ShyTot

Hello everyone

A friend of mine has bought a "Performance Cam shaft" for a Ford Sport Ka.

I know! - don't even go there....he is 40 years old as well :-)

Anyway he is looking for a good garage to fit it in the south Manchester area. A Ford specialist maybe.

Has anybody got any good recomendations for me to pass on?

thanks

Fantom

My recommendation would be to sell it again. If he wants a faster car he should buy a faster car

falkster

And its not quite as simple as just chucking the cam in. He'll need the car remapping if he wants to get some sort of gain plus a cam on its own isn't going to give him much of a gain anyway.....has he only bought the one performance cam??

chrisUK300

iTrader: (10)

Only needs one cam they have a 1.6 OHC engine.

The Zohan

I would have thought you need to look into remapping and also a performance/extractor manifold & freeer flowing exhaust system or the cam will be next to useless as reagrds performance gains.

falkster

8 Valve engine?? They have a few cortina engines still kicking about somewhere??

JDM_Stig

iTrader: (3)

8valve he can throw that in himself
A ecu reset will help but as said induction mods and map will tie it all together,
A guy at a trackzone day had a tuned KA and it was fun, not fast but fun.

JDM_Stig

iTrader: (3)

Another plus for a 8valve engine is normally torque down the bottom end of the rev range,
A 16v you really need to rev the nuts off to make it go.

falkster

8 Valves make it so much simpler and cheaper. Go to Burton engineering or someone similar and they'll be able to chuck the cam in, polish/port the head, bigger inlet valves, new manifold and system.....you'll prob have change left out of 1500 quid for a remap!!

97TURBO

I would strongly advise on a U turn on this one. Lots of money and not much noticable gain. I tried all these things with my 205xs many moons ago and was always left dissapointed with the end result.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Yep, pure old school tuning, nowadays its all about engine swaps, bigger turbos and remaps, nobody really does that outside of motor racing as far as I am aware, it is just so costly for the small gains.

Ford did do some work up front to make the engine driveable and perform, with a cam swap usally there are sacrifices to be made in one department or another, I remember a mate putting one in his Mini, gained 5 or 6 BHP but made it peaky and a bit of a Pig to drive unless battering it.

A lot of tuning is snake oil, exhausts are the same, some make more noise but reduce horsepower.

I remapped my car, gained almost 40 bhp, and 70 lbs ft, great but even that isnt foolproof, it started stuttering on boost and now needs Super plus all the time, new plugs sorted it also, the clutch slipped (cured itself) so there is no free lunch.

2.0 Zetec is the way to go into a Ka, 170 bhp should be plenty, or 250 if you go the turbo route.

austinwrx

and a Ford ka is worth 1500 to begin with jeez.

its always going to be a girls shopping car, or kar............ one born every minute.

I'll get my coat.

falkster

If you love the car then you'll see it as a labour of love. I know its a bit different but I bought my E30 M3 for 6k many years ago (not knowing they were gonna go mad) and have spent, probably, 10k on it. Until the last year or so I never knew the car was gonna go up in value so would have had a 16k car worth 6k but never once did that bother me.

billythekid

If he is really keen to get it in then try RE Performance in Bury. They will prob charge a few hundred to fit though.

Another option is Swinton MOT station, they race a TVR so they might be able to help... but I doubt it would be a priority job.

HTH.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Yeah but the E30 going up, in hindsight was ineviatable, whilst the Ford Ka isnt a bad little car that is never going to happen.

Steve vRS

Priority or not! If you book a car into a garage for a piece of work to be carried out, they should do it! I'd be a bit miffed if I returned to collect my car to be told the job was no longer a priority and they hadn't completed the work.

Steve

billythekid

So from my post you slag off a business you have probably never even seen or been into.... great move that...

Steve vRS

You implied that they would relegate a job to work on another car that they deemed a higher priority! I stand by my statement, based on the knowledge you put in the public domain.

Steve

billythekid

Nope, sorry I dont think so.

I said it would not be a priority.

Said nothing about how they might do the job other than that.

You are making assumptions. Stand by whatever you want but just because I infer its not a priority to them you assume they will run over on time and such like.... quite a dumb thing to say IMHO.

falkster

But from your initial post you did imply that it wouldnt be a priority so therefore be lower down his list of work to complete so the Ka may be dropped off one day and not be finished until he has got round to it. Is that not the case?
Maybe you should have re worded you post incase it was taken out of context cos thats how I read it as well!

Jamescsti

I agree with Steve and Falkster, from the original post by Billythekid, I also got the impression that the garage would not be in any rush to do the work of a paying customer, if I took my car there and was paying good money I would expect it to be a priority

my94wrx

iTrader: (4)

depends if its a a early or late KA, the former being the OHV engine and the cam is buried in the block, and with out a absolute minimum of a vernier pulley it would run like a bag-o-****e, and if it is the OHV engine it has to come out to fit.