sylva riot road car come race car

[ncoll]

At the back end of 2008, my nephew paul Collingwood asked me if i would develop him a fast road cylinder head for his Ford 1.6 SE engined sylva riot kit car he had built. It was just intended to be a fast road car and occasional trackdays.

The engine was going to be standard apart from a fast road head and cams, but when Paul built the engine he decided to fit some steel rods and cut some deeper valve pockets in the pistons. It would have had some new pistons, but at the time he couldn't get any. Originally the cylinder head had to make all its flow by .350 thou valve lift, but now we had pockets in the pistons we could go a little more.

So while Paul built the engine, i got on with the head. It was still going to be basically a fast road cylinder head with standard valves, so all that was modified was the valve ports, throats and seats. The chambers were left standard as there was no gain in flow, modifying them would only mean having to machine metal off the face, which we knew there could possibly be a problem with the valves hitting pistons, we didn't want to make it worse.

With the head finished and the lightest of skims, just to clean it up it was fitted to the engine with 2 rally spec cams and some 'bling' throttle bodies. Unfortunately with the cam timed as intended, the exhaust valves touched the pistons, so to save a lot of work the exhaust cams were run with less than ideal timing.

Paul and his dad took the car to Dave Walkers, it produced the power on the attached power plot. Now this is where this fast road and occasional trackday car turned into a racer. Paul decided to compete in the Northern Saloon and Sports Car championship, never having raced before. In the few races he did in 2009, he finished in the top three overall on several occasions.

Last week Paul arrived on my doorstep with another cylinder head and a set of Paul Ivey big valves, he has also bought a decent set of pistons, so it has now turned into a race car and occasional road car. There is a video of the car on 'you tube' if anyone is interested, just search for paul collingwood sylva riot.  This year Paul has decided to register for the Northern Saloon and Sports Car Championship and contest all the rounds, but its unlikely the new engine will be ready for the first round.

 

neil

[spitNL]

:o

You're a magician Neil, 190BHP from a 1.6L

It sounds great too. ;D

Your nephew must have been rather surprised and pleased when he first put it on the rollers.

 

Cheers,

 

Frederick

 

Edit: What's up with the AFR graph?

[DaveNotSoSideways]

Good little engines the Fords  

[Nick Jones]

Is this the zetec SE we are talking about, the alloy blocked engine as used in the Focus?

 

Good little engine in standard form (got one in the family - goes very well for a 1600), but 190 bhp    That's good going!

 

Nick

[DaveNotSoSideways]

No disrepect its a very solid result for a road engine but 190HP is pretty much where on any 1600cc 16V modern should be on 285/290cams and TB's if it can rev.

 

Its not from a 1600 Vitesse engine Nickolas

 

 

Here is a 1600 K-series using a special crank though, bar that good porting, 290cam, usual suspects, TB's etc.

 

245HP from a what was a 1600 engine is pretty wild

 

I am sure Neil could equal Dave's headwork. The K in question is pretty "tuned" and developed

 

Thats also at Dave Walkers.

 

Truth be told that K is exceptional Quite like a 1600 bottom-end on mine, rev it more and use the VVC head on it. Real screamer.

 

Bet the exhaust cam saps power? I know I can now feel the changes swinging mine 2deg increments at the crank, noticeable loss of power if I close up the exhaust lift at TDC past a certain point, same other way opening it, just makes a load of noise and no drivability.

[DaveNotSoSideways]

Probably cost about 10grand too?

[ncoll]

190 bhp is about par for the course for 1600 16v fast road engine, the vauxhall 1.6XE modified head, 285 hydraulic cams and throttle bodies will do just on 200bhp, they have a little bit bigger valves and flow more than the 1600 ford SE.

 

neil

[Nick Jones]

Its not from a 1600 Vitesse engine Nickolas

 

I realise things have moved on from cast-iron boat anchor days  

 

However, as the standard zetec SE is between 100 and 115 bhp dependent on application, I still thought that 190 bhp was impressive.  Plenty of horses per litre as well.  What I like about it in the Focus is that it manages decent torque low down but will still rev enthusiatically and sweetly.

 

Nick

[ncoll]

I have to agree with you nick,  i have a MK7 Fiesta Zetec S with one of these engines in, with the variable valve timing 'thingamybob' on it.  I have also had the 140 mountune upgrade kit fitted, for this extra 20bhp all thats been done is a new 4:1 exhaust manifold fitted, large bore exhaust system, K&n air filter and an ECU remap. The car has lost none of its low speed torque, but at 4000 revs it really sets off, whether this is when the cams change their timing or what i don't know, but very impressive!!!!! 8) 8) All without affecting the manufacturers warranty.

 

neil

[ncoll]

Is this obsessive or what!!!! :o

 

Saturday night at 7.30pm, still looking for flow on the zetec SE head

 

julie

[Nick Jones]

A man dedicated to his craft  

 

Nick

[Gerard]

It's obviously rather chilly in there too

[ncoll]

Progress report on the 1.6 Zetec SE, After several half days and a full day saturday, the inlet flow is at the situation you see in the graph. i now need to move onto another cylinder to see if i can replicate it. The other problem is that , after saturdays session trying different seat shapes and sizes, the seat can get recessed into the head which can be detrimental to flow. In reality saturdays session was a total waste of time as the valve seat size and shape that i originally tried ( the one used on the modified head with standard valves last year) proved to be the best. But somehow in my stupidity i managed to chip a lump of metal out of the carbide cutting tip, so part of sunday was used up trying to resurrect this tip.

 

neil

 

 

 

 

[ncoll]

To save having to part with another £40.00 for a tip , i cleaned the tips up the best that i can with these tools. The top one and the right hand side one are diamond lapps, and are used in a similiar way to what a hand file would be. The one on the left is a small grinding wheel to mount in a pillar drill. This like the lapps has diamond dust stuck to it, the only material to machine the carbide tips. Below these are two of the tips, the one on the left has got damage similiar to the one on the right had before i started grinding it. The next photo is the tip after i have finished, as you may see there are still some fine chips on the cutting edge, also the eagle eyed will probably note the cutting angle is wrong, the next thing to do is to see how it cuts the seat.

 

neil

[ncoll]

The next step is to fit the cutting tip into the serdi cutting head, to find the size we want we add the diameter of the valve to the diameter of the pilot which fits into the valve guide and divide by 2. Then set the vernier to this number. So with the vernier touching the outside of the pilot and the outside of the 45 degree angle on the cutting tip, tighten a few allen headed screws on the cutting tip and we are now ready to cut the seat.

 

 

neil

 

 

[ncoll]

Once the seat is cut, we can now see whether our sharpening was sucessful. As you can see from the photo its not perfect, but it will do for the development head. I shall have to buy a new tip for when i am modifying my nephews cylinder  head.

 

neil

 

 

[ncoll]

After several more attempts at the little zetec SE head i have made no progress, so this is the flow that we are going to have to run with at the moment.

 

 

From the moment that i saw the shape of the big valve, i wasn't too optimistic about the low and mid lift flow, but without modifying a valve to the shape i want and can prove flows better, and getting it CNC'd i'm stuck with the valve in the picture below on the right. The valve on the left is the standard valve that ford fitted around 2003, but they have changed the valve shape and also the chamber shape, this will have to do for now, i shall now have to duplicate this onto the head.

neil