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Welcome to my
V8 Nitrous injected Ford Sierra page!
It just had to be done!
Click to see the cleanest
engine bay ever!
This was my Nitrous injected V8 Rover (P6) engined Ford Sierra that was my
daily runabout for 6 years, and it spent many weekends at the drag strip
racing and embarrassing many tailored race cars!
Built by my own digits! VERY carefully.
Cosworth Sierras are ok but
they have no midrange or bottom end 'tyre smoking' power, the sort that
allows 2nd and 3rd gear tyre smoke at will, or instant sideways action
anywhere and at any revs..... Instantly!
And V8's sound SO COOL!
Since this one had an almost open 8 into 1 system it sounded very smooth,
not offbeat as it would with two separate pipes. And very revy too!
And they (alloy Rover V8 motors) are actually a couple of pounds lighter
than fords 1.6 litre cast iron 'Pinto' boat anchor. And of course I just
happened to have one.........
So you get a strong and very
tuneable light alloy motor that has eight cylinders, and instant punch.
And best of all Adrian Flux (custom car insurance) quoted me £10 LESS
than I was paying as a standard 1.6L model!
Externally the car was just a
clean 2 year old 1.6L de-badged Sierra saloon with a set of wide motor
sport style13 inch x 7 wheels on it with 205/60/13 tyres. (Alley cats?)
The XR4 (I think!) bumper and
Cosworth grill has yet to have the fog lights put in at the bottom in
this photo. Front and rear XR4 bumpers and lights were colour coded and
fitted, as someone gave me them!
PERFORMANCE
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0 to 60 mph (Vericom in
car performance computer) 4.7 to 4.9 during 10 hard launches, in
second gear. I'st is a joke! All smoke - no go...
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Max acceleration G force
achieved 0.82 (Vericom)
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1/4 Mile standing start,
at York raceway 13.7x secs @ 108/109mph
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153mph (radar gun at
Bruntingthorpe motor vehicle test facility) in an approx 10mph
headwind. This was of course without Nitrous as the gearing was far
too short anyway and it was over revving like hell! in 5th gear.
BRAKES
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Stock 1.6L Sierra!
Well the engine is the same weight as the one that came out, and the
speed limit is still 70!
They faded very badly after slowing hard from 150mph down to about
60mph so from 60 down you had to press harder and harder and when
you did stop a big smelly cloud of brake lining smoke poured off!
Not exactly ideal.... But legal. New pads needed almost weekly! OK
so it needed better brakes.....
SUSPENSION
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Lowered by 2" at the front
and 1" at the rear, by chopping stock springs down. Much easier than
it sounds and totally free!
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Sloppy suspension (read
standard springs and shocks) actually help the drag strip
performance as the weight transfers to the rear wheels better so it
allows you to put more power down, and break more diffs.... At the
expense of very high speed stability.
At 150 mph you sometimes get that floaty vague feeling and it uses
about 2 lanes width to keep pointing the right way! Makes your
passengers very nervous... Visions of the wind getting underneath
and the car flipping upside down like the American oval racers
sometimes do is what seems to do it!
MOTOR
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P6 Rover V8 3500cc.
Actually a factory blueprinted one from 1972 as supplied to various
companies for development work, and race teams by Rover. Engine
number 0009. It was supplied to Champion spark plugs for engine
dynamometer use to develop spark plugs. It logged 40 running hours
and had never been fitted in a car! It had all ancillaries, and a
marine bell housing/clutch assembly fitted as a power take off
point. looked like new and was donated to a school on a test stand
to look at! I paid them £75 for it!
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P6 motors differ from the
SD1 engines in that they have a higher compression ratio (10.5 to 1)
and more compact ancillaries like a much shorter water pump and
smaller prettier rocker covers etc.
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This engine was in stock
tune except for air filter removed from the stock air box, and the
restrictive intake nozzle cut off at the widest point, and a big
green pipe fitted into hole cut into the inner wing to get some cool
air! It gets very hot under the bonnet...... Carb springs and
needles replaced to cure the now weak mixture on the dyno.
