before i buy it. i will be able to tell if the engine sounds ok, that there is no smoke out the back but i wont be able to gauge if its running 132bhp (roughly). would a normal garage be able to check boost on the turbo or would a specialist turbo place be the only place (as u can tell, never had experience with a turbo) Had experience with rotten cars so i should be ok in that respect but then again never a rotten ford lol
All you need is someone with an accurate boost gauge, just connect it with a T peice into the black rubber hose that goes to the silver ECU bolted behind the heater motor to the bulkhead. There's a connection for this hose into the top of the inlet manifold. As for local specialists to you, you might be as well to register on passionford.com forum and ask around, I'm out of touch with who does them these days. Bloke who used to do mine is still on the go, Harvey Gibbs at SCS in Werrington Peterborough.
u know your stuff GVK. i will write SCS in my little book of contacts, i feel i may need him. do the G reg rst's run on normal unleaded or am i going to have to fork out for the optimax?
ha ha well funny!! i've always hated computers telling me what to do, thats a classic example. i had to read the link a few times, thought u were having a laugh ha ha!!
Ive had both (had S2 RS ) & I can firmly say that the only decent thing about the RST is the Recaro seats! Mine was quick Hybrid turbo Konis etc etc & for an Escort it was very very clean- tho it had a huge amount of work done to get it like that- over 7k spent on top of purchace price by previous gimps, & was a lot quicker than a standard valver, id even say it would give my present valver (180+bhp) a kicking- but only on an arrow straight bit of road. As despite Konis & all that grunt, it just diddnt handle at all, the torque steer was daft- so driving of B roads was an excercise in wheel spin & hedge avoidance, rather than fun. Edited by: iguana
im sure that the escort chassis will be more fun and less of a handful on a b-road with 130bhp as opposed to the 200bhp u had in your rst
all the cvh engined cars ive had have ended up sounding like sewing machines. do the turbo lumps use the same head/block?
register ona forum called www.fiestaturbo.com its a cracking forum and theyl give you another opinion the rust thing is crap, all cars rust, fact, some a little more than others but golf rust to fck just live everything else. i would say build quolity is a lot better in a golf (yes i have owned an escort) as for fun i havent driven a valver or an rst as for style, anyone who says a nice oaky valver is chavy is fckin blind imo but it has to be nice..and done well, and for 3.5k, you can spend 2k and have the rest for maintenance/ perfection. all escorts look chavvy tbh but that all depends on how much you give a tss the concensus (sp?) seems to be that rst's are more fun, golfs are more reliable (generally)and more stylish. I think thats kind of a fair assumption, get more opinions at fiestaturbo chose the car based on what you want from it. thats what i would do anyway Edited by: ricey
I've worked in a Ford dealership for 17 years and can remembered pdi'ing mk4 Escorts when they were new They DO rust, badly. Especially around the 87 model, I think Ford used old bean tins for steel.
yeah, i heard they got better for 89/90. im only looking at the '90 spec cars. the early ones didnt have arch liners! on a ford that has to be bad news!
yea they do rust like hell, could poke holes in mine just making the point that golfs also rust, quite alot too, lol
i'm amazed that some of you are saying the escort handles better and is more fun than the golf-from what i can remember from that era of roadtests the escort rst(s2) was slated for its poor steering and feel in comparisom to the golf-205 gti's aside (and later the clio 16v), the mk2 golf was reckoned to be the best handler of the bunch. I also seem to remember that it won nearly every group test due to its great blend of quality, handling and performance. The golf 16v was the class leader of its day This is of course simply repeating others opinion-but valid ones nonetheless. My only experience of escorts was in a mates 1400 or something. Granted, not a sports model, but the interior was poor, engine was co4rse and the ride wasn't great. Compared to another mates mk2 gl, it was well short of the mark. As has been said, any car of this age is going to require frequent maintainance, ford/vw/whatever and this aura of vw reliability is somewhat misplaced imo, probably bought on by the solidity of the cars. The most reliable cars i have known have been japanese, along with my dads old citroen zx-that thing has made a mockery of my last two golfs in terms of reliability. and breathe.......... Edited by: beaniegti
How many of us on here own totally standard models. Not many. So this argument isnt relevant. My Escort was more fun to drive on twisties than my Golf. And a base model Mk2 Golf isnt dull, doesnt have crap interior and offers a great ride ?
i would use the quotes but its too much hassle for me..... anyway i was using the road test element as a way of comparing like for like-you're right, not many do own standard cars, but there is even less point comparing modified versions. fair enough if your particular escort was more fun than your golf-different strokes for.... I would say that the base golf has a good interior (well, better than the ford at least), isn't as dull as the equivalent escort and gives a better ride.
you're right. The mk2 still felt tight and a little special until the mk4 came along and re-wrote the interior quality rulebook. going from 205 to golf i was amazed at the difference and i believed the mk2 'tougher than a tank' hype. It was only going from the previously mentioned citroen zx back to the golf that it dawned on me how old mk2's are starting to feel. Hell, i was in a vauxhall belmont( ) the other day and it amazed me with its solidity. Not a peep/rattle/buzz from the interior in 15 miles of town driving. I doubt my golf would have fared so well, though no doubt partly due to 15 years on stiff suspension. I wonder if lesser model golfs are, in general, in better interior condition (rattle-wise) due to the suspension
