My main spare time project for the last 7  years
It has been on the road since September 98 
but only in semi regular use since March 99.         
Still most of the interior to finish when I
stop playing with the mechanical side. 

Now back on the road with a new 2.0 Litre 
turbo hybrid Zetec/CVH engine 

Please feel free to email me if you've any questions or indeed any suggestions. Email: Jim Hearne

2006 spec of my Quantum   (old spec, pre 2001)

Zetec/CVH Hybrid engine details            

DTA Engine management and EFI system installation.

Site detailing the construction of a Turbo Zetec www.zetec-turbo.co.uk

Links

An even longer gap since the last update, I've been wanting to redo the whole site but not found any software i get on with so far.

Potted history of the last 2 years, not necessarily in the right order.

The 2+2 is still running the same 2.0 ZVH engine, no more head gasket problems and the intermittent misfire turned out to be the plug gaps being too big, Doh !

I've upgraded the brakes to Willwood 4 pots with 280mm discs but i'm not that happy with them, the car doesn't seem to stop as well as it did with the 260mm Escort RST setup. I tried changing the pedal ratio to put increased pressure into the system, this worked a bit but at the expense of longer pedal travel. I'm going to try and get some different pads. At the same time i bought a new set of alloys, Wolfrace Quantums (yes, really, a coincidence ) as the bigger discs wouldn't fit in the Escort wheels.

The 2+2 survived another 2 track days at Llandow in Wales, and nearly a weeks owners club trip around Scotland last year. This year we did a tour of Southern Ireland but i didn't use my car, we went in my friend Matthews car which we'd fitted a Zetec into.

On the Scottish tour i had a momentary lapse of concentration in a traffic queue in Wick and bumped into the rear of a Moran owned by another club member (long story, sorry Ian ! ), the overider on his bumper punched a hole in the front of the bonnet so it needed a repair and respray. As it was being repaired anyway i took the opportunity to change the Metro front lights to separate round units and also removed and refitted the bonnet vents which weren't fitted straight when the car was sprayed a few years back.

Apart from the brakes the only change has been fitting of an extra fan to keep the charge cooler rad cool and connecting of both fans to the DTA ecu but it turned out the outputs of that are always PWM, not off/on so that plan is on hold at the moment. Oh yes, i upgraded the DTA EXP48 to it's big brother, the P8Pro.

Other cars.

I bought yet another Quantum, this one is a Quantum H4, at a price i couldn't refuse. I used it for a year and then took it off the road to wait it's turn for a complete rebuild.  Is getting a Focus ST170 engine, 6 speed gearbox and a supercharger as well as a Mk5 Fiesta dash, air con, abs and anything else i can fit in it.

The white coupe being a daily driver stopped last year when some git broke into it on my drive, let the handbrake off and it rolled back down the drive, across the road and into a telegraph pole smashing the boot. While waiting for the new boot i ended up rebuilding it with a fuel injection Zetec-E engine, this isn't supposed to fit as the engine bay isn't wide enough. Widening the engine bay would greatly weaken it so I've made the engine narrower instead, using a variety of modified CVH and Zetec parts to convert it to V belt instead of flat belt. The water pump couldn't be narrowed so i cut the end off and used it just as an outlet to an electric water pump. Hopefully this car will be at Stoneleigh this year.

The 205GTI meet an untimely end against the side of a Ford Ka at 70mph when the driver turned the wrong way down a dual carridgeway infront of me. Luckily we both escaped with bruising but the 205 was totally twisted. So then i got an Mk5 Orion from Ebay and then recently a Fiesta Ghia. 

More detail on the various Quantum's on there own pages.

Well, it's been a while since this page was updated, I've got to try and remember everything I've done in the last year and a bit.

The main thing was i got a big (6m square) garage built at my parents place as my 2+2 lives in my single garage here at home so i had nowhere else to work on the other cars. After some negotiations with my parents they let me get this garage built, it's a timber garage but has a very high roof so i was able to fit joists and a floor to make a loft which is ideal for keeping trim, seats and lighter engine bits in out of the way. The garage is fully insulated and has a 3kw heater on a thermostat to keep it warm enough to prevent any corrosion problems.

The first thing in the new garage was a friends Quantum 2+2 which had a knackered Specialised Engines 1900cc CVH engine in it, despite the engine only having done 30k miles it was leaking/burning oil and lacking in power, SE said it needed a full rebuild at a cost of almost a replacement engine, I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about SE.  Anyway, it was decided to replace the CVH with a RS1800i Zetec engine, this isn't a straight swap in the 2+2 as the Zetec is slightly wider in the area of the crank pulleys and also the wider head fouls the spaceframe. The spaceframe turned out to be rather rusty and so was removed from the car, sand blasted and powder coated, this made doing the modifications much easier as well. Details of this conversion will be on another page shortly. The job was completed about 6 months later.

Next in the garage was a Peugeot 205 GTI 1.9 which i acquired free but it had no engine and had been standing outside for 7 years unused. I got it running with a s/h engine from Ebay and have been using it for the few months, this replaced a M Reg Fiesta Diesel which i'd been using since the red XR2 had got too rusty for it's MOT earlier last year. The Fiesta had come from a friend of my brothers who'd been told by a garage it needed a new gearbox when all that was wrong was the clutch lever had sheared off on the top of the gearbox !!!

Before i got a chance to do much on my own projects i got talked into doing another 2+2 engine transplant, this time a Fiesta RS Turbo engine was to go in, in exchange for doing the transplant I got a 6000mile Focus ST170 engine and 6 speed gearbox so i couldn't really refuse. I eventually found a Fiesta RST set of parts on Ebay but the engine turned out to be shagged, i suspect it had done 100k miles more than the 52k the speedo said, I've replace the bottom end with the spare Escort RST one from my Quantum (this isn't a straight swap as it has no EFI crank sensor hole in the block). Luckily the head looked like it had been replaced fairly recently with a recon one.

The 2+2 hasn't done that much, last June i did a charity run with 11 other cars from the Quantum owners club, we drove from John O Groats in Scotland to Lands End non stop (2 drivers per car) and did it in 22hrs. Also did another track day at Castle Combe and a test day at Haynes motor museum.  The intermittent misfire is still there, defying my attempts to track it down. I fitted a massive oil cooler to it to keep the oil temperature down but thats about it for mods so far.

And finally this week I've bought another Quantum, this time a Mk2 Coupe, the model that replaced the 2 Mk1 Saloons that I've also got. The idea is to sell the 205GTI and use the new coupe as my daily driver instead doing some running repairs and upgrades while i do. The coupe has it's own page here.

Some new pictures here soon.

The weathers been getting bad for driving the Quantum again, only been out a few times.

Still trying to increase the fuel pressure for the engine as I've run out of pulse width on the existing injectors so the only way to get it down is to use a higher fuel pressure. I made up a bracket and adaptor to use an Audi Quattro fuel pressure regulator which came from my friend Kim at Quattrosports, they should be good for 75psi after adjusting them by squashing the end in but for some reason i'm only getting 60ish so more investigation needed there.

I've found a very useful web site at www.davidsonelectronics.co.uk, Graeme was very helpful when I contacted him about decoding a couple of Ford radios I've had lying around for some time.

I've also bought a supercharger, it's one thats normally used on the new Mini Cooper S, I got it for the bargain price of £250 for a new unused one. The plan with this is to fit it on the RS1800i engine in the Grey Quantum Saloon, this will mean junking the existing ecu as it cant handle boost and using something else, maybe a DIY kit built ecu called MegaSquirt that I've recently bought from the USA.

