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Exactly. I know the benefits from the job would be worth it but I'm stretching expenses at this point. I'll see what its worth but honestly it'll probably just get a standard lapping job and be done with it. One thing I will take my time with is the porting. I have my carbide bit, I have my preferred cordless, I have plenty of cutting fluid (ie degreaser) and I have an esky, a comfy chair, a milk crate and a good speaker system with some tunes. My last combo of this exact comp & cam spec was an absolute hoot so with some porting and springs it'll be even better. I also have a proper carburettor this time - the Brawler 650 - so again it should work a bit better than the old 600 Vac I had on the last one. The only other thing I'd be looking at is using this combo in something else down the line and going to a 300ci 6cyl setup for the 4WD. They're an engine with an amazing history and I'd love to put some effort into one and see what it can do. We'll see how we go on that front, it'll be a long-term project per the aforementioned espenses limitation. Cheers - boingk

yeah Im running slightly thicker than standard in it, 20w60. someone needs to make like a 20w80 haha. my good mate with his old Mini, used to run 40w70 AKA "bottom end in a bottle" ive heard banana skins work well in the diff haha. the sad part about this car is, its the mechanical stuff that lets it down It looks good and body is in great condition, interior is really tidy. But the engine, and diff at least, are definitely in need of love. The diff is the least of my worries. I did throw this in as an unknown diff that had been sitting for a long time after the old one shit itself. but, this diff does now have a axle seal leak on the LH axle tube. and bearings are a little noisy, but nothing like the old one. Gearbox is ok, seems smooth enough, shifts nicely, no crunchy. needs a short shifter kit fitted though, apparently makes a massive difference to the way they shift. And my rack and pinion is leaking oil again. Far from impressed, I rebuilt the steering rack, new arms, new bushes, seals, and boots. and they have split, and leaking oil all over the underside of the car. Given that I still need to fit a toe correction kit because of the suspension geometry im now running, which replaces the tie rod ends with adjustable height rose joints so the toe doesn't change under corner load, im now thinking im going to replace the rack entirely with a new 2.4 ratio quick rack. yes it will make the steering a little heavier, but meh. the standard 2.9 ratio does get a bit much when driving more sportively in the twisties

Just emailed Jason Bolger from t.i. performance and asked if when the EL ecu is j3 chipped will it throw a 511 code? Its completely Normal with a j3 chip fitted. Happy Days! Thought I'd fried the ECU. Phew! Problem solved. Oh and BIG thanks to Jason from t.i. performance for his awesome service, he has helped me through by answering any questions I had, and even when it wasn't his j3 chip at fault, it was ECU related he still offered advice and support. That's earns his sticker a place on my ute. Sent from my S21 using Tapatalk

I had a bit of win today. My spare mirrors that came with the car when I bought it, turned out to have the correct spacers for a Mk1 Escort. Although it appears my mirrors have never been off the car, so maybe they were the wrong ones from factory. basically my mirrors have always had a downward slope to them, rather than flat and level with the car. Can see in this pic of me holding the spare gold mirror, the green one on the car in the background is sloping away. there difference in the spacers is not the outside (bottom) edge, but the inner top side edge... this is what was fitted to the car... this is what the spares had on them Before After removing the mirrors also showed how faded the duco is Ive always polished it myself, but perhaps its time i paid someone to do it, and ceramic coat it. The ceramic coating made a huge difference to the XF, on a flat white colour, so surely it would make a difference on metallic acrylic paint.

Great minds think alike my good man. Great minds think alike.

OK, after going over the whole ute, I found the problem. I was wondering why the EL XR6 ecu wouldn't go into diagnostic mode properly or raise the idle when I bridged the pins for timing. When I was cleaning the EL XR6 ecu up, I used a brass wire brush to clean the pins in the top of the ecu. Now I didn't notice at the time as the wires are tiny, but some had broken off the brush and got stuck in the top around the pins, making little bridges between some pins. Must of been the TPS input and something else. After spending all day on it, was the last thing I checked after putting the ED ecu in to bridge connections and check the timing. That worked OK, so I knew something was up. I was about to put the EL ecu back in, when I saw what I thought was a few lil hairs or something in the connector. Turns out it was the brass wires that had snapped off and got lodged in there. Few were touching between 2 pins. I cleaned it all out, plugged the ECU in..... Straight to 700rpm idle. Put code reader on, flicked switch to ON, revs rise as they should. Bridge the connectors to do base timing, works perfect. DOH! I may not have escaped unscathed though....... I ran the Code reader in KOEO and most codes I got were for things the XG doesn't have- Cooling fan fault codes 791,792,777,778. Serial link to dash fault 783 BBM fault 795 But the one that is worrying me is. 511-Internal EEC module fault- Replace. The ute idles fine, seems to drive OK. It could be a fault it had before I got it or maybe I have damaged it. I tried to clear the codes, but it keeps coming up. So I may be up for a new ECU... Lesson learnt, no brass wire brushes near electronics... Sent from my S21 using Tapatalk

Just keep the wiring there and bridge the terminals, or even make a starter kill switch hidden in that area using that wiring. Sent from my CPH1920 using Tapatalk

I would, but, it's your money. 3 angle valve job, while your at it ??

