Pinto Power - Classic Ford

[eSteve]

Hi,

anyone of the Pinto persuasion, like myself, maybe interested in the current edition of Classic Ford magazine.

It has two articles on Pintos:

1. An article on tuning Pintos (not too much depth but still interesting)
2. An article on the putting eight Fords (all with Pintos of various tunes) on a rolling road. Gives build specification and, power + torque curves for each, which is interesting. One guy has a two litre bored/stroked out to 2.3 and is getting 230, or so, bhp.

[Big Vern]

Hmmm,
I've had a long association with this engine and 230bhp from a Pinto sounds like an optomistic rolling road to me and a lot of them that do these RR shoot outs are reading high! After all no one wants to pay £50/hour to be told there pride and joy was 30hp less than expected.....
A few years back Ron Harris was the daddy for quick Pintos and he was struggling to get past 200 flywheel HP and that was costing well over £5000
For that you can get a fully sorted cossie duratec.
I was witness to just such a duratec being tested on a proper test bed to industry standards and that made a genuine 224bhp@8000rpm.
So on a rolling road shootout that should make 300bhp easy.......

BV.

[eSteve]

Big Vern,

I'm persuaded by your cycnism. From what I've read, getting a 2.0 litre Pinto up to 150 bhp isn't too tricky, but getting it up in to the high one hundreds is difficult/expensive (see Burton's brochure/web site which has brief tuning guides for each Ford engine type), and before reading that article (in Classic Ford) I'd never read of a Pinto producing over 200 bhp.

My humble 1.6 Pinto (70 bhp?) straight from my Saphire will be adedequate for me, at the moment).

[Bonzo]

Originally Posted by eSteve

My humble 1.6 Pinto (70 bhp?) straight from my Saphire will be adedequate for me, at the moment).

I would be inclined to agree with that Steve.

Ash took me for a spin in his Roadster, you can safely say that it is rather quick

It has a few added extras to the standard Pinto engine & is all the better for it

[Big Vern]

I wasn't trying to persuade anyone with my cynicsm just passing on my experience.
The reason Ash's car 'feels' quick despite modest HP is Torque. The Pinto was intended to lug the 1200kg Sierra around. Putting that engine in a car weighing half that will always make it quick upto about 70mph plus the roadster is low to the ground and wind in your hair which affects your sense of perception.
Travelling to stoneleigh in a mates kit car it felt quick even though it wasn't going any faster than I would have gone in my normal road car.....

BV