As usual when I've been quiet in updating the page things haven't been going too well.

After the head gasket failure in August I got the car back on the road fairly quickly and booked up another rolling road session.

This one lasted less than 5 mins before the throttle pot failed and despite Marks best attempts we were unable to find one local to the rolling road so I went home again, at least I was able to drive the car back this time.

A 3rd rolling road session was booked but the weekend before I decided to replace the Piper 285T cam as I knew it was a little worn, and while I was at it replace the hydraulic lifters with solid ones (from Kent).   Some of you may know what happened next but I didn't know that the profile for a hydraulic lifter cam is different to that for solid lifters and the new cam and lifters destroyed each other within 5 mins. :-( about £300 worth of scrap metal.

After the RR sessions and the new cam I couldn't afford any more new bits so I stuck in a fairly unworn XR2 cam and some almost new lifters, surprisingly it didn't feel like it's made an enormous difference to the power.  The RR session was cancelled as there didn't seem much point in setting things up anymore with the wrong cam, I've gradually tweaked things myself on the road.

I've still got one or two funnies, I've got a sort of misfire at high boost (15psi, it's high for mine), the engine starts making a burbling noise and looses some but not all power, lifting off the throttle slightly fixes it. Today I removed the plug from the fuel pressure reg and turned the fuel pressure up from 40psi to 55psi to give a bit more fuel, seems to have helped a bit and for some reason made the car more responsive throughout the rev range, I think it must have been running a bit weak since the RR session.

The second Green gauges oil pressure sender failed the other week, that's 2 I've had fail, I took this one apart and found the wire inside had fractured, I managed to join it back together and it's working again.

I've got an intermediate driveshaft from a 1999 Ford Puma for my equal length driveshaft conversion, unlike the Mondeo one the Puma shaft is the right size to fit straight into the IB5 gearbox, I just need to make a hybrid bracket to support the bearing.

I was sent a link to a excellent web site detailing the construction of a Zetec turbo engine, it's here www.zetec-turbo.co.uk

Went to my long booked rolling road session at Owen Developments yesterday to finally get the DTA ecu setup properly instead of me just guessing. Sure enough it was running very rich but Mark soon got it running much happier.
Initially we ran the engine with the turbo wastegate disconnected and wired open so effectively the car was running normally aspirated, this was so the ecu could be setup easily without the boost getting in the way.
Things looked promising, 125 bhp at the wheels, equals (estimated) 157 bhp at the flywheel at 5700rpm  and 144 ft/lb of torque, pretty good for an engine with a 8.2:1 compression ratio.
The turbo was then reconnected and several power runs done as the Ecu was tweaked, unfortunately near the end the head gasket failed between cylinder one and two and the car came home on the back of a AA truck.
But the good news was that before the gasket went the engine was producing 227 bhp at the wheels, equals (estimated) 259 bhp at the flywheel at 5520 rpm with 260 ft/lb of torque. This was at only 10psi boost.
I'd been hoping to get about 250 bhp at 14.7psi (1 bar) boost which Dave (from Puma racing) had said should be feasible but it now seems his engine simulation software had actually predicted 253 bhp at 10 psi boost or 296 bhp at 14.7psi, he was just erring on the safe side when he told me 250bhp at 14.7psi.
I have to say I'm convinced that much of this power has come from the work Dave did on the cylinder head, it's a lot of power for only 10psi boost and should help reliability.
I've been to Burtons today and got a replacement head gasket, I think the old one failed due to a combination of being damaged by the pinking which the engine was doing for quite a while, and the head bolts not being retorqued after a few hundred miles which I think they need as they are not stretch bolts.
Should have the car back on the road tomorrow.

Woohoo, the 2+2 has won it's first prize, I collected Best in show at the Hickstead kit car show. :-)
Must get onto Which kit as they want to do a feature on the car, better finish in the boot first though.
The RS1800 below is now almost totally stripped and I've started work on the first of my 2 Mki Quantum saloons but that will be mostly covered on it's own page here.
Off to Castle Combe race circuit on Saturday for a track day, I hope i don't blow the engine up, my rolling road session isn't till August 2nd. after the track day but the soonest i could get.

The interior is now finished on the 2+2 apart from a few small details.

I'm now trying to get the engine running better, I spent several hours last weekend with Dave from Pumaracing driving the car and me sitting in the passenger seat with the laptop reprogramming the ECU. Got things a lot better but it still needs another session.

Bought another car on Thursday, a Fiesta RS1800i for £595, 'J' reg, 77k miles and with accident damage to the passenger side and front suspension.  I want it primarily as a donor for the grey MK1 saloon which will eventually be my everyday transport.

After much heating, bashing with large hammers and welding i managed to get the severely bent front suspension back into roughly it's right place, enough to get it off the car trailer anyway (the breakers put in on on a fork lift). If it looks bad in the picture when it came the passenger side wheel was horizontal with the wishbone twisted 45 degrees, the track rod end sheared off and the driveshaft hanging out, on the drivers side the bottom balljoint was separated and bent 90 deg and the brake disc has 1/4 missing.

Things are progressing, apart from visits to the Detling and Stoneleigh shows I've made myself keep the Quantum in my brothers workshop and spent most evenings and weekends doing the interior. Just the door panels to do now, everything else is done, well, apart from the boot.
I've made the rear seat base and back from the XR3i cabro rear seats that matched the front Recaros i have.
The seat base used the original foam cut down with the cover retained by blind cord threaded through punched holes in the plastic strip that used to hold it to the metal base.
The seat rear foam was just too thick to use so i built up the same shape from normal 2" thick foam sheet, glued to a 6mm MDF panel.
The shape of the original cover was determined by metal rods stitched into the cover attached to similar rods bonded inside the foam, i duplicated this by tying lengths of cord to the rods, feeding them through holes in the MDF and then stapling them onto the board.

It's been a long time since my last update not much has happened but a little.
I bought another Quantum Saloon in Febuary, an unfinished kit, more details here.
Other than that I've finally finished the new instrument cluster, here is the rear of it.
Due to the mismatch between the Fiesta tank sender and the Greengauges gauge I've actually now got a microprocessor controlled fuel gauge, a friend programmed up a single chip cpu to do the conversion, it's in the bottom left corner of the picture.

I've also been trying to get the interior of the car finished, it's finally got carpet in it, I've almost finished rebuilding the shortened centre console and then just need to do the doors and rear side trim, oh, and the boot.

I finished the Zetec transplant into my XR2 and after some initial teething troubles it's going well, details here.

I'd say happy Xmas but personally I don't like it so I won't :-)

Not done anything on the Quantum's recently but working on fitting a 1600 Zetec into my XR2 over the holiday.

Had fun modifying a Fiesta centre "injection" petrol tank to fit a Ford swirl pot into it to replace some Taiwanese engineers idea of a swirl pot which doesn't work. Pictures here shortly.

Done more on the instrument pod, all the fitting done now, just got to wire it up.

Not much else, dismantled the Granada rear calipers after making a special tool to unscrew the piston.

Happier at the moment, getting used to the power, driven it several times recently, still makes me grin when I'm not too scared.
Must get it set up on a rolling road though as it pinks a little under initial boost and the last thing I want to do is melt the pistons.
Working on the new instrument pod to replace the XR2 cluster. Sorted several areas of the sealing around the doors. Got a Peugeot 405 GTI boot spoiler to go on the boot of the 2+2.
Got given a set of rear Granada rear brake calipers by Graham Blackwell (thanks Graham) and am going to make my own equivalent (because I'm skint) of the Fiesta centres rear disk conversion to go with the Sierra Cosworth front brakes I'm doing as well.
Also collecting bits to fit the 1600 Zetec I've got into my XR2, no where as difficult as the ZVH but I'm hoping to do the entire conversion over the Xmas holidays so it will be fun.
Also still stripping down the Quantum saloon, details on it's own page here.

