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.....from the driven wheels with the maximum efficiency.
Our tester was of a similar mind: "looking at it from the driver's point of view, I think a circuit man would have a difficult transition to go straight from a competitive rear-wheel-drive car to front-wheel-drive and be ultra-quick, but if you put a rally driver, who is used to left-foot braking and slicks, in the fwd car, he would adapt far more quickly."
On the question of the Fiesta's future as a competition weapon in Ford's arsenal, our man was predictably close mouthed, responding with a twinkle in his eye, "pass - I value my job."
Over to Richard Longman: "with the Mini we had pretty well done it all. I had raced them for quite a few years and won the Championship twice. Really, we just wanted to try something different, and also I think Minis under the latest regulations are getting a bit silly with all the ballasting that is required.
"It's like every dog has his day. I think we had the best out of the Mini and we've now just about come to the end of the line." At about the same time as Richard came to this conclusion, the RAC was trying to encourage new cars in the national championship by rejigging the rules to aid competitiveness. That is, certain modifications, such as a free choice of inlet manifolds and the retention of the original number of carburettor chokes, would be allowed which should make new cars competitive without the necessity for large numbers of homologated bits.
Richard began to think that a Fiesta might make an interesting replacement for the Mini, bearing in mind all his fwd experience, and a preliminary chat with John Griffiths of Ford revealed that Boreham had been disappointed that there had been no sustained attempts to race a Fiesta.
Ironically, the reason was that Longman's Mini and the Datapost car, driven by Alan Curnow and prepared by Richard, were so strong in the 1300 class of the 1979 championship that no one was inclined to take them on, especially in a new and untried car.
At the end of the 1979 season, when Richard became aware that a 1600 Fiesta would be made available, he decided that the car presented an ideal opportunity to move up a class, which was an attractive idea since he had competed in the 1300 class for some time.
By a happy coincidence, Datapost wanted to increase its motor racing involvement, the company being pleased with Richard's methodical and fastidious race preparation, and so a deal was eventually struck for the 1980 season, whereby Richard and Alan would pool their resources and run a two-car team of Fiestas, one in the 1300 class and the other in 1600 guise.
Results have been mixed so far. The underpowered 1600 is up against Chris Hodgetts' Hughes of Beaconsfield twin cam Toyota Celica and Richard's best results to date have been a second, third and fourth in class. But the little 1300 has been competitive from the outset, with the result that Alan now leads the small-bore section of the championship, is third overall in the standings, and has numerous class lap records to his credit.
History lesson over, the next question is how do you prepare a Group One Fiesta? Longman: "There's really nothing homologated on Fiesta engines at all - it's the RAC rules applied to the standard engine." In practice, this means that the timing of the cam can be altered but the original valve lift must be retained, and the number of carburettor chokes must be the same as on the production version of the car.
Naturally, Longman takes advantage of these rules as much as he can when building Fiestas, but even so, the number of standard bits used came as something of a surprise. The list includes driveshafts, uprights, crank, connecting rods and valve gear - in fact, the 1300 engine .even retains single valve springs.
The actual construction process begins with a standard, trimmed shell as delivered from Ford, and it is not seam welded before the various components are screwed into place. Richard explained that when they started working on Fiestas, he didn't know what bits were likely to be strong or weak, or at what weight the cars would come out - a very important factor in Group One racing. As a result, he decided not to add unnecessary weight by seam welding, and so far, the cars have shown no detrimental effects as a result of this decision.
It is surprising just how light the Fiesta is in racing trim. The completed cars weigh in at 690 - 700kg and require lead ballast to bring them up to the 730kg and 790kg class minimum weights. Doing some rapid calculations, that means the Fiesta is not much heavier than a comparable Mini.
The suspension also displays a remarkable number of standard components, the main modifications consisting of adjustable spring abutments on the axles, rose joints on the inner ends of the lower track control arms, the rear Panhard rod and the two trailing arms, and a rear anti-roll bar with Longman-designed connecting links.
Special brakes, which are an homologated extra, use an all-new dogleg bracket to permit larger discs to be fitted at the front but with the standard calipers. The now almost mandatory DS11 pads and VG95 linings, in combination with a servo and adjustable front/rear balance valve, have made powerful braking one of the best aspects of both cars.
As with Minis, it is exceedingly important to get the suspension angles right on Fiestas in order to make them handle properly and eliminate bumpsieer, from which a hard-driven production version suffers.
On the engine side, both the 1300 and 1600 motors use a crossdrilled and tuftrided version of the standard crankshaft in combination with standard connecting rods fitted with stronger bolts. Other modifications include an uprated oil pump, twin cam distributor and Piranha electronic ignition.
Richard also fits his own Maniflow four-into-one exhaust manifold which curves under the sump and, he reckons, is worth at least 5bhp. To get around the twin-choke restriction on induction, Richard has devised a variation on the old split Weber theme. Whereas one choke of each 45DCOE used to feed a single inlet on the Siamese port A-series cylinder head, the Fiesta head, with its four inlet ports, requires that one choke of each Weber be split between two ports. This is accomplished with two specially cast, "V"-shaped inlet manifolds, and although the set-up works quite well, it is obviously not as efficient as using two twin choke carbs, as homologated for the Celica.
Other development problems have centred around the high crankcase compression from which both engines suffer. The solution has been to devise what Richard describes as "quite sophisticated sump baffling and oil breather systems."
The gearbox turned out to be one of the more expensive items to develop. Both cars currently have close-ratio Hewland gear kits fitted in the standard casing along with a Jack Knight paul-type limited slip differential. Knight is presently working on a gear set of his own for competition Fiestas, and it is possible that both Longman cars will be sporting these units before the year is out.
"In the 1600 class, we're stuck with this US federal-spec car. Ford had hoped to have a European version of the 1600 on sale before long with more or less a Mexico-type engine fitted to it.
"The plan was that we would run with that car in the 1600 class, but policies in the company change, possibly with the imminent orrival ot the new Escort, and that means a European specification 1600 Fiesta may not appear, or possibly it may come later, but it is too late now for this year."
The reason for the US engine's lack of competitiveness apparently lies in the very small emission-type inlet valves and low compression head, both of which are intended for use with unleaded petrol, as sold throughout North America.
"Ford asked if we wanted to carry on with it, and we said we would because you learn a lot, all the same, in development terms. The 1600, for instance, is a bit harder on certain engine bits and suspension components -probably because of the extra weight it's carrying - and in fact what goes wrong with the 1600 tends to show up in the 1300 about two races later.
"By doing the necessary modifications on the 1300 before it goes wrong, it remains more or less bulletproof."
The lack of competitiveness of the 1600 was still on Richard's mind as he continued, "It would have been no good putting a powerful engine in the car at the beginning of the year, because the chassis just wouldn't.....
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