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.....roughly 30° to 35° (see Tech Info).
The huge air filter box is also of some interest as it does an extremely efficient job in filtering the air, and also acts as a noise damper. The drawback of this kit is that you have to take the engine apart in order to lower the compression and change such things as the distributor and carburettor. But, paradoxically, that is also it's main strength, because it is precisely this integration which has given this car the edge over the other two in this test.
After our test, (Hot Car, May '83) of the RS1600i (German developed), this car is a welcome relief in the handling department. But it has undergone some subtle, but extensive, changes to both suspension and brakes to achieve this. First of all there is a complete set of Rallye Sport springs and dampers front and rear.
Then the front roll bar was changed for a tubular one with an o.d. of 26mm and an i.d. of 17mm giving a wall thickness of 9mm. The pick-up points of that front roll bar have been lowered to give more 'anti-dive' to the car, and in addition there are some separate forward locating links, so that now the front roll bar is no longer locating the front wheels. This was found to be necessary by the people at Rallye Sport in order to maintain geometry with the increased horsepower that is being fed through these wheels.
A rear roll bar was added of 16mm diameter (solid). The rear suspension was lowered by 1½" (as a result of the new springs). The rear track control arm inner pick-up points are lowered by 1", and the forward running reaction arm pick-up points have been raised by 30mm to give more anti-squat. In the braking department too the car has not lacked improvements. The front brakes are now the XR4i ventilated discs, the diameter of which is 20mm larger than those fitted as standard to the RS1600i. And the piston area too has gone up from 54mm on the RS1600i to 60mm. The rear brakes have gone up to the 8" drums as fitted to the XR3i. At Boreham the mention of the 7" drums on the RS1600i merely results in a shrug of disbelief. It is perhaps of some interest to the owners of RS1600i's that Rallye Sport now sell the 8" drum conversion kit complete at £80. The kit contains everything you will need to convert your 7" drums to 8". The rest of the settings in the geometry are pretty close to those of the RS1600I, with the exception of the castor on the front wheels. This has now been increased to 4½º to further aid traction. One more refinement which I personally found an absolute godsend, and I think every single car should have, was the footrest to the left of the clutch pedal. It is such a sound way of maintaining one's position in relation to the steering wheel, when working the car hard, that it is a positive contribution to safety.
LUMO FIESTA 105T
Take a standard brand spanking new XR2 and add a Pace products turbo system and you then have yourself both a Lumo 105T and an extremely rapid car to boot, and one which I might add is capable of seeing off even the latest Golf 1800GTi from rest to 60mph.
Offered by Ford main dealer Trimoco of Dunstable, this fiery little Fiesta has been building itself an extremely good reputation for the sort of performance that can be extracted from the crossflow unit whilst still returning acceptable fuel consumption figures and coupled with good reliability. You'll get around 25mpg average out of a similar such car, but with a minute 7.5 gallon fuel tank you only have around 175 miles per tank full and therefore fuel stops are more frequent.
The conversion itself was developed by Pace sometime ago originally for the American market to try and breathe more life into the much strangled federalised Fiesta which, even in 1600cc form knocked out only around 60bhp.
Trimoco realised the potential behind such a derivitive back in 1982 and offered the kit fitted to brand new models which then became known as the Lumo 105T. To date over 30 such Fiestas have been sold, showing quite clearly the demand for such a specialist vehicle and full marks must go to Trimoco (as with UBM) for taking the initiative in offering the car in the first place.
The turbo installation itself has been designed as a complete bolt on affair to simplify installation and keep cost down. Also, Pace had to make this a relatively straightforward installation if they were to offer it as a kit to the general public - which is what they are doing at a cost of £980 plus vat. Pace will also fit this for you if required if you take your car down to their premises in Suffolk and normally £75 will cover installation charges.
The kit itself uses as many original XR2 parts as possible to further reduce cost and simplify installation. This includes the repositioned air filter housing that now sits on one side of the engine bay and passes air along to the IHI RHB5/2 turbo. This in turn is mounted on a specially cast exhaust.....
Captions -
Top-Right - Due to the inclusion of the turbo and intercooler, as well as the fuel Injection system, under-bonnet space is minimal on UBM car
Middle-Right - Ford RS kit uses single carb and Garrett Alresearch turbo. Installation is clean and simple and works extremely well
Bottom-Right - Lumo Fiesta, like the UBM car also uses Pace kit. Stock air cleaner is retained to simplify installation
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