FTO AUSTRALIA

Hi all,

First of all awesome site, love the FTO BUT -

I have a 96 FTO gpx (mivec) auto - took it in to the mechanic for a major service and get a phone call several hours later:

Umm we dropped a washer into your motor...started it and it went BANG...followed by some clunking. You guys have got to see the piston OMG (will post pics)

In short the guys good and has offered a full rebuild (about 10K worth of work), while he's at it he's enlarging pistons, working the cams, upgrading plugs, dyno tuning and also powder coating engine a lovely blue.

Question is - whilst labour is free and engine is in pieces what other mods can i get done - i've given him a 2k budget to work with for extra parts but i want your advice on making this beautiful car 1 - meatier and 2 prettier under the bonnet (figure with blue powdercoating some chrome would really offset it) p.s. she was stock standard under the bonnet when she went in - body work is awesome, got a nice fireball exhaust but engines a virgin. Not that mechanically knowledgable so advice (in noob terms) would be great

Thanks Chalice (aka Deano)

i'm willing to bet it'd look something like this....




at least they're admitting fault and doing all the work for ya

and welcome to the club

Cheers silverfish

My piston is in fragments...some smaller than a 5c piece..largest prob a 50c piece...rods bent...rings smashed You gotta see this thing

Any advice on what work to get done?

Chalice wrote:Any advice on what work to get done?

ummmm.... new engine?

i dunno man... i'm no expert on engine mods,
but i'm sure bennoz or ftosam will be along any minute
with a whole shopping list of zany ideas

Hey man WTTC first of all.

However PLEASE be careful on powdercoating the engine. It will end in tears.
I know it looks absolutly fantastic BUT >>>>>>>>>
I hope your talking about sundry bits and not the block or heads.
Doing this on Block and heads WILL overheat the engine and destroy it within a few months, you will constantly be trying to keep it cool ( The heat generaly generated by normal use can not escape through the powder coating and successfully cook your new engine ) Been there, done that in my youth. Cost a fortune for absolutly zero gain, and more headaches you dont need. Like earthing issues for example.You have to scrape the powder coating off to get any sorth of earth and with all parts electic requiring an earth well !!!
You would be better served to paint in heat proof engine enamel the same type of paint used for extractors.
This type of paint seals the outside of components from weather and also allows for proper heat disapation ( heat transfer ) under normal conditions.


PLEASE DO NOT POWDER COAT BLOCK> Its like a sleeping dog and would soon turn around and bite you on the ass.

Hope this helps Regs Mouse ( retired mechanic )

Wow, excellent point mouse...this was the mechanics suggestion so i assume he knows what to coat and what not to...but then again he did put a washer in my engine huh?

Will follow up with him to make sure though...thanks

The ole' washer in number 6 piston hey... clowns. We have seen it before.

If your budget is 2 grand for 'extra' work, do the top end.
- Deck the heads (bump up the compression ratio)
- port the inlet & exhaust ports in the heads as big as they'll go
- match port the lower section of the intake manifold to the heads
- match port the upper intake section to the lower, then port out the inlet mouth to 65mm
- bore the throttle body to 65mm & put a larger (65mm) butterfly in.
- Fabricate a new, better flowing fuel line link from the front fuel rail, to the rear rail
- Put some 8mm leads in
- Put Iridium sparkies in all round

Things you should do anyway to make the most of all this:
- Get yourself a nice intake pipe & pod filter if you haven't already
- Extractors, high flow cat, upsize the entire exhaust system by a 1/4 inch
- Piggy back ECU. This will enable them to tune the very most out of all these changes. In fact, if your playing with porting heads & changing compression ratio's, I'd make this a must buy above anything else.

how much power would you gain from stock with that done?

Maybe 30-40kws.

atw i am guessing?

Yep

Bennoz wrote: - Deck the heads (bump up the compression ratio)
- port the inlet & exhaust ports in the heads as big as they'll go
- match port the lower section of the intake manifold to the heads
- match port the upper intake section to the lower, then port out the inlet mouth to 65mm
- bore the throttle body to 65mm & put a larger (65mm) butterfly in.
- Fabricate a new, better flowing fuel line link from the front fuel rail, to the rear rail

I'm guessing these things can only be done for 2k while rebuilding the engine right?

If I went somewhere and asked them to do this it'd cost a lot more?

for 2k??? [/quote]

Correct. Engine has to be in pieces to do this. So you've got the labour of removing the engine, splitting it up, reco'ing everything else like honing the bores, new rings, linishing up the crank, replacing crank shells, oil pump replacement etc, then add a full gasket kit to that. Hence when most engines are rebuilt, people have price tags of between 5 & 10k.

Oh & btw, that 30-40kw gain includes exhaust & ECU etc, thats everything. I'd say that machining work on the top end of the motor would give 15-20 odd kws. So you'd have a standard GPX pulling 90-95atwkws, to a fully worked one with all that head work pulling anywhere between 120 & 135atwkws.

in that case... i wouldn't mind that washer....who is your mechanic Chalice...i might take mine there...hoping he would drop another washer in mine....

i want to drop a washer in mine :(i want 30-45 kw atw

Ill order a set of washers from Japan.........

We can share

I will 2nd what Ben said best mods to do when the motor is apart.