Sierra XR4x4 Turbo - Photos Added 21/11/06

pablo · Post by **pablo** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 9:21 pm

Hi guys just thought i'd give you some background on our home grown track car.
We bought the car in February of this year, it had been stood in this guys barn for 6 years with the top half of the engine in bits in boxes in his garage. The block was seized, the turbo was contaminated and a mouse had been using the car as his play ground.
The car is a 1989 ford seirra xr4x4 2.8i V6 fitted with a janspeed T04 Turbo
Running an asthmatic 7psi of boost (next stage engine work to allow 12 - 14psi)
190bhp & 215ib/ft (Target 250bhp & 280lbs/ft)

90% of the work on the car was carried out by us.
With help from Bart's brother
It's not been easy the first time we put it on the rollers it blew a head gasket

but not to be beaten 6 hours later Al (Bart) and his brother had taken the turbo off stipped the engine down fitted a new head gasket and had all back together and running. Whist i covered 100 miles to get all the different gaskets and bits that we needed.

more info to follow...

Post by **Stuart** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 1:30 pm

You need some pics so us sad Ford fans can get all nostalgic

I reckon you can get an easy 150kgs out of that car and keep it raod legal if you want to give the performance a serious kick in the arse :thumb:

Keep us posted.

duncan · Post by **duncan** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 1:35 pm

Sounds like it will be a great project and with the mods planned will get better and better on track.

As Stu says, some pics would be great

stockcar · Post by **stockcar** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:25 pm

anyone remember the 'minker' (not sure if spelling is right??) sierra's??

xr4x4 based and around 300bhp i seem to remember, or is that the rose tinted glasses??

pablo · Post by **pablo** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:38 pm

Any advice on how to reduce weight would be more than welcomed. Should have some pics up this weekend, well saturday as we are doing another track day at Donnington park on sunday.
Made some changes to the front set up and it already feels more responsive and direct so we're off to play

duncan · Post by **duncan** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:44 pm

pablo wrote:Any advice on how to reduce weight would be more than welcomed. Should have some pics up this weekend, well saturday as we are doing another track day at Donnington park on sunday.
Made some changes to the front set up and it already feels more responsive and direct so we're off to play

http://www.weightwatchers.co.uk/index.aspx

Only joking ... i think stu saved loads of weight by scraping off the sound proofing tar-like stuff from the floor in & under the car and in the arches. Nightmare job though. Perspex windows will also save a load of glass weight and lower the centre of gravity.

pablo · Post by **pablo** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:47 pm

I believe the minker was the name used by turbo technics to sell their pre made conversions

pablo · Post by **pablo** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 8:05 pm

http://www.weightwatchers.co.uk/index.aspx

Only joking ... i think stu saved loads of weight by scraping off the sound proofing tar-like stuff from the floor in & under the car and in the arches. Nightmare job though. Perspex windows will also save a load of glass weight and lower the centre of gravity.[/quote]

Cheers mate
We've already stripped out the soundproofing have a mate who knows now much metal and which bits can be cut out of the car but not sure if i want to got that far. Persplex windows would be nice though

Post by **Stuart** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 6:46 pm

In the rear bumper section there is a crash protection bar that can easily be removed. This little thing on its own weighs over 30 kilos

Just cut the middle section out and voila. A few other things I've done;

I also decided to remove all of the locking mechanisms from the doors and boot, even bolting the rear doors shut. This saved at least 10 kilos.

I cut out the second skin on the inside of the roof, boot and bonnet. This saved just under 40 kilos.

Use of polycarbonate for the door glass and rear hatch saved another 40 kilos.

Ditching the ancillaries like central locking motors, electric window and mirror motors, door rubbing strips, heater matrix and cutting the dash down dramatically saved loads of kilos. By the time you cut the inners out the doors, ditch the front and rear chairs and replace with lighter buckets, ditch the seat belt system and use harnesses, remove all of the soundproofing, sunroof and unecessary stuff like headlamp washers, washer bottles etc you can start to see where the weight can be trimmed off.

Less weight = more performance :thumb:

pablo · Post by **pablo** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 12:02 am

We've just entered our car in the 2007 Nurburg 700 previously called the Nurgurg cannonball starting on 27th july

. So there's no turning back now. I've even cancelled my holiday to Barbados to enter this event.

This saturday Bart (aka Blue Peter) is fabricating a brake duct coolling system to try out at donninton on sunday :-D :-D .
Installing an oil swirl pot between the oil breather and the turbo and possibly a direct cold air intake sytem. Although there's not much room to put anything under that bonnet.