EBII XR6 budget racer

[1kracing]

Hi Guys,

Someone on this site found our racing league, so i thought id come over and respond to the thread. Now that Im here I may as well introduce myself!

We have a budget racing league and our website at http://www.1kracing.com has full details. The short story is that we have access to a track in Tassie through motor club membership and so we thought we would create a budget racing league where no-one was allowed to have a car with a total cost of more than $1000. Itrs not an "official" league however, we just use private practice sessions to go out and do timed runs and compare results.

After a mis start with a Madza RX-7 (rubber band broke after 6 laps on its first trip out) we picked up our current EBII sXR6 for only $250 at a local pickles damaged auctions. I wont post pics here as we have heaps, but if you have flash installed we have a gallery of pics up at http://www.1kracing.com/galleryxr6 The XR6 is perfect as its fairly bullet proof and the list of available stuff for it is endless.

The car at auction had extractors , aftermarket suspension and a 2.5" exhaust already installed, so we are doing OK in the engine department, however we did swap out the 15" standards for 17" mags which we now have advans (semi slicks) on. The change to the 17"s was really dictated by the availability of old racing tyres on e-bay for that size wheel, and the extra width over the steel standards. From there we have fitted an aftermarket temp gauge as we suspected the original one was not accurate and added a few other minor parts. Most of the work getting the car to "racing" standard was spent pulling the unneeded parts off or out of the car and lowering it a touch further. Yeah, we cut the springs.. I wouldn't recommend it for the road, but on a racetrack it has worked to lower body roll and front dive under brakes.

Unfortunately the lower car, higher grip tyres and 75% of the weight removed from the car being from the rear has left the car with a rear brake bias (back locks up under hard braking) so we have now purchased a bias valve which we will fit to reduce the pressure to the rear. we expect this will allow us to brake a lot harder with confidence and should improve times nicely.

Stay tuned to the site if you want to see the series progress, or drop me a PM if your in Tassie. Also we have for sale most parts of an EB that dont make it go fast or turn, so if your chasing something drop me a PM. Parts sold come off the value of the car so anything we can sell goes toward the Ford beating all opposition. Conversely if you have any budget performance tips, parts or tuning advice for the EB XR6 then feel free to share your wisdom, we are always open to assistance.

[krisisdog]

Are you running the stock cam still? One from Wade is only 135 once you send yours in, so thats a cheap mod and you'll pick up a bit of hp in the upper rev range which is where you'd want it.
Damn I wish there was something like this up here..

[nommic]

Oh man that is gold. As mentioned a cam might be worth the investment, seeing as you're going to spend a lot of time up the rev range.

What did the aftermarket suspension it came with include?

[1kracing]

Yeah, we have considered a cam a few times as we have around $500 left to spend on the car (we have sold almost $200 worth of parts from it, so thats set our budget limit us up nicely)

The issue with most of the "go fast" bits is that they stress the engine, cams, planing the head for more compression, ect will all add decent power for not much cost but with a car that has done well over 300,000klms its somewhat of a risk.
Ironically enough the bits to make a car go fast are relatively cheap, the bits that extend the life of the engine are not...
Right now we are seeing how the engine takes this last race of the season before we look at lifting the head and messing with the power output. Plus there is still a few seconds to reduce our times by getting the brake balance right and driving the car better.

The aftermarket suspension is shown below:

[donno]

A bigger cam isn't going to make engine longetivity any worse. You're still going to be ringing the things neck at the same RPM, so you might as well get a bit more punch for it.

Run 98 unleaded as well and advance the base timing from 10 to around 16deg.

[nommic]

Might be worth seeing if you can pick up some thicker sway bars for cheap.

[1kracing]

thanks for the tip on the timing, we were already running 98 octane petrol so that adjustment may allow us to squeeze a tad more power from the engine.
Point taken with the cam, and this has been a little bit of a debate myself and my team mate have been having. I am pushing for a decent cam, but he is concerned about running the engine around the 5k mark for extended periods. Ill win in the end. Just a quick question though, what gives the Xr6 models the extra 20HP over the standard EB's? i assume part of that may have already been a cam?

[krisisdog]

Yeh they've got a slightly bigger cam, a different tune, larger exhaust ports+valves, higher compression, higher fuel pressure.. I think thats it. They're still rated to 91 octane fuel too.

With the cam, from Wade at least, I think the biggest you can safely run as a regrind is the 1673, and possibly the 977B, tho Wade suggested going Billet for that cam. I think you'll pick up 20 odd kw at the fly with either of those cams.

[donno]

AFAIK a tiny bit of head work (not sure what exactly), slightly meatier cam, and a more agressive ignition curve on the ECU.

[needfordspeed]

I've got a ED XR6 head+cam for sale if your interested too Check out the for sale section

[TUFED6]

Pretty sure only the EF onward XR's have the bigger 41mm (versus 39mm) exhaust valves, intake valves never changed in any SOHC 4L. The EB-ED XR6's only have higher compression and a different cam/ECU.

[krisisdog]

Tickford was quick to identify the potential in the latest 4.0-litre version of Ford's single overhead cam six and sent it to Tickford UK where a special high compression cylinder head with mild porting, heavy duty valve springs, larger valves and guides was developed. A unique camshaft profile, spark plug revisions and higher fuel pressure exploited the better breathing. Its multi-point fuel injection system was recalibrated and the twin muffler and intermediate exhaust system exited through a single 2.5 inch polished tail pipe. This special engine which still only required low octane 91 RON ULP featured a maroon engine camshaft cover with embossed Tickford wings.

[TUFED6]

It's on the internet so it must be true.

[Steady]

Pretty sure only the EF onward XR's have the bigger 41mm (versus 39mm) exhaust valves, intake valves never changed in any SOHC 4L. The EB-ED XR6's only have higher compression and a different cam/ECU.

Get gilly to measure his, I always ass-umed they did, but hey I've never even held one.
I mean ED XR exhuast valve BTW, every motherfukker knows the intake valve is identical on all SOHC 4Ls.
FPV put starter buttons in cars with keys FFS, what the hell would they know?

I reckon it's a shit idea for cash vs gains anyway.
I would go wade regrind, maybe 977b and I would definately budget for improved valvesprings, retainers and locks, and put serious thought into doing new timing chain and guides at the same time, if you have the cash in your budget.

[serial_fool]

Does it have the Tickford rocker cover/ head? It looks like a spac from the photos.

[1kracing]

Nah, no tickford head, well its not red with the tickford badge at least. The engine number and the rear boot garnish do seem to indicate the Xr6 model. However it did have a few minor bits obviously replaced to standard at the auction. I suspect someone scraped it, then realised it was going to be written off due to a tear in the rear dorr and rear quarter panel and so they pulled off the mags and replaced with stock wheels.

It would be odd for someone to replace the head though without also taking the extractors and the suspension and putting stock back on.