HARRIS 2.0 HILLCLIMB FORD PINTO DYNO TESTED

IN THIS VIDEO WE DYNO TEST A HILLCLIMB PINTO BEFORE REBUILDING IT TO A ROAD FRIENDLY SPECIFICATION

[@pen1262]

Bought a 2.0 pinto engine off a chap back in 1990 who said it had been tuned. Put it in my old mk5 cortina 1.6gl. I was blown away with how quick it really was. It could easily take the xr2 xr3 turbo cars of the day. Was so much fun as a sleeper car.

[@philtucker1224]

I worked for years on these engines in naturally aspirated spec. The problem we had was the inlet ports are already too large ex factory and this caused low speed velocity going into the combustion chambers. Nowadays, I expect a decent Turbo, (or in the case of a street car maybe a supercharger) would help the lack of low down torque..

[@kylestephenson3004]

Have heard stories of guys boging the inlet port up n/a for the same reasons

[@sailinggreenpearl2571]

No wonder it went so good in the rs-500 cosworth!

[@philtucker1224]

@@sailinggreenpearl2571 ha ha, I wish! 🤣😂

[@paulolson734]

Buddy had a new71 Pinto, 2.0/4spd, that he got as his first car. After a couple of years he ordered a bunch of parts from J.C. Whitney, a mail order catalog outfit in the pre internet days. High compression pistons, big cam, header (with fabbed big pipe and muffler), Offy intake, 390 Holley, CDI ignition, etc. Put it all together and it was pretty impressive but smoked like a train under hard throttle (serious mosquito abatement level smoke). He raced a 350 El Camino belonging to a classmate and won handily. It was a fun car, but later he decided to put a 289/C4/9" in it. That's another story.

[@tntgators]

Used to race a 2.0 in a 70 pinto. Fun to drive

[@-DC-]

50's are absolutely killing this as a road car engine, So many people go nuts on Carbs its madness.

[@aeroflopper]

back in the day, over bore v6 pistons, kent cam twin 40's made my mk2 escort fly, but not as fast as when i put a fiat 2.0 twin cam with 5 speed in it, oh they were the days.

[@martiniv8924]

I had a 131 mirafiori 2.0 sport it did fly 👌🏻😎 and rot 🙈

[@Rovercoupe.]

We both did the same..2.2 ish overbore..crane cam.high pressure pump..polished n ported..plus ubber 3:22 rare twin 40 idf carbs.. tubular ex manifold..in mk3 capri..I even managed an escort rs2000 back box to fit,nearly, sounded fantastic..circa 1987..

[@Rovercoupe.]

Sorry 44idf cards.

[@DAVID-bv2gv]

I Totally agree with you 👍🏻🇬🇧

[@scotttait2197]

Had a Fiat 131 Supermirafiori , 2.0 tc 5 speed , left my mk2 2.0 in the dust , would've loved to have seen a mk2 with the fiat lump 👍

[@davidkershaw5379]

Back in the early eighties I was five ish and I will never forget the 2.0 pinto engine he had in his ford capri. It was so fast for those days but at about 120mph the capri started to float I used to be quite scared but a cool memory.

[@Vicus_of_Utrecht]

Who is 'he'?

[@TechOne7671]

Another cracking video mate. Cheers.

[@PenguinMotors]

Thanks 👍

[@mikego18753]

All good stuff! Cheers.

[@joseaacosta1156]

I built couple of pintos in my younger days. Racer walsh help a lot along with the head shop ,including a five speed toyota trans with the help of ark miller ,which had police going crazy with their exhaust machine. Not bad for a pinto to keep up with police cars and say good bye to a few. It was the last american little hot rod. It made it from California to Florida no problem.

[@middleclassretiree]

Back in 79 I bought a 72 pinto for $750 the original owner was a ford mechanic and he’d built it I don’t know exactly what he did but it had headers and twin Weber carbs that little thing put down many 390 mustangs and 350 Camaros I later replaced the carb and intake set up with a weind intake and 4bbl Holley she still got 35 mpg on the freeway and could scratch the tires in third

[@keithwoods3115]

we set up a built Pinto a couple of months back on Jenvey throttle bodies and management , drives like a dream , revs to 8500rpm , 206WHP 186torque , carbs especially big ones are useless , good luck with the vids though.

