Cortina Mk2, 1.8L Zetec
Email received from Richard, March 2017:
‘Hi Kim, Steve & the team
Thought i’d drop you a line just to update you on my Cortina. All is going well at the moment but i do need to contact you to do the final tune up.
Over Christmas break myself and my body shop buddies gave the car as full bare metal repaint. I have attached a couple of pictures so you can update the one on your website. Thanks so much for putting it on there. I’m sure you agree it looks heaps better now’
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In September 2016 Steve replaced the locked damaged ECU in Richard’s Cortina Mk2 with a new MBE9A4 ECU and built a new base map, the ECU was then shipped to Australia, Richard fitted the ECU, the car started first turn of the key, he drove it around for a few days and then contacted us to say ‘it was driving nicer than it ever had before’. At some point in the future Steve will log into Richard’s laptop and fine tune the settings to optimise the mixtures.
Richard emailed us with some information about his Cortina Mk2:
I have turn this MK2 into a GT spec car as here in Oz they never had 2 door GT’s. All the suspension and brakes have been uprated to cope with the 1.8 black top Zetec now under the bonnet. The engine started life in a Ginetta G40.
I bought the whole unit top to bottom with the MBE ECU to run it. Bought the conversion parts from the UK and shipped them over. I have added the BDA style cam cover and stainless steel exhaust manifold. Jenvey throttle bodies came with the motor. I have had a Ford type 9 Gearbox built in the UK with the longer first gear kit fitted. AP racing clutch and lightened flywheel from the G40 also. The diff is 3.77:1 unit. Fitted a full series one GT Dash into the car also. (now running the in dash rev counter). Ginetta say that i have 150 bhp at the flywheel.
I had it on the dyno at work and with a little tweaking we got to 120 bhp at the rear wheels with room to move further if i want to go for it. It is my daily driver and has been since 2008 when we emigrated here from the UK.I like the sleeper look with my cars, i do have a bit of fun here with the boy racer gang when i shoot off up the road.
The car gets lots of interest where ever i go as this conversion is not common place here in Oz, they love there Jap engines here and the V8. Over the past 5 years there has been a steady increase in zetec swaps.
