Car is now down at MNR and the insurance company have given the go-ahead Wednesday gone. Popped down to MNR Saturday to do some interior mods with the body off.
To give myself a bit more room round the throttle pedal and to show off the chassis a bit I've moved the trim panels that were on the inside and riveted them onto the outside of the chassis rails. With the body off and easy access to the pedal box I've adjusted the position of the pedal to move it back more into line with the clutch. This will allow me to adjust the seat better and not have the steering column pulled out as far.

The new body tub is on order and with MNR fitting it this time they should make a better job than I did the first time.

ST170 sump chop is just about done, the pan is finished and just the pick up pipe to cut down to size.

Ok, one quick offer on ebay and a drive down to pick it up today and I now have an phase 3 Zetec ST170 engine out of a 52 reg RSFocus that had been wrapped round a lamppost. It came with everything attached and was lifted into my Rover with a forklift. I spent an hour or so stripping all the pas and AC pumps, starter motor and exhaust etc, off so me and lad could lift it out!

A quick look and measure up show the sump is a little deeper than I have atm so that will have to be modified. Not a problem as its a steel pan unlike the alloy one on the 1.8. Also a huge lump of the alloy brace above the steel pan will have to come off to get the starter motor in. The water pump runs the wrong way on these blacktop engines (although this one is silver!) so that will be changed along with a new cam belt. One of the engine mount threads in the block is missing as well so I'll have to adapt the mount as well. no time to waste I see this as a fairly straight forward swap and will be using the carbs off the 1.8 until I get me head round some bike throttle bodies and engine management. Easy extra 50 odd bhp with much more to come as funds allow!

Today I've been down to Blogg Brothers to get the carbs set up. I've been out on a few runs and noticed I wasn't getting very far before having to stop and fill it up again. Not knowing how much is left in the tank when the fuel gauge does down to the last bar on the screen I've been putting 20L in at a time and measuring the miles... I reckon its under 30mpg so hopefully today will see that improve.

Dave ran it up and checked the emissions to see how it was fueling. The mid range was so rich it ran the CO off the gauge! HC was very high as well all over. The idle was too weak as was the top end. We tried it with both the airbox on and off but found the biggest problem was the remote filter, it just couldn't flow enough air! So, the whole lot is off and until I get a Pipercross sausage filter on the carbs are running open, which was how Dave set it up.

With everything set up, basically changing the needle position and drilling the mains out, balancing the carbs and setting the air screw the CO dropped right off as did the HC and was stable right through the rev range. Finally a power run on the dyno saw 120bhp at the wheels. Doesn't sound much and I thought it would be a lot higher than that as it feels a lot more on the road. Hopefully the mpg will improve and I can rag it up to the red line! More power (ST170 engine?) is in order!

Nearly 600 miles on her now and so far so good, two minor problems with broken wing stays but, easily fixed. The roads are bloody awful, what do we pay our road fund for I ask???