[@user-ug8ub8bz6n]

I raced a few in the day with decent pinto engines in mk1 and mk2 coupes. My mk2 had around 150 at the wheels and was pretty quick for its day.

[@lancehermann3692]

For that little engine that’s pretty good in regards to power.

[@_..-.._..-.._]

Sounds like a Detroit Diesel in the 4-6k rpm range 😂

[@Uswesi1527]

GM 307 engine( 5 liter) , powering Cadillacs in 1980s was making 140 hp . What a difference .

[@mrb3483]

Reminice on these old pinto's,i built a 2.1 motor,big valve head grace with downdraught idf44's, dowled vernier Kent RL1 think it was 3000rpm to 7500 rpm,lightened balance bottom half with Sach's cermic clutch plate,she used to go well back then,90s ,used to walk past most cars back then,m3 walked past me easy,on par with Sunbeam Lotus(down yo who had the bigger dangles) fun motor,back then it cost £1500 to make,use to get bits from "Motivation UK"in wolverhampton. Roger/Jamie👍 good guys plenty of sound advice.

[@ripmax333]

191hp from a Single overhead Cam is pretty impressive, the Pinto and Kent crossflow engines are not to be underestimated when properly tuned and put in a light chassis.

[@douglasgreen437]

Great channel, This chap sounds exactly like George, from George & Mildred..

[@PenguinMotors]

Well I never knew that

[@robc3056]

We used to dyno alot of Rons engines when i was a Warrior.. What a character sorely missed

[@PenguinMotors]

if you dyno'd engines at Connaught you were probably using the same dyno console ( but not actual dyno) i am, because i bought Phil electronics when he did a 902 upgrade

[@robc3056]

@@PenguinMotors i left a little while after the flood when warrior was in uckfield we got a 902 after as we filled the 901 with a bucket of dirty water for insurance !!..Ron was a fairly regular customer. with out a doubt the best job ive had. And it was only many years later i realised the privalege i had by being taught by Tim.

[@builtbybagsy]

Thanks Graham, be keen to see whats inside a Harris pinto. I kniw theyve changed a bit over the years hiwever there isnt much detail out there give. How many are around. Cam and head specs, rotaing assemble etc.

[@torbenalstrup3902]

IMHO dont even bother to try and tame down the 50 DCO´s. You already know it. 50 DCO´s will support 240 hp easy. They are too big for the engine already, hence they will keep giving you issues along the way. A fully streetable 2 liter can be built with 165-170 hp and quite decent torque, and 45 DCOE´s would be plenty for that. That is if that cylinderhead hasnt been hogged out too bad. If it is, you may consider filling up the critical areas with some Belzona so you can keep good port velocity at lower rpms. Detuning a former race engine is always a b*tch. But lets see what´s inside it. Carry on :-) PS. To add to that, we rebuilt and tuned an Opel Ascona 400 engine about 4 years ago. This is a 2400 cc engine, and with all what we could pull out of the hat within the Historic rulebook the carbs were increased to 52 mm and we were pushing 290 hp. Despite the displacement the engine had an incurable issue around 4500 no matter what we did. Different llength 4-2-1 headers and different intake lengths were tested out as well as moving the ILC around and even another set of cams. no luck. We just moved the problem around. In the end we filled up the lower part of the intakes and reduced the port runner volume with about 6 cc, then I made some different size and shape venturi´s which is absolutely grey zone in the Historic Gr A rule book. That took out 8 hp on top, but cured the problem, and the car actually became faster on the stages because the engine did´nt fall out of its powerband so easy.

[@danielcgomez]

you're right ...very likely that is part of the reason why the engine isn't too happy WOT below 4,000rpm.

[@PenguinMotors]

@@danielcgomez yes thats part of it the other part is the cam

[@richardturk7162]

That is one messy filthy dyno room.

[@PenguinMotors]

im a busy man, but your welcome to come and tidy if it offends that much :)

[@manofweed1]

Impressive numbers for an old mass produced cast iron boat anchor...........That's not meant to be an insult !

[@panther105]

I could have my own dyno in my bedroom....????!!! Who knew!!

