Renault Estafette Van, Mk2 Cortina GT

Spent a couple of hours on the inside of the shell today. Last bit of filling done on the inside (just the window surrounds) and added a bit of spot primer to where it rubbed through in other places.









I’m on call tomorrow, but I’m then off until the 2nd of Jan. I think it’s the first time in the last 13 years I’ve been off for the whole of Christmas/ New Year, so I’m quite looking forward to it.

I’m navigating in the Astra at Pembrey Christmas Stages on the 30th so I’ve got that to look forward too. And I plan to have one day in the garage to get the inside painted in top coat.

That will be another year’s worth of work done on this project.

Merry Christmas to you and yours

Same to you Mr Bay

I know what you mean Mr Viva. I have to expand all photos now to be able to see what’s going on with everybody’s projects.

I hope the painting goes ok. There’s a lot of surface area to cover inside the car

I didn’t plan to do a lot today as I’m going out for a curry and a few pints later with some mates. I wanted to remove the masking to have a look at my efforts.






There a couple of places wher it isn’t as shiny as it could be and there are 2 runs. One will be under the carpet so no big issue and the other is on the parcel shelf. I probably won’t do anything about that one either.

I did not paint the dash panel as that should be matt black. I bought six cans of matt black paint back in April so I’ve got plenty.

Masked up everything I didn’t want black



Went to get my matt black paint from the unopened box only to find there was only one can of matt black. The rest were gloss 😡. A bit late to complain now. Not knowing how much I would need I gave it a dusting of gloss black first



And built up some layers. I then went over it with the matt until I couldn’t be bothered to spray anymore. It dried really quick with the heater on so I removed all the masking.



It gives a good contrast against the Ermine white. And that was that. Early bath.

good progress be a boost when its on its wheels

As I plan to take this car stage rallying I have to resolve my class issue. When i did a Targa rally and when I do Motorkhanas, I do so in road rally class. The rules have changed. If you run a 4 valve per cylinder engine, you have to run the standard inlet plenum unmodified. When I converted the current engine to RWD, I had to swap the throttle body to the other side of the manifold. So I can’t run in road rally class.

I could just go in the 2.0 litre class but it’s got Escorts with Millington Diamond engines(30k+), so the guy with the most money always wins. I don’t have all the money so this class is no good. So I have decided to run in the 1.6 litre class.

But what engine?

Ford Xflow? Not really powerful enough in 1.6 form.

Lotus Twincam? Would look lovely regardless of power but to expensive. There’s actually a nice one in my other garage but it belongs to my brother and I doubt he’s prepared to sponser me.

In fact, there’s a myriad of other 1.6 engines out there, but I’ve opted for an x16xe engine from a Tigra. As standard they are 109bhp. But they are, according to the internet, 38kg lighter than its big brother the c2.0xe. That’s a good weight saving at the right end of the car. My current engine is even heavier than the c20 so even more lightness added.

So where to source an engine. I didn’t really want to go out and buy a Tigra and convert the whole lot. I wanted pretty much a plug and play system. Well what I got isn’t exactly plug and play but it is currently located in this.




It’s a Formula Vauxhall Junior with Van Diemen chassis from somewhere between 1998 and 2001. The engine is basically a standard 1.6 that was blue printed by Scholar Race engines. The standard injection is replaced with taper throttle bodies, MBE management and a dry sump system. This ups the power to 150bhp and 125lbft torque, which happens to be exactly what my current 2.0 litre is putting out but with all the added lightness and a rev limit of 7500rpm instead of 6500.

My older brother and I have gone half and half on it. I’m having the engine and all associated parts and he wants the Hewland gearbox and upright’s etc.

I’ve got hold of a Westfield bellhousing to connect it to the Ford type 9 gearbox and I ordered an exhaust manifold today. I

One unexpected issue is the lack of an alternator. That in itself isn’t such an issue, but the lack of a pulley for it on the crank is. Especially as the crank is running the dry sump pump.

I will also have to chassis mount the engine. Not really a problem but I have just painted the bl00dy engine bay 😩.

We will hopefully get it running on the weekend to check all is ok.

Here’s som more pics









































I can actually fit in it. Really struggled to get out though.

I don’t know if it will go any lower because I still have the cross member in the way, but they to seem great little engines, with a nice flat torque curve in lower power guises.

Cold morning today. Started the dismantling process with labelling the wiring loom






I then forgot to take any other photos until, with the help of both my brothers and Jones Junior (the younger), we got to here.






To get here after the engine was out of the single seater was as follows. Ford bell housing removed from gearbox and Westfield XE item fitted. Clutch removed from engine as the spline is wrong. Fitted gear box to bellhousing- only nipped up as gearbox spline is a fly poop to long.

We used the 2 post lift as a hoist to crane the engine in. The smaller engine doesn’t fit.😩 the engine’s needs to go lower but the sump is hitting the steering rack. Took that loose. Still to high. Loosened the cross member bolts and dropped that down about 15mm. Engine is now low enough but the engine is half inch off to the passenger side as the starter motor nose on the bell housing (that does nothing) is hitting the gearbox tunnel. I’ve fitted the biggest tunnel in the world, bought the most compact bell housing and it still won’t fit😩.

This leaves me here



So what’s the problem? Well there’s 2 actually.

Problem 1.

The dry sump is 15mm deeper than the front of the old Ford sump. Granted the Ford sump had a big bowl on the back of it but that wasn’t a problem the front part being deeper is.

Problem 2.

The XE engine flywheel is 1” closer to the block than a Ford engine. This means the bell housing is 1” shorter. This then means with the gearbox mounted, the engine is 1” further back towards the bulkhead.

So what to do?

Problem 1.

The sump pan has a trough along its bottom. Either end of this trough has a connection for the scavenge pump to return the engine oil to the external oil tank. Because the connections are either end, I can cut a notch into it to clear the rack. And cross member.

Problem 2.

I could move the engine forward to clear the tunnel, but I would have to move the gear stick hole forwar too (freshly paintedtunnel). I can also buy a 15mm spacer to go between the gearbox and bell housing to space the engine forward. This and cutting a chunk out of the bell housing should be enough.

First step is to borrow my brothers engine holder upper thingy that mounts on the inner wings, remove the cross member and sump and see how much I can cut out of the sump / trough. But I also need to get the exhaust manifold into my possession and onto the engine to make sure I don’t mount it to low.

My garage now looks like this



But The Younger has one hell of racing simulator

Thanks for the vote of confidence Mr T. There are loads out there with C20xe engines, but not many with its little brother. The main issue is the sump the ones you get for those engines in RWD format are a lot shallower and have a camels hump to give even greater clearness to get the engine lower. This sump didn’t have such issues as racks and cross members so they made it deeper.



Had I not painted the engine bay, I would have got the grinder and hammer out to get me where I wanted. (I will still have to do this for the mounts).

We’ll get there.