December 2001
Monday 24th December 2001
A very Merry Christmas from everyone at zetecinside.comHeres a movie file (with audio) of the 2.0 Zetec engine running. Taken on the 1st of December 2001, its rather a large file at 5MB, but well worth the wait. In Apple Quicktime .MOV format, taken with my Kodak DX3600 camera. More details on the Quicktime viewer, visit www.apple.com/quicktime
Saturday 22nd December 2001
Fitted the sunroof. Its a slightly different shade of sunburst red to the car, but I can live with it. Look fabulous though.
Fixed the Mondeo misfire. Changed the plugs and it drives like new now. Together with the new AFM, it purrs. The old plugs look very much worse for wear.
Friday 21st December 2001
Sunroof arrived back from the bodyshop. Dents have been removed, and it's been resprayed. Looks as good as new now. I'll fit it over the weekend.
Changed the air flow meter on the Mondeo. Hasn't made any difference to the misfire at low rpm/wide throttle opening. I'll swap the plugs tomorrow just in case they're failing. Looks like I've got to book it in to a garage for a proper checkup. My money is still on it being a faulty fuel pump.
Friday 14th December 2001
Ran the engine for 45 minutes today. Trying to get the front downpipes to seal, as the exhaust is still blowing, and the fumes are not pleasant.
Took the sunroof in to the local body shop for the respray. Should be ready next week.
My 1.8 Mondeo engine is running quite rough at the moment. Suspect the Air Flow Meter. Will get a replacement on order. She now has a new dent in the passenger door. Idiot that parked next to me decided to reverse out of his parking space, without straightening the steering first, so his car swung round and smashed the door. Nice one, thanks a lot! His insurance is going to pay for the repair.
Friday 7th December 2001
The steel sunroof has arrived from the 'old US of A! Brilliant! I've never seen one before, but it does indeed fit directly in place of the glass sunroof. I cannot compete with a glass sunroof. They're strictly outlawed in this country (UK), and indeed, most people building competiton cars go out of their way to find cars that never had a sunroof fitted. Quite difficult with the Fiesta, as most of the Mk1 XR2's appeared to have been built with sunroofs.
The panel has a small dent on one end, but I can live with that, it adds character. I've already rubbed it down, and resprayed with Zinc primer, so it can go to the local bodyshop for a coating of Ford Sunburst Red next week.
Many thanks to Bill Davidson from Visteon Corp. (see picture of Bill's awesome US Fiesta below) for donating the sunroof and to Mark at FiestaRacing.com for posting it safely.
Saturday 1st December 2001
I've driven the car! Up and down the driveway! Twice! And everything works! OK, so the brakes aren't that hot, theres still not enough bite at the front which may mean a new, smaller master cylinder is required. But at least the clutch works (the bite point is really nice!), and she goes and stops. Brilliant! She sounds really nice too. Very loud inside the car, and theres that gorgeous 'barp' sound when you blip the throttle, that only twin sidedraughts produce. I'm very happy! Next stage is to get her on to a rolling road for a proper tune up. My closest DTA certified Rolling Road is in Northampton, so I'll make some calls next week to see how much they charge per hour...