[@awesomusmaximus3766]

Good power

[@robrs210]

Should be interesting this. I know someone on an emerald built 2.0 pinto, decked block/pistons Cosworth interiors. That is on 50’s. Runs fine and dyno’d at about 180bhp. Road car and it’s petty drivable even low down

[@PenguinMotors]

an emerald built 2.0, thats got to be pretty old, i used to love my chats with dave walker whenever i was at his place which used to be a lot.

[@robrs210]

@@PenguinMotors yep and it’s green lol, unfortunately not on the original block as that cracked

[@Markycarandbikestuff]

@@PenguinMotors Is Dave Walker still around ?, used to love his Tech pages in Fast Car mag ?, also worked with PPC mag, the guy knows his stuff.

[@PenguinMotors]

yes he is, semi retired these days, i havnt seen him for a good while, but im pretty sure he is still mapping cars.

[@ngauruhoezodiac3143]

If it revs over 8000 it should put out at least 220hp. The Cosworth engine had 270hp but that was a twin cam job. For a street car 130hp should be possible without excessive fuel consumption. The RS2000 version of the Pinto had only 110 hp with factory tuning and an unported head.

[@TheUltimate65]

Its thats right what i see the , aromd 180 Nm around 7000 rpm

[@flatchatcharlie]

I guess the challenge here would be to move the power down the rpm range without losing any power looking forward to see what direction you take 👍

[@PenguinMotors]

its a given that it will drop top end power to make it road usable enough for what the client wants, you cant have good torque @ 3000 rpm and near 200bhp from a 2.0

[@willbill808]

@@PenguinMotorsYou could do pretty good with something like Freevalve. But certainly not SOHC.

[@sjefleenaerts7277]

​@@willbill808you don:'t need freevalve you just need a modern turbocharger

[@michaely6665]

Thats an insane steep HP curve for a street car, wonder how a stock cam on it would do, to tame the massive flow potential of its bits at low rpm.

[@PenguinMotors]

stock cam would be uttter rubbish, but there a lot of cams to choose from

[@buggerlugz6753]

@@PenguinMotors - A fast road cam would be better I guess. Kent cams the go to still in 2023?

[@tonymontana897]

@@PenguinMotors Agreed.

[@spiroskatsikas]

38mm chokes in the carburettor is a good starting point but engine may reduce peak power and torque

[@PenguinMotors]

Once it’s rebuilt I will run it up on my 45s then switch to choked Down 50s to see what it’s like.

[@buggerlugz6753]

Can't you put a cosworth YB twin cam head on the top of the Pinto block? I'm pretty sure the exhaust and intakes would match up to the holes too. Probably wouldn't need cut outs for the valves with the stock cams, but would certainly tame it and make it much more road-able.

[@PenguinMotors]

If you put a stock yb head on a pinto you would be lucky to have 120 bhp, it would cost far more to get the engine upto around 180bhp with decent torque than detuning the existing engine

[@danielcgomez]

@@PenguinMotors and wouldn't the Cossie head throw the engine out of class also? ...I like seeing what can be had out of the old Pinto SOHC builds ;)

[@Kieranzxt1]

Just stick a 32/36 on it. Job done 😆

[@neill4133]

I have just changed from twin 45s to a twin choke on a pinto with an FR30 cam. Lost the burble noise and the mid range power a bit, but pulls sooooo much crisper in the lower rpms. Much nicer to drive tbh

[@Kieranzxt1]

@@neill4133yes, there is a lot to be said about real word driveability 👍

[@PenguinMotors]

Ha ha, no chance of that being road friendly on whatever cam is inside

[@blown572hemi]

Here in America that top out @ 400hp n/a. 2 liter not 2.3 liter. Nice start tho and the owner might wanna use a 4 barrel intake with a 390cfm holley. Works good here and it's not overkill

[@usedtruckemporiumusedtruck4166]

What are you even suggesting. Our 2.3 Lima does not under any guise support 200hp/liter. I've seen them get to about 265hp. No one wants a 4bbl, that'd only be helpful for engine speeds less than 5000rpm, and we don't spend any time there. My suggestion would only be to ditch the webbers, and use Mikuni CV carbs found on GSXR bikes, or Flatslides...or if the budget permits...Yoshimura MJN fluted needle carbs. The CV carbs do not suffer from low speed bogging because of their Constant Velocity design.