Back into winter depression mode with the car :-(  , not driven it for nearly a month, partly due to the weather and partly due to the problems with traction and also the ECU not controlling the boost pressure (which I think might be a duff amal valve).

The 2+2 or more specifically it's engine  has just had a mention in the November 2001 edition of Which Kit.

The text includes the sentence "Jim Hearne displayed his Quantum 2+2 at the show complete with a unique engine that he's developed himself"

I would like to say I feel this is inaccurate as there were many ZVH's before I built mine and it was many people sharing their knowledge that enabled me to build mine. More details on the ZVH here

But it sounds like I need to finish the interior this winter if I resist doing major things with the engine.

Done another 100 or so miles in the car.
A few minor problems have shown up, the adaptor the oil temp sensor is screwed into is leaking which means dropping the sump to fit a better one, the existing one is just screwed and loctited into the thick aluminium sump.
Also got a small leak from one of the coolant pipes on the turbo, nipping the union up so far hasn't fixed it.
And for some reason the engine wouldn't boost past about 3.5Psi, I initially thought it was just the ecu telling it not too but I've checked the settings and they were ok.
I double checked the Amal valve connections and they were correct too so I changed the standard wastegate actuator on the turbo for a -31 one I had.
This gives me about 7psi boost but I'm running into a bigger problem now, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion you can have too much power.
With the boost at 3.5psi it was a bit of a handful in 1st and 2nd, with it up to 7psi it's now getting dangerous, leaping around on the road in 1st, 2nd and 3rd if you even think about using a lot of throttle.
I've scared myself several times already and am seriously thinking of putting the boost back down to 3.5Psi.
The engine was intended to run 15psi boost.
I had a 170bhp ish engine in a Escort Cabriolet but it was no where near as bad as the Quantum.
I guess this is the problem with this much power in a FWD car, and a fairly light one at that.
I think the main problem is a combination of lack of traction and torque steer, as one wheel looses traction the LSD tries to compensate and then the other wheel looses traction so it's a sequence of one, the other or both wheels loosing grip and you end up doing S's down the road.
The only ideas I've got at the moment is a Quaiffe LSD (=£££) and fitting equal length drive shafts (which may help).
Or upgrading my ECU to one with full traction control( more £££).

Went to the Donington park Kit car show on Saturday, pretty good, meet lots of other Quantum owners and Graham Blackwell (from www.zetecinside.com).
Visited Grahams 2.0 Zetec powered Mk1 Fiesta on the way home, very nice.
The Quantum went very well even though the boost is staying at 3.5 psi for some reason, it should have been more like 7 now.
But even at 3.5 psi it's really quick, quicker than the old 1.6 engine was at 15 psi.
Came back from Donington at far too excessive speed.
The new Pace alloy rad kept the water temperature down, it's maybe even slightly too cold now
All the replacement Green gauges gauges read exactly what they should so thanks to them for swapping them out quickly.
Next thing to do is fit the oil cooler and remote oil filter

Got all the replacement gauges and sensors fitted back on the car, also refilled the cooling systems (radiator and chargecooler), will check for leaks tomorrow.
Found a few small holes in the exhaust, it's almost perfect still on the outside but has rusted through on the seam in a couple of places :-(
Off to Donnington on Saturday hopefully, joined the AA last week just incase of any problems.

Green gauges have kept their promise and I've now had advanced replacements for most of the gauges and senders, the last should be here tomorrow.
All the new ones have been tested and the results sent with the gauge.
They have been more than helpful and kept me fully updated with the progress of the replacements so definatly a thumbs up for GG.
Sunday rained a lot so I got some work done on the car.
Fitted the Pace alloy rad, needed some minor adjustment to mounting holes and lugs but it all fitted, looks nice all polished.
Also fitted the Vibratechnics engine mounts and the last Samco water hose, managed to get rid of the "S" bend I'd had to use on the old one to clear the alternator pulley.
Yesterday went to Ammering short oval race track, watched the carnage and got sunburnt. :-)

After finding the Oil pressure gauge was under reading the other day I contacted Green gauges and was told to send it back and it would be repaired/replaced within a week, it's actually back already, very quick.
Unfortunately while it was away I decided to check the calibration of the water and oil temp gauges and found these too were under reading, by 10 and 15 Degrees respectively.
So I again contacted GG, the guy there told me to contact somebody else at the factory that makes the gauges (it's CAI), I tried but just got an answer phone.
So I sent a slightly more forceful email direct to the owner of GG and got a reply the next morning.
Very helpful and promising replacements for the other gauges early next week (I mentioned I wanted to get the car to the Donnington show next weekend).
They also found out the problem with the oil pressure gauge was they had been shipped with the wrong senders, 10 bar senders instead of 100 Psi ones.

Also been having fun with Pace, been trying to get a standard Escort RST Alloy radiator from them, checked again at the beginning of the week and they had some ready, one with my name on it, was assured by John it would be with me for the weekend.
Nothing arrived by Thursday lunchtime so I thought I'd ring and check it would arrived Friday, no, it was still sitting there as nobody had got my CC details, nobody thought to ring and ask for them or look them up on the computer which is what they then did.
Rad turned up yesterday, had a quick look at it at work and seemed ok, but a closer look last night reveal it wasn't rectangular, it was parallelogram shaped, not sure if it was damaged in transit or made like that. (box seemed ok).
Luckily I think I've managed to straighten it after judicious use of a large vice and some bits of wood.
Will probably only know when I try to fit it tomorrow.

I've got the 1600 Zetec I bought for £100 back to the workshop, not certain yet if i'm going to stick it in my XR2 or not, another Quantum owner is after it for his MK2 Escort rally car.

Finally, also got £100 worth of Leds from RS to use as the warning lights in the dash, unfortunately couldn't get all the same style in the 2 different sizes I wanted so I've some work to do on the bezels

More problems this week though luckily not as serious as I'd feared.
I took the car to work on Monday but noticed that the oil pressure appeared to have dropped very low, down to 40psi on the way to work and even lower to 30 on the way home. Getting worried about the bearings I didn't drive it again during the week.
Before I started stripping the engine to try and find the problem I thought I'd check the gauge against a more accurate one.
Luckily I did as I was the gauge that's been undereading by up to 20 Psi so what it was showing was 30 Psi was actually more like 50.
So I guess we will see how good Green gauges guarantee is.
Bought another Zetec engine today, only a 1.6 but it was only £100 with airflow meter and ECU.
The plan is to fit it into the XR2.

Done 200 miles on the new engine now, gave it some stick to celebrate and got the "change gear" light on for the first time., admittedly it's only set to 5500rpm at the moment.
Time to turn up the boost a bit soon, it's only on 4psi at the moment.
The Lambda sensor now works and the readings it's giving seem about right.

Bought a pair of vibra technics  uprated engine mounts from Woodford Garage, about £100 the  pair but should do the job.
Unlike the Escort Diesel one's I've got at the moment which are letting the engine touch the chassis under cornering.
Might still need to make up an additional tie bar to limit the sideway movement though.

