooling systems and most importent, information about an exhaust manifold which would fit the Zetec engine in a Pinto chassis including left hand drive. What started as a "simple engine swap", turned out to a full force restoration, including a RHD to LHD conversion. Pictures: The car as we bought it: Pinto engine on his last legs... Zetec engine got a new lick of paint Zetec going in for the first time Chassis undergoing restoration incl. new paint Zetec going in permanently incl. exhaust issues At this moment Current issues: - inlet manifold (standard) is too big - exhaust manifold hits cross member Hope this is enough for now. Quote
XTR2Turbo Posted February 16, 2010 Posted February 16, 2010 I can't offer much advice on the conversion but congratulations on your car and welcome to the boardroom. David Quote
Paul Hurdsfield - Joint Manchester AO Posted February 16, 2010 Posted February 16, 2010 Hello Bjorn and welcome from sunny Manchester It looks like you've got your work cut out there, with hindsight maybe a Duratec would have been a better choice of engine, the exhaust is on the same side as a Pinto, but I'm sure once the 'experts' on here wake up they'll soon sort out your problems Quote
Bear Posted February 16, 2010 Author Posted February 16, 2010 Thanks for the replies guys! Yes, perhaps a Duratec would have been a better option but we would still have an issue on the inlet side with the cross member. At first, we wanted to use the standard inlet, wiring loom and ECU, but the more I come to think of it, perhaps it's not the best option. This week I started looking in to a Megasquirts ECU, but that's quite a big chunck out of the engine swap budget. welcome from sunny Manchester Are you sure?? I've been to Manchester Airport quit a lot, but haven't seen much sun out there. Quote
Paul Hurdsfield - Joint Manchester AO Posted February 16, 2010 Posted February 16, 2010 English humour Quote
Nomexnomad Posted February 16, 2010 Posted February 16, 2010 Do you still have the pinto engine?? i like the look of the cam cover...... Quote
Bear Posted February 16, 2010 Author Posted February 16, 2010 Somebody was supposed to collect it, but after a few no shows, it's collecting dust in the corner of the garage. I'm still waiting for answer from the new owner, but maybe he doesn't want to have it anymore. Why, are you interessed? Quote
Nomexnomad Posted February 16, 2010 Posted February 16, 2010 Has he paid you for it? what did he buy? the whole engine? yes i would be ineterested in the cam cover along with the oil cap and bolts....as long as it wasn't a silly price.. and not sure about postage costs to the UK.. Quote
Andrew Posted February 17, 2010 Posted February 17, 2010 I recognise that car, it belonged to a local club member. What happened the Pinto? it was a quite highly specced engine... 180+ bhp. Quote
Bear Posted February 17, 2010 Author Posted February 17, 2010 The whole car has probably the seen the wrong side of a fence at one time. A few cross members are bent and everything was put back together with ducktape and ty wraps. It was an absolut mess! I expect that the car has been raced with, because i've found a sh*tload lot of gravel when I was dismantling the car. All the racing didn't do much good to the engine I guess. It was using more oil then fuel and it sounded like a bag of nails. Also it was leaking quit a bit of coolant. The brown slush in the coolant tank would indicatated that the head gasket was probably gone, but that as the least of it's problems. And if all this wasn't enough, there was rust all over the place. To give you an idea, this is wat was left of one of the reaction arms (don't know if this is the correct English word for it). I've never seen so much DIY welding in my life! Quote
Bear Posted February 17, 2010 Author Posted February 17, 2010 Has he paid you for it? what did he buy? the whole engine? yes i would be ineterested in the cam cover along with the oil cap and bolts....as long as it wasn't a silly price.. and not sure about postage costs to the UK.. Sorry, just got a message from him. He'll be collecting the engine on saterday. Sorry for that! Quote
Andrew Posted February 17, 2010 Posted February 17, 2010 Hmm, doesn't look like the years have been kind to it. It's been a good few years since I last saw the car, 2003-4 maybe.. Not sure where it went between then and now, but I dont think it had seen much in the way of race tracks, or ditches when I knew the car.. Quote
DreamingNeonBlack Posted February 17, 2010 Posted February 17, 2010 Welcome Björn! Do you have good roads where to enjoy the fun of driving in the Netherlands? And some circuits too apart from Zandvoort? I come there at least once per year but it seems there are always some slow cars... Quote
Bear Posted February 17, 2010 Author Posted February 17, 2010 Thanks! Most of Holland is flat and full of highways, but we still have some nice roads over here. We've got some circuits, but there aren't that many. Zandvoort and Assen are probably the most famous. For the "real deal", we need to go to Belgium, because Spa is still one of my favorite. Slow cars? Really? The Dutch are actually know for speeding quite a lot. And to help us doing that, these are our other cars. 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STi 2008 VW Golf GTi IV Edition 30 Quote
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