Ol mate had a 300 in an Effie with side pipes ,, sounded unreal the bark that came out of it .

Go the seats at that price it's good. 3 angle cut on the valve seats is worth the money, makes for a much better flow in and out of the chamber. Sent from my S21 using Tapatalk

I’m glad you found the problem but I’m worried about the possible damage [emoji51] I wonder if it’ll perform ok with the new ecu now that it’s reading correctly and doing everything ok.

I’ve always found that if the light comes on ,, it’s too late ,, the motor dies on the spot ,, comes on with all the lights when you grind to a halt

Thanks mate that's a great idea to make a kill switch Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

that is plausible yes. ive run it completely out of fuel once before not long after i bought the car. but it took a full 41L to fill back up. ill keep that in mind.

That might be you clue right there Jack, sounds like you're into something [emoji41][emoji106] Sent from my CPH1920 using Tapatalk

With only 5L left in the tank, is it a flow issue? Pump simply not collecting enough because gravity isn't helping much? My white rover got stranded with only a few litres of fuel, starved itself around a corner and refused to run again until I'd gotten 20+ back into it to provide enough back pressure in the line/tank to get proper flow again.

Nah mate, I got rid of the locked timing and went back to ecu control when I had the ED ecu in. You know its funny you mentioned an XH TPS might be needed, because the guy who sold me the EL XR6 ecu had it in an XH XR6, and reakoned it ran great. Sent from my S21 using Tapatalk

mate if it's made in china don't buy it, I went through this and with the value of XD/XE's going through the roof at the moment just buy mustang arms and use US made ball joints, screw in type I have rolled an XF because of a failed ball joint and was lucky the cage saved me, will never buy a china made critical part again for these things unless I'm giving it to someone I don't like When I see tie rod ends and ball joints on eBay I cringe .....but like they say when buying helmets ... Where there is no sense there is no feeling https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sdk-d0oz-3049-a/make/ford/model/mustang these would probably be the ticket methinks for a cheap ball joint that's probably better than 99% of shit available in Australia

Nothing much happening with the Escort. I tried to fire it up and take for a short drive last week, and the shitty misfire was back. last time i diagnosed it as the vacuum advance on the dizzy. so have been running with that disconnected and blanked off. this time, i spent about 2 hours, checking plugs, dizzy cap, pulling the top of the carby off and making sure there was no shit in the fuel bowl. It was getting low on fuel, so i figured if i could limp it to the servo id put a tank of fresh fuel in it. so i did. it had about 5L left in the tank. put a fresh tank in, left the servo and got a few minutes down the road, and it was good and happy to go. for some reason it seems very sensitive to either stale fuel, or there is something in the bottom of the tank that is contaminating the fuel when it gets too low. Anyway, on the weekend I went to my girlfriend's place for the weekend, which we are allowed to do under the Melbourne Metro lockdowns, so I took the opportunity to drive the Escort for a decent run rather than just around local streets. I know i keep saying it, but boy this old 1300 is getting tired How long before it goes bye bye? Who knows. This was the oil pressure at idle after getting home again on Monday. about 5psi. Interestingly i havent seen the factory warning light come on yet, on the dash, and it does work. Id imagine just must come on at 0psi. even under load, at 100km/h and at running temp, it doesn't quite get to 30psi oil pressure at least it looks pretty after its wash before going back under its car cover

Just rang him. He said it was 30 bucks a seat, so 8x seats is $240. Geez. Maybe I should just do it and then not have to worry about if I decide to blow it or something later on down the line.

$250 is very cheap for seats. I would expect more like $400-$500 but that might be Sydney prices. Sent from my CPH1920 using Tapatalk

I've got a few 351C 2V heads lying around now so will probably use those valves if they measure up properly. I've used stock valves before with this camshaft and drove it around just fine for ages. Its a gentle profile camshaft, I think its quoted as 292 degrees duration with 219@50 and 262@006 for a max lift of 505. I didn't ask the machinist about the seats, but if they aren't done I don't think I'll bother. I've worked out before that Flashlube only adds about 2c to the cost of fuel per litre, so if I'm using 15L/100km then thats 0.3c per kilometer in Flashlube. To even at a cheap cost of $250 for the seats I'd need to do over 83 thousand kilometers.

Has the machinist looked at the seats? I was expecting mine to need hardened seats only to find that they were done already when I was having them tanked and reco'd. That was a big cost that I was happy to not have to cover. If they're not hardened, no big deal. I reckon if you're not going to flog the arse out of this truck, just stick with the valve saver on the stock iron heads. Hardened seats take a long time to pay themselves off if you're not doing the km. That's a shame about the valves. See if you can score some one-piece valves vs the 2-piece stock ones. Those are notorious for ripping valve heads off with anything more than stock spring pressure and rpm. Sent from my CPH1920 using Tapatalk

2 head gaskets will fix that..! Check your compression ratio with zero deck, as you may have to run her on Premium, not cheap these days.