Went down to the Hickstead kit car show on Sunday, just finding the rest of the Quantum's in the field and the top rad hose sprung a leak at the joint in the hose spraying the engine bay with antifreeze :-(
Luckily I was able to get a lift to Halfords and bought some hose repair tape which lasted long enough to get me home (just).
I ordered a set of Samco coolant hoses yesterday from Burton Power and they came today, fitted the top hose tonight, will fit the bottom one soon.
And to add to my troubles the replacement hydraulic followers didn't fix the tappet sounding noise.
I'm going to wait for a second opinion before I buy any more bits, it may be my imagination, or just the sound
of the injectors.
But at least I think I've found out why the Lambda sensor wasn't working, I'd got the 2 wires reversed, I though the Black wire was ground and the Grey one the signal but it's the other way round.

New hydraulic followers fitted and engines all back together but not had a chance to bed them in yet (run engine at 3-4000rpm for 20 mins).
Not had a chance to do anything else as I volunteered myself and work a few months ago to print the Imp clubs (as in Hillman Imp car) National day program at work on the colour laser printer.
What I didn't realise was how long it would take to print 450x9 pages and the grief it is trying to get a Laser printer to print on card (that it's supposed to take).
So I've had several late nights at work and was in today as well.
Want to take the Quantum to the show at Hickstead tomorrow but have got to run the followers in first and if it looks like rain fit the roof.
Still got to try and get the Lambda sensor working as well.

Engines back apart again, but only a little bit.
The 2nd day I was driving the car one of the hydraulic followers started rattling and has ever since.
They were new but non-Ford followers, the previous occasions I had bought non-Ford ones in the past I'd had odd ones fail fairly quickly but I was talked into buying these and it was tempting as less than half the price of the Ford ones.
But have now bought a set of Ford ones and hopefully fit them tomorrow.
It was also pointed out I'd filled the rebuilt engine up with fully synthetic oil which is no good for running engines in on, so I've got to drain it out and use some cheapo stuff for a few 100 miles.

Well, I adjusted the gear linkage as per the book and took the end cover off the box and re-adjusted the reverse/5th clamp and touch wood the gearbox has been ok since.
Done about 70 miles now, still running in.
First polish of the new paint job and time for some new pictures of the whole car.

MOT Passed, finally able to drive the car again for the first time in about 9 months.
Drove quite nicely, no problems with engine beyond the idle speed control not working, the accelerator sticking and the electric rad fan not working so it brewed up the first time I stopped to set the idle speed.
The dump valve I fitted is really noisy and comes in even on very light loads, it's likely to either get disconnected or replaced with a quieter one.
I might try and make it switchable, that might work, so it only comes on under high vacuum.
However, one problem has arisen, there has been a gear grating type noise occurring, I've had it happen in 1st, 2nd and reverse so far, a few seconds after you have selected the gear and pulled away the noise occurs, sounds like 2 gears touching that are running at different speeds.
But it happens after the clutch has been engaged for a second or so and the noise last anything from not happening at all to about 3 seconds.
I'm checking the linkage and the 5th/reverse clamp setting under the gearbox cover but if it's anything else it will need the box off.
Had a nice local QOC (Quantum owners club meeting in Godstone the other day but unfortunately I was the only one not in the Quantum due to the noise.
Pictures of the other cars here.

Pretty much all back together now, MOT booked for 3 pm tomorrow.

A much better week, the Escort clutch pedal mentioned below worked and the Quantum's moved under it's own power for the first time in nearly a year, only drove it out of the garage, did a 3 point turn and went back in (I was already late for work) but it seemed happy.
Spurred on by this I've spent the week putting all the other bit's back on the car, door innards, finished the drivers door properly (it had never got finally assembled like the passenger one.
Have had lot's of fun with the boot, the later liner panel I had bonded inside the boot lid has caused quite a few problems due to it's extra thickness.
Just got to paint the drivers door quarterlight area and refit the glass to that door, everything else needed to get back on the road is done, will try to get an MOT on Tuesday.

Things still haven't been going well with the 2+2, after the problems with the bonnet vents I trimmed around the windscreen, first with 3mm foam and then leathercloth, went quite well and looked better than my first attempt.
I then got a windscreen company out to fit a new screen as the old one looked a bit funny under certain lighting conditions.
Unfortunately the guy had a few attempts at fitting the screen and gave up, he said the combination of the thicker windscreen flange on a fibreglass car and the extra thickness of the 3mm foam and leathercloth made it too thick to get the seal over.
Anyway, later that day myself and my brother fitted the screen on out third attempt, admittedly it took about 45 mins of fiddling but it was in.

So I thought I was on the home straight now, tweaked the Ecu map a bit more to try and get the idle speed control to work, had to fit a restrictor in the idle valve pipe to stop the revs going silly if the Ecu gets the idle wrong.
Also reduced the fuel map on the Ecu by 20% to allow for the bigger injectors that I've got compare with the person who gave me the map.
Fitted 3 ultra bright red leds in the centre of the instrument cluster for the gearchange light.
And with the dash all refitted decided it was time to drive the car out of the garage for the first time to check the engine under load, started up, foot on clutch stuck the gearstick sharply into reverse (You get used to sticking FWD Fords sharply into reverse), and shot backwards, luckily I had opened the garage door first.
Some quick checks revealed that the clutch wasn't releasing.
That was about 3 weeks ago, since then I tried a larger quadrant on the clutch pedal (58 mm instead of the original 45 mm) and then a shorter lever on the gearbox end (there are 2 lengths of lever used) both trying to gear up the movement of the release bearing.
With both mods the clutch would partly disengage but not fully and I still couldn't get any gear.
By this point I was wondered if I had put the clutch centre plate in the wrong way round or something and really wasn't looking forward to having to remove the gearbox to check.
In the box with the AP clutch there was a note saying that on MK3 and 4 Escorts it was recommended to replace the clutch pedal with a manually adjusted version from a MK5 Escort.
I had initially discounted this thinking the pedal would be completely different and later because I had already tried a 90° section of the 180° 88mm quadrant from the later Escort, the Fiesta pedal could only take a 90° quadrant.
After speaking to Woodford Garage where I'd bought the clutch from they were there usual very helpful selves and I bought the manually adjustable Escort pedal and it actually fitted fairly well, I had to cut off the top stop from the pedal box and welded on a new adjustable one.
With that fitted I appear to actually be able to get the clutch to release, the pedal now feels right with a over centre action.
I'm still trying to fully understand why it works where the Fiesta pedal didn't but I think it's because it uses the 180° quadrant and the length of cable wrapped round that is longer than that wrapped round a 90° quadrant and then going straight.
The pedal also goes a bit higher that it used to but i'm sure I can get used to that.
Just got to refit the drivers seat (it's impossible to remove and refit the pedal box with in in, especially with the car in a single garage) and I can check to see if it really works now.

Bought a new project today, a Quantum saloon, chassis no 003, the 3rd one made.
The Quantum and the XR2 cost me £600, I had hoped to use the E reg XR2 to replace my D reg one but a quick prod around revealed extensive rust so it's going to have to be scrapped for spares unfortunately.
The saloons own page is here.

Major problems with the 2+2 earlier this week, I refitted the bonnet and it wouldn't shut, the bottom of one of the Naca duct vents I'd had fitted fouled on the top of the inlet manifold.
This was due to the position of the vents being determined on the old engine (I didn't think about the new one until the car was away for it's repairs) and also the Zetec block being higher than the CVH one.
The 2 together meant that the vent was in the wrong place.
I've solved the problem for the moment by cutting a section out of the bottom of the offending vent but I'm not sure if it will clear the engine enough when it's moving around on it's mounts.
Most of the other bits of the 2+2 are back together, just the trim around the windscreen, the dash and the interior of the doors to do now.