[@PenguinMotors]

unless you run it on rocket fuel theres not a chance of one of these making 400bhp n/a as for the holley, i tried one on an Offenhauser manifold, it made less power than teh standard fitment 2 barrel set up

[@usedtruckemporiumusedtruck4166]

@@PenguinMotors He doesn't know what he's talking about- like the numbers are completely asinine. My only argument is those pesky japanese have a way of perfecting things like carburation- the pinnacle of that was in the sportbikes which persisted with them well past their automotive counterparts.

[@MegaReddevil71]

Lots of compression it will have I bet its an older engine built by ron considering its been used and abused it did well

[@PenguinMotors]

Yea I should think it was built by Ron

[@Kieranzxt1]

What are the smallest chokes you can put in 50’s? 38mm? Lack of air speed biggest problem low down.

[@PenguinMotors]

You can get as small as 36mm

[@danielcgomez]

@@PenguinMotors I'd be curious to see how a set of 45s fitted with 40mm chokes would behave on this spec engine ...especially if it's to go for more road use

[@flatchatcharlie]

@@PenguinMotors as a side note, I just trial fitted genuine dellorto 38mm chokes to a 48mm dellorto and the butterfly’s touch the cokes when opening

[@paulriggers1558]

50s on a road car ?, you do like a challenge... would fully mapped ign help tame it's road manners ?

[@PenguinMotors]

mapped ignition would certainly help, i did swing the timing more advance did pick up the low end, but hurt the top

[@donwest5387]

smaller venturies, "tweak" accel pump

[@stephenpage-murray7226]

Buzz box engines!

[@DIZZYDAZZLER2011]

Vtech has this old stuff covered

[@oliverscorsim]

You guys gotta talk to old man Chris chadwick from Chadwick racing we have gotten far better results down low and more up top. Then again his motors have won just about everything they've been in. We did a street motor years ago that turned to 9k and made 245 peak hp but still made 140ftlbs at 3k. They need some serious head work since the intake ports are eh not great. And motorcycle carbs the CV kind help the tq production alot while not loosing up top.

[@eerokutale277]

I bet advancing cam timing 2° and swapping slightly smaller carburetor venturis would make that engine drivable in a light car.

[@PenguinMotors]

2 degrees cam timing wont make that much difference

[@willbill808]

@@PenguinMotorsIt needs a shallower cam lobes to be less peaky

[@craigladewig3158]

Always wanted to see the internals of a Harris build motor. Out of interest what ignition system is it running ? Mappable ECU ?

[@PenguinMotors]

It’s running a simple mechanical Bosch distributor

[@craigladewig3158]

@@PenguinMotors Thanks - the tear down will be interesting. Harris pinto's always sound so crisp- loving ur shows - South Afrca

[@philtucker1224]

It’s running on carbs, not fuel injection.

[@craigladewig3158]

@@philtucker1224 I see that ,but the ignition could have be controlled by ecu, hence my original question was what ignition system is it running.

[@philtucker1224]

@@craigladewig3158 understood, cheers Craig.

[@MrThewillows]

shouldn't the throtle flaps be wide open on a comp test? 34mm chokes?

[@PenguinMotors]

Yes throttles open, when I do it on the dyno the dyno holds them open so it looks like I’m doing it with them shut. That said if you do a compression test with it shut you still get readings they are just lower

[@Selmerpilot]

Duuuuude, why was the compression test not done with the throttles fully open? For road use this baby needs a different cam. Way too much reversion with the monster on there currently. P5 or P6 cam and 40-42mm chokes or so?

[@PenguinMotors]

Compression test was done throttles open, the dyno console throttle will hold them open

[@bobawatsit]

you have been watching to much ' speed talk ' forum, all engines have reversion at a particular speed

[@Selmerpilot]

Ah ha. Thank you! Great stuff as usual!

[@Selmerpilot]

Truth, but huge cams with huge overlap really make it a challenge when not in their operating range. The old Ferrari Daytona competition P6 cam embraces this issue but the capacity of the engine is such that it still gets out of its own way. It’s a balance with smaller engines.

[@tiitsaul9036]

Why do you want to maintain 50mm carbs? I thought smaller carbs would be the first step making it more streetable.

[@PenguinMotors]

I don’t but the client does, carbs are expensive he doesn’t want to buy new ones

[@blow0me]

@@PenguinMotors must it stay on carbs ? no fuel injection ?

