Anyone Here Sharp On Ford Kent 1600 Engines?

[Richard/SIA]

Anyone here sharp on Ford Kent 1600 engines?

 

Just bought a core 711M push rod 1600 to build up for my Marcos 1600 GT.

In the U.S.A. these are usually found in Formula Ford's with strict limits on what may be done to them.

My Marcos is a road car and I have no limits on the build beyond that.

So piston size, valves, cam, intake (I already have a twin Weber intake) are all "Free" to be as I like.

Looking to make around 125 HP at 5000' elevation.

 

No one local to me has a clue as to how to proceed.

 

 

[CHRIS211083]

Would be easier to use a lighter twin cam. 125bhp would be easy and the car would be lighter. Don't know much about the kent engine.

 

Chris.

[Nick Jones]

While I agree with Chris for practical purposes, you may well want to keep the car broadly original.  The Kent X-flow is a very tunable engine and lots of UK tuning specialists

 

There is quite a bit of info on the web about it

http://www.burtonpower.com/tuning-guides/tuning-guide-pages/ford-kent-crossflow-tuning-guide.html

http://www.vulcanengines.com/  (look under brochure tab)

http://www.spannerfodder.com/the_works_escorts-how-to-tune-small-ford-engines.php

http://www.dominicbolton.freeuk.com/articles/ford_pushrod.pdf

 

Read the reviews before being tempted to part with (big) money for this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Rebuilding-Tuning-Fords-Crossflow-Engine/dp/1850109389

 

Cheers

 

Nick

[GT]

Anyone here sharp on Ford Kent 1600 engines?

 

Just bought a core 711M push rod 1600 to build up for my Marcos 1600 GT.

So piston size, valves, cam, intake (I already have a twin Weber intake) are all "Free" to be as I like.

Looking to make around 125 HP at 5000' elevation.

 

 

I did a fair number of these back in the Caterham challenge days.

 

The trick bit is really to grab a set of 1300 pistons and a decent head for it.

You can take it out to 1700 if you want, by boring it out +090".

 

The Kent 244 cam is what you may need, and you will need to make some small mods to the cutouts in the pistons for clearance.

This wops the CR right up to over 10:1.

You can also go duplex on the cam chain.

 

The bottom end is best run with a tufftrided and balanced crank, and they are very sturdy, but use a HC oil pump.

The higher capacity oil pump in fact uses a HE centre from a Spitfire but you can buy the whole pump from a shop, and get VP bearings for it and the BDA style copper/steel gasket.

 

Years ago I bought a head from Vulcan which worked really well.

It wasn't expensive, but beware many of the old core (check yours) are cracked nowadays.

 

You need a good exhaust manifold, but I have no idea who to recommend for it now.

Years ago I designed and made my own but we scrapped the jig.

 

If you sort all that stuff nicely, you'll  get more than the old S4 Holbay Lotus 7s did.

[Richard/SIA]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm reluctant to bore the block very much as they are very hard to obtain here.

Delivery next week, then I will see just what I have bought, hoping it is a virgin so all Std. spec to begin with.

 

Lots of other engine possibilities, earlier I was intent on putting an Alfa-Romeo 2000 into it, lots of folk were pushing for Ztec.

Wood chassis Marcos in decent (mostly) original condition are now getting too valuable to hack up and this one is very low miles.

So the only major modifications are a T9 five speed OD gearbox and higher performance engine as was optional from the factory and tuners.

 

If a very small inheritance I am expecting is large enough I may just get an alloy head for it, like to keep it all as light as possible.  

There is indication this car may have been ordered to a racing spec, I have to look into that some more.

It came from the factory with a laughable "Roll-Bar" screwed to the thin plywood rear parcel shelf, and optional genuine Magnesium Mini-Lite wheels.

Body also seems to be very thin fiberglass for a road car.