Where does all the time go.
The Lambda sensor I had (free from a dead Audi Quattro) didn't seem to work, giving no output, so I ordered a new one from Webcon , next day delivery and an excellent price, £90 inc vat
All plumbing complete now.
Ran the engine up for 20 mins a few days ago to bed the cam in mainly.
It got a bit hot though, I was just looking at the electric fan wondering why it hadn't come on yet and the rad reservoir overflowed, steam and water everywhere.
I think it overflowed though as I'd filled the reservoir almost to the top, normally on the CVH's the level drops a lot when the stat opens but it didn't this time.
The maximum temperature in the ECU log was 120°C, the last 20° happened very quickly.
Got the new 3 bar map sensor from RS Cosworth Specialists and fitted it, reset the ECU map to allow for it.
Currently making some new brackets up that hold the 4" headlights as the headlights turned out to be LH drive so I've had to make new brackets up to rotate them 15° to make them dip the right way.
Started the insurance just incase anything nasty happens.

Engine all plumbing in now apart from the oil breather pipes.
Had to sort out the problem with the fuel pump relay, in the end rewired the fusebox to take a standard relay controlled by the DTA Ecu instead of the original Ford Purple relay.
Filled the Pace chargecooler system up with water (will have to drain it again to add some antifreeze), initially had some problems with airlocks and the pump just sat there making sploshing noises but not pumping any water but reverse filling the system through the return pipe seems to have sorted that problem out.
Refitted the front suspension and found out I had damaged one of the bottom ball joint gaiters taking it apart, found it just after the local Ford dealers had shut :-(
About ready for the full 20 min warm up and cam run in session.

It's running, had the engine running properly for nearly a minute, couldn't run it any longer as there no cooling system connected yet.
Setting the ECU up correctly for a 1 bar map sensor sorted out all the alarming backfires etc but the engine would only run for about 5 seconds.

R.S Cosworth specialists were their usual very helpful selves when I rang up about the 2.5 bar map sensor being a 1 bar one, they are having words with Weber who supplied it direct and in the mean time have shipped me a 3 bar one which should be here tomorrow.
R.S Cosworth specialists definatly come top of my recommend supplier list, if I had one they would anyway.
After 15 mins playing with the fuel map trying weaker mixtures (as I've got larger injectors than the map was written for) and having no effect I twigged that the fuel pump relay wasn't running once the engine started.
I used the existing Ford Purple relay which is "intelligent" in that it monitors the engine pulses and cuts off the fuel pump if the engine stops.
For some reason I've yet to discover it doesn't know my engine is running.
The 5 seconds was how long the fuel pressure from the initial ignition on pulse was lasting.
The get the engine running I held the contacts of the relay closed with a bit of cardboard.
Other than that just been plumbing in the cooling and induction system.

Filled the engine with oil and tried to start it this morning, it almost runs, goes for 5 or 10 seconds but coughing, spluttering and backfiring all over the place.
Started looking for the cause this evening and found that the 2.5bar map sensor I thought I'd bought has turned out to be a 1 bar map sensor, i.e. Normally aspirated , not turbo.
Not sure if this is the cause of the problems, might well be as I'd set the ECU up for the 2.5 bar one so the readings from the 1 bar sensor would have made it think the engine was massively over boosting and it might shut the engine back down, maybe.
I'll double check the timing with a strobe tomorrow just to make sure I've got the 2 coils the right way round, it might still try to run due to the wasted spark system.
Chopped up all the Samco hoses last night as well, all seems to fit, just got to join it back together now.
Also spotted a design problem with my dipstick bracket, it stops me plugging the spark plug lead in properly, the EFI leads have a moulded plastic handle on the lead that gets in the way, Oops.

Still doing bit's n bob's but everything is in place now to start the engine, well, except for filling it with oil, must remember to do that.
Forgot to drill a new hole in the chassis when I had the brake servo and linkage out for painting so had to modify the fuel filter bracket (by cutting part off and welding a bit back on the other side) to fit the existing holes.
Also stripped and rebuilt the throttle body assy so I could paint the linkages. I found out the intermediate shaft is splined the hard way :-(
Been down my friend Kim's tonight, Kim owns Quattosports, an Audi Quattro specialist and I was doing a wiring loom conversion to take a 20 valve Quattro engine in an older car.
While I was there I raided his stores and "borrowed" a couple of 2" Samco hose elbows and about 8 ft of 2" alloy tubing, I need this lot (not all the tube) to plumb up the inlet side of the intake system.
Some of the piping will come from chopping up the existing Samco RST hose set I've got.

All the little things take more time than you think.
I've now done all the rewiring for the new injection/ignition system and rerouted the wiring for the starter motor and alternator now the starter is at the rear of the engine.
Successfully run up the ECU and done all the diagnostic tests, everything seems to work.
Also repainted the brake transfer bar, servo and master cylinder to match the new colour scheme under the bonnet, this has held up refitting the head and manifolds by a few days.
But the head and manifolds are all back together, just need to be dropped on and bolted up.
Just need 2 fuel pipes then and it's ready to go.

Yesterday made a tray to fit on the ECU and let it bolt onto the same holes as the old Ford one (the black one), also made up a bracket and a another tray that fit's over the bolts that hole the brake servo to the bulkhead (where the Silver Ford ECU was) and has an aux fusebox, 2 relays and the map sensor mounted on it.
Also made a bracket to mount the turbo Amal valve.
Last night made the lead to talk to the ECU and tested it on the bench with the ECU connected up to a bench supply.
Today I've done about 50% of the wiring up of the ECU and rerouting the starter, Alternator and battery feed cables because the starter is now at the rear of the engine.

Fitted the various sensor to the newly painted head and manifold, look a million times better painted, I just hope the paint stays on.
Started the wiring, mostly removing all the old stuff and trying to remember what went where on the old system as I never did get around to documenting it.

Got too far behind now to get the Quantum to Stoneleigh, well only on a trailer.
Went and collected the head from Dave at Pumaracing  yesterday, an impressive bit of work but an expensive bit at £700 inc.

More info here on the ZVH page.
Also picked up a load of wire and connectors from Premier Wiring to wire up the DTA Ecu etc.
Decided to paint the cylinder head and manifold, this was a mistake as it ended up taking about 5 hours to paint the parts with 3 coats each (primer and 2 topcoats) and so has held me up by a day at least on reassembling the engine but they look much better.
Found some pictures of the flywheel Dave lightened for me as well, it's over 1KG lighter as can be seen from the scales (and that's only 90% of the swarf).

Fitted the various brackets, water pump and bit's n bobs to the short engine and got it fitted back in the car.
Going to pick up the finished head from Dave tomorrow and get that fitted
Also hoping to visit Premier Wiring and buy a load of wire and sleeving etc to wire up the ECU and new injection/ignition system.

Less than a week to Stoneleigh, am I going to get the car back together for the show ???, got the week off work so there's a remote chance.

The new gearbox hasn't helped, this is the box from a later Escort Zetec that has the starter mounted at the rear of the engine, I wanted to use this as it gets the starter motor away from the heat of the turbo and makes access to the turbo easier.  