[@mrhillclimber]

Nowhere near enough CR for the cam if that's all the cranking compression it has, or its very tired...that alone would pull up lots of bottom end, along with dropping the chokes to 42mm, would still make 200hp then. Great torque if it's a true 2ltr.

[@PenguinMotors]

yes i was expecting to see a bit more on the compression tester, i suspect it just tired, agree on torque/true 2.0

[@mrhillclimber]

@PenguinMotors tough call to bring the CR up to suit the cam or drop a couple of cams to suit the CR...real world road use says the latter..but...

[@johnrebus1641]

It would be very surprising for this engine to be usable on the street with such ridiculous carburation, more likely to be a traffic hazard. 45's are more than enough for street use. What is the smallest venturi for a 50??

[@PenguinMotors]

36mm

[@paulmbylbie6065]

1970 it was ripping

[@stephenfloat1260]

Hi how about a comparison between Dellorto and Webbers Carbs

[@PenguinMotors]

David vizards did it years ago, theres practically no difference

[@stephenfloat1260]

@@PenguinMotors I ran a pair of 45 Dellorto's on a MK 1 RS2000 it was bored to 2.1 by vulcan engines lightened and balanced I ran a holbay cam waisted valves in a stage 3 head. I loved that car my biggest mistake was selling it in the early 2000's The car still exists but has been returned to standard.

[@trialsted]

It says corrected in the title. What have you corrected?

[@PenguinMotors]

I can only assume you are talking about the graph, the dyno corrects for temperatures etc which allows comparison between different days/weather conditions

[@sim6699]

Im surr the engine originally made over 200bhp.

[@andersolsson1198]

Compression test with closed trottles ??

[@PenguinMotors]

no, throttles were held open by the dyno console

[@garageworm17]

I wish my 1.6 miata motor made that and it Revs 7800 all day and I'm only just braking 100hp 🤣🤣🤣😔

[@cj5312]

I was thinking the same thing

[@bobz1736]

Really need to step down from them 50s...

[@gf845]

If that’s making that power just imagine what a WPE pinto could do!!!!

[@MrDws1960]

Fair play what an absolute Tip of a workshop. I have seen better organised breakers yards

[@vincentmalavolta6645]

Dear sir you have a dyno cell why are you falling down on junk everywhere

[@BenRelle]

Bin it and find a duratec. Pinto really too heavy and too old.

[@PenguinMotors]

i see your train of thought, but its seems most of my customers want to keep an engine thats origonal to the car. and with the money escorts are worth these days who can blame them

[@BenRelle]

@@PenguinMotors Ah, yep. I missed the bit where the hillclimb car was an Escort. I had a Pinto in a Dax Rush. Duratec made sense rather than tuning the old Pinto. It mates to same Type 9 box and exhaust was the same side. Much lighter, much more powerful.

[@MHLivestreams]

Just sell it and buy a standard red top cosworth, or whatever instead of pissing around with this one, wasting time and money.

[@PenguinMotors]

how is buying and fitting a different engine going to save money or time? As soon as you do any sort of engine swap you have conversion costs not to mention the cost of buying another engine which may or not need a rebuild

[@MHLivestreams]

@@PenguinMotors in that case just put a bcf2 cam or similar and 38/38 dgav Weber carb on.

[@PenguinMotors]

bcf2 is an x/flow cam! and a 38 dgas or a 32/36 dgav wont give any real power!

[@jasonbell5905]

Clean up your work are sir, it’s a mess .

[@PenguinMotors]

if only there were more hours in the day

[@PontiacLS]

Yeah it's a bit of a turd it just makes noise... I can't believe I wasted my time watching this.

[@kiwi8.]

What a dick comment

[@bobawatsit]

with all that carb, I was expecting about 102 > 109 bhp/lt I suspect the cyl head gave up flowing as there seems to be plenty of cam. If you can get 40% increase over std, usually gives a roadable engine. 112 x 1.4 = 157 hp odd. I am not too smart on these engines, but 275 duration and 50 > 55 o/l and lift @ 0.25 of IN valve dia should eat it. Might pay to check the static comp ratio is not too high with the shorter duration cam , be interested too see your detune results

[@wippy748s]

I would be looking at the a/f before anything else

[@bobawatsit]

also forgot to add that auxiliary choke sizes could make a hell of a difference