Copy of Article Text Below
.....Inside, of course, very little is needed in a car that is trailered to track days, leathered soundly round the circuit and returned home behind Richard's beaten-up Vauxhall hack. Accordingly, all creature comforts have been deleted. Not that the Supersport was all that well endowed in the first place.
The woefully '80s Carla tartan-trimmed seats are nowhere to be seen. Instead there's a pair of Cobra buckets, Willans three-point harnesses and a full six-point roll cage in bright blue. The centre console is missing, as is all carpeting and sound insulation. The suspiciously grey dash is in fact an XR2 item, part of what Ford described alluringly as a Shark grey environment in the sales brochure. The black Supersport item wasn't available. Richard has found Super-sport dials, however, with their odd brushed-gold binnacle. All he needed then was an RS steering wheel to complete his shiny new office, now he could go racing.
Trouble is, by the time he'd really got the car to the splendid state you see here, he was deeply involved in setting his new house to rights. So the Supersport has sat for a good couple of years in his dad's garage. Thankfully, the house is nearly ready, and Richard's massive new garage is almost complete. So the glorious little white mischief-maker has come out of mothballs to play. If you see it slaying RS Turbos at a track near you next year, don't be surprised. You know why now. As they say in Sheffield: "Proper job, that".
TECH SPEC
Body
1981 Mkl Fiesta Supersport shell, fully restored and resprayed in Diamond white. Nearside front chassis leg adapted to clear five-speed gearbox, full roll cage, bonnet louvred, tailgate shorn of wiper and plated smooth.
Engine
1600 Mkl XR2 engine, overbored to 1700cc, fully lightened, balanced internals, ported, polished big valve head, using valves from Vauxhall Astra GTE eight-valve, twin-40 DCOE carbs, sleeved to 32, uprated, electric fuel pump, Piper BCF1 cam, Janspeed 4:1 exhaust manifold, Tube Torque bespoke stainless steel exhaust system with 4 inch round tail pipe, Hot Wires ignition leads, NGK spark plugs.
Transmission
Five-speed gearbox from Mklll Escort 1300.
Suspension
Fully adjustable Leda dampers at front, Bil-stein dampers at rear, 350 Ib springs all round, standard bushing, rear strut brace, lowered 40 mm.
Brakes
Mkll XR2 front callipers with vented, cross-drilled and grooved discs to fit, standard rear drums, Goodrich braided hoses all round.
Wheels And Tyres
Standard 6x13 inch RS four-spoke alloys, 185/60 Yokohama rubber.
Interior
Stripped out completely, XR2 dash panel, Supersport instruments, base model plain door cards, Cobra bucket seats, Willans three-point harnesses, RS steering wheel.
Captions -
Top-Right - Supersport's heart is the good-old Mkl XR2 crossflow unit, bored out to 1700cc and carefully rebuilt using lightened and balanced components. It happily revs to 7200 rpm with a fat wall of torque all the way up.
|