I ordered a Heavy duty AP clutch centre and cover from from R.S Cosworth specialists, a very helpful company and very good prices as well. Fitted the AP clutch plate and cover no problem, then went to fit the standard release bearing and it wouldn't fit over the spigot on the gearbox, the hole in the middle of the bearing was too small. Now, on most Ford FWD gearboxes the release bearing slides straight on a Aluminum spigot (surrounding the input shaft) which is part of the gearbox casting but there is a Ford modification to some gearboxes, these have a steel sleeve pressed over the spigot to stop the bearing wearing the Aluminum spigot.

Apart from the gearbox, been sandblasting and painting brackets and covers.
Made a new bracket to go from the front engine mounting bracket across to the gearbox, the original bolted to the starter but that's not there anymore so I had to make a new bracket up.

Got the chargecooler rad back from Pace with the missing mount in place and also the water reservoir with the bush welded in.
Looks good, more lovely welding. :-)

It turned out that the compression ratio on the ZVH engine was going to be too high with the standard Zetec pistons so I ended up having to take them out and skim 0.5mm from the top.
While they were out again Dave recommended checking the ring gaps as he was a bit worried they were a bit small for a turbo engine and might close up completely at seize in the bores.
The top ring gaps turned out to 10 to 12 thou which was a lot to small, I opened them up to 25 thou to be on the safe side.
The middle and oil rings were fine as the were at about 20 thou anyway.
I bought a Seally parts cleaning tank to make cleaning the parts of the gearbox easier, unfortunately in turned out to have been damaged in transit so I'm now waiting for a new pump, though I've managed to bodge the broken one enough to clean the parts I needed to.

Almost finished rebuilding the Escort 1600 Zetec gearbox with the LSD from the Quantum's old RST box, had fun finding all the right size bearings but got there in the end.
I did have to grind down the spacer that sets the preload on the diff bearings as with LSD in the new casing the spacer was the wrong thickness.
I had to leave out a 4 thou shim behind the spacer and grind 2 thou off the spacer itself.
I hope I've got it about right.

Received the second attempt of the chargecooler radiator from Pace last Tuesday.
The last attempt had a core that was the wrong thickness, this one was the right size but had a couple of mistakes (a missing mount and a pipe at the wrong angle) that had also been one first one duplicated on it.
The annoying thing is I had sent a note back with the 1st rad pointing out these mistakes but they had lost it. :-(
So the rad has gone back to Pace for the third time to have these problems fixed, luckily they are fairly easy to do and the rad should be back with me this Monday.

I have been doing stuff honest.
I've got the chargecooler back from Pace with its new mounts welded on, nice job and a very reasonable price given the mods I'd asked for.
I also got the new chargecooler prerad from Pace, this was supposed to fit in the space left by the intercooler but unfortunately due to a communications problem (Wayne who I'd always talked to was on holiday) the supplied prerad was about 1/3 the capacity it was supposed to have been.
They are now making me a bigger one.

I've reassembled the bottom end of the ZVH and painted the block a tasteful Blue, also stripped, painted and rebuilt the S/h Mondeo starter to fit the Zetec gearbox.
Bought some stainless pipe fittings from RS for the breather system.
Also taken the engine block and old Escort RST gearbox out of the Quantum, got to clean up the engine bay ready to fit the new engine.

And taken apart the 1.6 Zetec gearbox, the ratios are fine, almost the same as the RST box but it has the "proper" output shaft bearing so just got to swap the LSD from the RST box into it and rebuild it.
Despite it being a low mileage box there was still a chunk missing from one of the diff bearing rollers, I wonder if it was made like that.

Also bought a complete set of instruments from Greengauges ,a very nice company to deal with, they do customised instruments, you can pick the bezel shape and colour, background colour, graphics colour and needle colour from a good range.
All done online on their web site. www.greengauges.com
The gauges were made and delivered so quickly the order was shipped before an email I'd sent asking for an extra temp sensor (to monitor chargecooler water temp) had got there. :-)
The range doesn't normally include a boost gauge but they are making me one specially to match the rest of the set at a price that you'd normally pay for a standard gauge.
I've bought a 86mm Electronic Speedo and rev counter, and 52 mm water temp, oil temp, oil pressure, petrol and turbo boost gauges.

Been up to visit Dave Baker at Pumaracing last Wednesday, in return for upgrading his PC Dave skimmed 3 thou off the top of the Zetec cylinder block to get it perfectly flat.
He also confirmed my thoughts that the bearings and crank are perfect and can be refitted as they are.
He's now lightening the flywheel, flowing the inlet manifolds and doing the big valve and flowed head.

Went down the Bridges the breakers looking for gearboxes, preferably a MK5 Escort Diesel box.
Told the guy what I wanted and what for, he disappeared for a minute, came back and let me into the stores where I spent about 30 mins comparing gearbox's and engines.
There were about 50 Ford FWD gearboxes on the shelves, of about 8 different variations, I hadn't realised there were so many versions.

Anyway, there were basically:

1.The old B5 box.
2.A very similar looking box but with a larger bulge in the casting inside the bellhousing where the end of the output shaft is, I guess this is either an IB5 or just a fixed version of the B5
3.Another similar looking box but with more ribs on the outside of the bellhousing, not sure if this is the IB5 or something else, there are several variations of this box with the starter motor on the bottom front or top rear of the engine, also a later version with an hydraulic clutch with either starter position.
4.Then a completely different looking much more bulky box which I assume was a MTX75, several variations of starter position on this as well.

No diesel boxes except for a couple of B5 boxes from Mk4 Escorts which had the smaller bearing housing.
After much inspection and thought I ended up buying 2 gearboxes.
The 2.0 Zetec I've got has a space for the starter there, (interestingly all but one of the Zetec's there didn't) and it would get the starter well away from the heat of the turbo as well as make it much easier to get at the bits around the turbo.
And just incase I can't get that one to fit I also bought one of type 2 above, i.e similar to what I've got but with the bigger bearing bulge.

The type 2 box was from a MK3 1.3 HCS Fiesta (£50+vat), the type 3 box from a Mk5 Escort 1600 Zetec (£100+vat).
So I've now got several days of fun stripping them both down and investigating the insides.
Also need to try and work out all the gear ratios and see what I can mix N match between these 2 boxes and my existing RST box.

Sent the chargecooler off to Pace to have it's brackets attached.

Finished off the bit's for the chargecooler, need to get them all sent off to Pace now.
Been honored by a Email conversation with Ian Howell, Mr ZVH himself, he's done over 75 ZVH conversions and has been helping me with some of the last details to be sorted out on my own ZVH engine.
Ian's now going over to doing Zetec Turbo conversions which is possibly what I should have done in the first place but too late for that now.

I've also been looking at gearbox's, I picked up a scrap RST gearbox just to get the LSD from to save taking apart the box that's still in the Quantum.
I'm now trying to find the best box to fit to the ZVH, the latter MK3 Fiesta RS1800i used a IB5 gearbox which is stronger than the older B5 which are the ones that eat output shafts.
But even better is supposed to be an Escort Diesel box but I'm not sure of the part number of these yet, if it's a version of the IB5 or something else.

Gone a bit quiet again.
Talked a lot to Dave Baker at Pumaracing earlier in the month about my engine and he's now got the cylinder head, flywheel and manifolds for work.
The heads having the ultimate job done on it, 45mm inlet valves, fully gasflowed, combustion chamber enlarged to match 2.0 block etc.
But for the last 2 weeks the Quantum and all the stuff in the garage has been covered up waiting for some builders to refelt the leaky roof, unfortunately they always get more urgent job on the fine days so it's still waiting.

Still working on the ZVH, modifying the engine mounting bracket, making a new bracket for the dipstick and looking at head bolt and gasket problems.
Have been discussing ZVH's with a nice guy called Iipo whose done his own 1.8 ZVH conversion, he's sent me some pictures which are here.

