I'm intrigued with your 1.8.....not the standard Ford engine by the sound of it!
No, it's the Opel/Vauxhall Ecotec conversion as done by Kevin Vernon a few years ago, I think he did about 5 of them. The basic engine is the stock 1.8 VVT engine that was fitted in Astras and Zafiras from about 2005, it gives about 140bhp in standard form.
The ECU is from MBE Systems of Cirencester, who did the ECUs for TVR, and the mapping was done by John Ravenscroft (the 'J' from AJP). Kevin's original car was dynoed at 175bhp I believe, when I put mine on a dyno we couldn't stop it skipping off the rollers and it recorded 165bhp. In my little 830kg 4/4 that's plenty, though
The engine mounts to a Ford Type 9 gearbox with a modified bellhousing, and there's the Quaife ATB Diff in a 4.1:1 rear axle.
The rest of the car has uprated 4-pot brakes from Peter Mulberry, one of Peter's alloy radiators, Suplex front suspension, 4-leaf rear springs with Panhard rod, anti-tramp bars, and AVO dampers.
It goes very nicely and with 165 section Vredestein Sprint Classics it's very well behaved, very easy to catch if it does step out.
More info at
www.hamwich.net (note to self - must update the site some time!)