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Exhaust was initially with
stock cast P6 manifolds but these were replaced with a pair of 4
into 1 ones made for a (TR8 I think) mated to a straight through 3
inch diameter pipe under the gearbox, giving an 8 into 2 into 1
system, with a cheap old ford cargo truck straight through 'can' on
the end. Not exactly restrictive! And very freeflowing, (read loud!)
and smooth sounding.
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Nitrous - lots! I BUILD
nitrous systems so it had to happen! To build your own nitrous
system go to my page here
www.nitrous.info
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Diesel Sierra radiator,
with two electric thermostatic fans.
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Points ignition swapped
for Electronic Luminition, with revised advance curve.
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Cooler thermostat (79
degrees) to help prevent detonation when on N2O, along with 2 grades
cooler NGK plugs, with shorter electrodes for the same reason.
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Full synthetic oil. Better
safe than sorry. Oil cooler.
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Jaguar V12 engine mounting
rubber blocks - They are STRONG!
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OPTIMA Battery!
www.optimabattery.co.uk
GEARBOX
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In the beginning I fitted
an SD1 automatic gearbox after finding a clean one in the scrap yard
that was supposed to be good. Problem was that top gear was 1 to 1
with some loss due to torque converter slippage, so with fords
tallest possible diff ratio fitted it used to run up to about 130
like you were in low gear......... Then it died in spectacular oily
and messy style after developing a habit of going up and down gears
for no reason at demented speeds! Good job too, bloody thing.....
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A reconditioned Rover SD1
Gearbox was fitted, with a strong (marine? that came originally with
the motor) clutch. It was filled with nice thin transmission fluid
to make gear change faster. The standard Sierra gear stick knob and
rubber gator fit perfectly! This gearbox has a 0.82 to 1, 5th
gear, so 150mph equates to almost exactly 6000rpm. Perfect!
Certainly better than the auto!
DIFFERENTIAL
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After busting a couple of
diffs I started collecting them! After that of course I never broke
any more! 1.6 cars have smaller diff internals than Cosworth
Sierras, or XR4i does. but these need the drive shafts and lots of
other bits, so the cheapest option to go for is the diff from a 2.3
V6 4 speed Sierra! They were 3.38 to 1 (some were 3.42) but stronger
as they are bigger diameter gears.
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With the 205/60/13 tyres,
its simple to do the math's, 6000rpm in top (0.82 to 1) and a 3.38
to 1 diff you get 150 odd miles per hour. Actually still a little
short but fast enough..
SHELL
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Stock(ish) 1.6L Sierra 4
door. Stripes and badges all eventually removed, 7(or 8 cant
remember but they looked bloody wide!) x 13 Alleycats because they
were very cheap! And so were 205/60/13/ tyres and it ate them.....
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Oh someone gave me some
XR4 bumpers and mine were damaged so I fitted these as well. See
pictures!
 
Unfortunately the only pics I
can find of it that happen to show the outside as well were when someone
got it in the background by mistake when I was flying my RC helicopter!
So it kind of gets in the way......
In both the helicopter pics,
you can still make out the white temporary number C11 in the back
window, this was because I never had time to remove it since coming from
York raceway where I was drag racing it and eating loads of trailored
cars, as I wanted to get down my local flying field before it got too
dark and get some helicopter practice in... Now that does make your
brain hurt.
If you fancy building one,
email me as I can obviously save you a lot of head scratching. No
bodywork mods at all are required. It can look better than a new
standard engine bay. No need to have it dirty or botched, so do it
properly!
One guy told me "it looks like
ford put it there!" which is exactly what I intended. Best compliment
ever! I wanted a completely reliable smooth fast car, so no open filters
or race parts. Nitrous can give me as much extra power as I want.
Someone turned up at Santa Pod
on one occasion, with a South African XR8 Sierra, which came as standard
with fords small block ford V8 fitted. This was considerably slower than
my one, (heavier engine in a low state of tune and no Nitrous system
etc) but it means that there is another engine transplant option, where
ford can supply all the required parts over the counter as spares for
the South African XR8. Trouble with that route is that its a cast iron
motor. Weighs about the same as a small locomotive. Lack of weight
transfer when accelerating causes horrendous wheel spin, and loads of
initial turn in under-steer too. The alloy rover V8 seems a better
option. And its fun to have a mixture of makes! Really confuses the
parts departments!
www.optimabattery.co.uk
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