22nd December 2000

Been down the breakers again, this time bought a inlet manifold and cylinder head from a J reg 1600EFI Escort.

Full details on the injection page.

Been talking to Dave at Pumaracing whose interesting in my project and is hopefully going to sort out the cylinder head for the ZVH.

Have a look at his site, he's got some very nice throttle bodies.

13th December 2000

Good news, I asked the person that hit my Fiesta for £120 to cover the new panels etc if he wanted to settle it without involving the insurance companies and he sent me a cheque.
He obviously changed his mind about it not being his fault.
So that will come in handy, I'm not even thinking about fixing the damage until the Quantum is back on the road next spring.
Found a nice web site for buying gauges from, Greengauges site lets you semi customise the gauges you can buy, you can select background, graphics, needle and bezel colours, also the shape of the bezel, all online.
They didn't list a boost gauge but when I emailed them they said they could make me one to match the rest of the gauges.
So I think I'll get rid of the Ford instrument cluster and replace them with seperates.
Red graphics on a white background sounds nice :-)

I've also bought a Pace chargecooler to replace the intercooler on the Quantum, picys soon.

24th November 2000

Yet again I've been hit by another silly driver, this time luckily in the Fiesta, not in the Quantum.
A young lad in a MK3 Fiesta decided to go right from the LH lane on a roundabout on the dual carriage way, unfortunately for me I was going straight on from the RH lane.
As he came round in front of me I hit him on the rear wheel arch and spun him round 180 degrees, just like touring cars :-)
I think sitting in the middle of a busy roundabout facing the oncoming traffic scared him more than the accident itself.
Typically his car was much less damaged than mine, for some reason he seemed to think I was partly to blame and suggested we just forgot about it, I don't think so.

23rd November 2000

I've mainly been working out bits on the ZVH conversion in the last month. 

Almost at the point where I start cutting metal.
I've also been trying to sort out my XR2 to last the winter, the engine is sounding a bit tired but then it has done 105,000 miles.
I got hold of another XR2 for £50 (C Reg), initially I was going to put it on the road instead of mine but in the end it had too much rust to be 
worth fixing so I've scrapped it and taken the good engine/gearbox out to put into the other one if it stops raining for a while.
Updated the ZVH page a lot and started another one specifically on the injection system modifications, Tis here. 
Got bored with the old backgrounds, if you don't like the new ones let me know, I'm no good at graphics.

28th October 2000

Started dismantling the engine, found green fibreglass dust everywhere, obviously the engine wasn't covered when the body was done.
Reduced the top engine of the engine to bits in a few hours.
Revamped the ZVH page to include some of the pictures of the Zetec Verses CVH bits.

24th October 2000

Well, as you may have noticed there's been nothing here for a little while. When I went to pick up the car from the bodyshop I thought I spotted a problem, the owner said I was imagining it but the next day I checked and indeed there was, an obvious mistake by somebody at the shop.
I contacted the owner who tried to blame it one everything except one of his staff making a mistake, it was only when I threatened to stop the cheque I'd given him that he said he'd sort it out.
However, not completely, it will still involve extra time and expense from me.
So I spent a few weeks trying to decide what to do, you may be wondering why I haven't said what the problem is, mainly it's because after comments from a few friends I have decided to leave the problem as it is for the moment and see how many people spot it.
I know it's there which is the most annoying thing but getting a garage who obviously don't want to redo it to sort the problem out may end up with things being worse. So, Specialised Repairs, great paintwork but hope they get the rest right.
The ZVH engine is progressing now, I've just started pulling the engine bay on the Quantum apart for the cylinder head etc to test fit onto the Zetec block.
I've also bought most of the Ford new bits I need, I'll put part numbers on the ZVH page shortly.
It seems the Quantum front chassis/spaceframe was only designed for up to 200Bhp so if I go over that (of course) I need to strengthen it a bit.
I obviously don't want to weld with it attached to the car but unfortunately it's bonded to the bulkhead with Sikaflex 221 and that stuff sticks.
Finally, I've bought the new ECU,  Injectors and map sensor that I'll need for the new engine, almost £1000 between them.
Injectors & map sensor came from www.rscosworthspecialists.co.uk and the engine management box from www.dtafast.co.uk, both orders were placed via Email and arrived next day.
R.S Cosworth specialists even rang to tell me the injectors had gone down £5 each and to check I was ordering the right bits as the Map sensor and injectors wouldn't be compatible on a normal Escort Cosworth.
DTA have been very helpful answering my questions before and after the order.
I'll probably do a separate DTA ECU page later to cover installing and setting it up.

12th September 2000

It's now been flatted and polished and is ready to collect, I'm doing that tomorrow.
They've done a nice job, one chip on the door pillar, I guess from where they were refitting the doors, that's being sorted.
Had to tidy up the Zetec engine which I'd dismantled all over the garage floor.
 

6th September 2000

30th August 2000

Another visit to see the Quantum at Specialist repairs, a bit more progress. 

Latest ETA is another week, so that will be 2 weeks then :-)

Finally picked up the Fiesta Zetec sump and oil pickup I need for the ZVH engine, £25, not too bad.

I've just bought another project, it's own page is here.

16th August 2000

Went up to look at the Quantum, it's not as done as I would have hoped given it's 3 weeks after I took it in and I was told it would take a couple weeks.
ETA at the moment is a couple of weeks, now where have I heard that before.

13th August 2000

Picked up the Zetec engine for the ZVH, the other bits weren't ready (they were still embedded in the front of a very bent Fiesta).
Took lots of pictures of the engine as it came so hopefully no where did this bit go questions later.
All The pictures are here.

Nasty FrontPage, second attempt at tidying up this page with a table.
The Quantum's been away foR it's respray for a few weeks now and I got bored and started looking into Zetec/CVH Hybrid engines, the end result of which is I'm picking up a 2.0 Mondeo Zetec from the scrapyard on Saturday.
£585 for a 29K miles complete engine.
The idea is to fully document the conversion here as it was rather difficult to find out any details.

Been busy sorting out the repair to the rear of the Quantum since it's bump. 

I've decided to get the whole car sprayed, the insurance assessor reckoned it only needed the rear panel and the sides sprayed but I think the new paint would fade differently to remaining gelcoat so I'm paying extra to have the whole car done.
While they are at it I'm also getting the garage (Specialised Repairs in Edenbridge) to fit bonnet vents, a job I'd been putting off :-) and also sort out the bubbles under the gelcoat on the bonnet, a job Quantum changed their mind about fixing years ago.
Initially I was going for metallic British Racing Green but that looked too dark so I picked a lighter metallic green from the colour samples, should look a bit different.
The resprays costing £1650+vat, ouch, it better be good.
So I spent Sunday stripping the car, ended up removing the dash as well so the door hinges could be removed.
Major problem with the boot, I'd fitted the bonded in inner panel after fitting the boot lock and due to the way I'd fitted the lock I couldn't remove it.
I ended up having to cut away the complete inner panel with a angle grinder just so I could get the lock out.
I've ordered the later larger panel from Quantum to replace it.
Why didn't somebody spot the Quantum badge on my boot was spelt wrong, it's been on there for months and nobody spotted it, maybe due to the font.

Ooops.

Anyway, it's removed now.

19th June 2000 

Well, I've just had a nice Italian lady run into the back of my 2+2.
Classic roundabout accident, I'm on the LH lane of 2 waiting to pull onto the roundabout to go left, next to me in the RH lane is a van blocking my view so I can't see the traffic coming round the roundabout.
The van pulls away but I don't as I can't see what might be coming round the roundabout.
The lady behind could see though so she thinks I'm going and since she can see there's nothing else coming she goes as well.
BANG! Exactly the same thing as has happened to me twice before in the last 10 years.
I got out expecting to see the back of the Quantum flattened like my Fiesta was when it happened in that.
But it wasn't as bad as I thought, various damage to the gelcoat from bolts and things on her bumper and a nice impression of her VW badge on my bumper.
Inside the fibreglass has gone white (delaminated) around the bottom corner of the moulded in bumper on the drivers side corner of the car, the gelcoat is also cracked on the outside in the same place.
So it could have been worse I suppose.

18th June 2000

A couple of pictures I've just found on the camera, my other car, probably a future donor for somebody.
And my modifications to the mirror base so all 3 bolts can be used to fix it on properly.
The reason there's 2 in the same picture is I drilled the hole too deep in first one and went right through. Bummer :-(

26th May 2000

Not much happening, too much work at work and on both my brothers projects, the Nymph (see further down) and a Karman (sp?) Ghia, both needed major rewiring amongst other things.
Had a major problem with the fuel pump on the Quantum, it was a Porsche one, fitted under the car next to the fuel tank.
I drove the car out of the garage a few weeks ago after it hadn't been used for a month or so and it left a trail of petrol behind.
Looks like the seal between the 2 sections of the pump body has gone, maybe due to me using LRP for a few months.
I replaced the pump with a proper RST one I had already bought because the Porsche one got noisy when it warmed up.
Unfortunately the new one is noisier :-(
My brake conversion seems to be working quite well.
Done a fair bit on the doors, the passenger side door has now had it's final assembly with the interior panel pop riveted and bonded in, makes a big difference to the stiffness of the door when it's bonded as opposed to being held on with self tapers.
Also made all the holes for the speakers, electric window switches etc.
Going to make a bracket for the bottom of the electric window runner so it's not just fixed to the inside edge of the door but the bottom as well.

15th March 2000

Finally got my own Digital camera, a Kodak 290, this should mean more pictures as I won't have to remember to borrow my brothers.
It's also even higher resolution than his Kodak 260 was.
Almost finished my larger brake conversion, using calipers from the MK4 Escort RS Turbo (Same on 2.9 Granada & 2.8 Sierra) and brake disks from the MK5 Escort XR3i).
This has taken a while, I had to get extra metal welded onto the RS Turbo caliper mounting bracket so I could re-drill the mounting holes to space it further away from the centre of the hub, the Escort/Sierra hub carriers obviously have longer lugs than the Fiesta does.
I also needed 3 mm spacers behind the wheels to stop the caliper rubbing on the back of the wheels, Luckily I still had some from my old MK1 Fiesta which had a similar problem.
The new brakes would have been tested by now but one of the old flexible pipes was seized into the old brake caliper, despite me putting copper grease on the thread when it was assembled only a year ago.
So I ended up buying another set of new Stainless hoses, this time with Chrome plated brass fittings rather than the old plated steel ones.
Bought them from Braided Steel I asked if they would be delivered within the week and was told they would, 2.5 weeks later I finally got them.
And then 2 of the fittings were wrong, though that could be because I'm not using XR2 calipers, I've not check the old ones yet.
Luckily I was able to put the fittings in the lathe and correct them.
Must find out how to turn the date off on the camera.

13th January 2000

Not much happening with the Quantum at the moment, it's sitting in it's heated garage at the bottom of the garden costing me tax and insurance.
I meant to get on with it over Christmas but that didn't really happen.
I'm still working on getting the Escort RST brakes to fit, the latest plan is to move the 2 mounting holes on the brake caliper bracket out by 8mm to allow it to fit on the Fiesta hub & still clear the larger discs.
This means building up the edge of the bracket with weld since the holes will be much closer to the edge, I've decided to get that done rather than risk doing it myself.

I've finally found some decent NACA vents which will hopefully end up in the bonnet once I pluck up enough courage to cut the holes.
I bought them from David Hind at Manufacturing99.
He was extremely helpful, one of the problems I've been having finding suitable vents is most suppliers didn't know the size or material of the vents they were supposed to be selling and couldn't be bothered to find out.
After I'd placed the order with David he kept me informed via Email and it even arrived ahead of schedule.
Defiantly recommended if you are after bodystyling, alloy wheels or ICE.
  
A company I can't really recommend at the moment is Chester UK, they sell workshop equipment such as Lathes, milling machines etc.
I bought a new £1000 milling machine from them in late October, it took almost 2 months to arrive (I was told about 2 weeks when I placed the order) and I have just had to send the motor assy back to have a off centre pulley fixed.
I've sorted out numerous other smaller problems myself, almost all of them due to the machines being built in Taiwan I suspect.
I've yet to be able to do any work on it. :-(

And finally, I found my nice homemade stainless engine breather tank gradually fills up with oil so I've modified it to have a drain pipe back into the sump.

7 October 1999

This site hasn't been updated much recently, mainly due to it having moved locations several times and me not being able to remember the passwords to the sites.
It's now on the PC at work and shouldn't move anymore (except to www.quantums.info)
I've also been helping rebuild a nymph (a Hillman imp based kit car), it's the one originally featured in this article from Hot Car.
I've not done that much to my car except drive it.
The things I have been trying to do haven't been that successful.
The brakes:
The Tarrox front discs have warped quite badly after 5000 miles so I rang a few places after something bigger.
One company (that I won't mention) informed me that Escort RS Turbo discs and calipers bolt straight on in place of the Fiesta items.
Wrong! The offset of the discs is miles different on the Escort discs.
After I sent the supplier a drawing of the size and offset of the disc that seemed to fit they found some Escort MK5 discs that are the right offset but unfortunately I've since found that the Escort calipers also need moving out about 5mm to clear the edge of the disc so I've got to make up some brackets to do that.
The other thing I've been having fun with is an uprated intercooler, again from the same company.
I initially ordered a Pace MK4 Escort RS Turbo item but did mention on the order that if it was much bigger than a standard item it wouldn't fit.
It arrived and was massive. :-(
After further discussion with the supplier it was decided I needed a MK3 Escort RS Turbo intercooler but with MK4 mounting brackets fitted.
This took nearly 3 months to arrive, the brackets didn't look anything like the MK4 ones and I've since discovered the intercooler is a standard MK3 item.
So I'll practice my aluminum mig welding and replace the brackets with some new ones.

Visited Quantum last Wednesday to get the beige Mohair hood replaced with a standard black Double duck one as the Mohair one had never really fitted properly.
While there I was persuaded that the slight vagueness I've always felt in the handling would be cured by fitting a set of Monroe Sensatrac shock absorbers and some of Quantum's latest spec springs.
I'd already bought a complete set of Powerflex polyurethane suspension bushes.
I fitted that lot this weekend and it's made a big difference to the handling, the ride is a little harsher but not as bad as I though it might be.
One unexpected side effect of fitting the polyurethane bushes was a drastic effect on the tracking, massive toe out.
The car was undriveable until I'd reset it by eye.

23 May 1999     

Shiny bits fitted

21 May 1999

New Shiny bits, Cast alloy rocker cover and turbo pipe from JK Engineering (Phone 01455-619300)
Ordered at Stoneleigh show, delivered today as promised, nice people to deal with.

15 May 1999

General pictures.

May 1999  

At Stoneleigh kit car show

Click below for more pictures of the earlier stages of the build.

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