[Road_Rally_Rob]

Evening all.

Being new to the whole forum thing, firstly I appologise if this has been done to death or if it is in the wrong section.

Right, I have 2 ZS 120's, one of which I use for road rallies. In my humble opinion this is a great car for the lanes and can embarass some much more expensive metal in the bends. The problem is though, its lacking in the straights. The car has a standard 1.8 120 engine with an open cone filter and stainless end can.

Budget is limited, but I have good mechanical experience myself and the assistance of two 'old hands', and an almost fully kitted workshop at my disposal, so I wont have to pay extortionate garage bills. The car is also insured as a rally car, so no worries with it not being standard. Also before you panic, I have sorted the brakes FIRST!, Ferodo DS pads with Goodridge hoses.

In the 'Modifying newbies' sticky it is mentioned that open air filters are no good - would I be better off putting the original equipment back on? is there a link to the R 800 airbox conversion?

So what is the first thing to do? I dont want to lose too much low down torque, and dont have ££££'s to spend.

cams? / throttle body? / sports cat? / ECU?

If the best thing to do is drop a different engine in, then so be it, but please dont suggest anything silly!

I dont know the history of the engine, other than 65k on the clock, and as I have owned it for a year or so now and the head gasket has not failed (yet) I will probably be doing it over the summer.

Any useful advise appreciated.

 

[1955diesel]

Check out - http://www.dvapower.co.uk/

and http://kengine.dvapower.com/

The usual advice given when people ask for tuning advice is to increase the engine size to 1.8, but you already have that so it is a good starting point!

The advice about open air filters only applies if they are breathing the hot air from under the bonnet, if you can rig up a cold air intake that will not also suck up water then that is the way to go.

Tuning is very much dependant on budget available and there are very few changes that make a big difference for low cost. A 52mm throttle body, clean up of the valve seat areas, matching manifolds and a sports exhaust are about the limit especially if you can then stretch to a remap to make it work properly.

With more money, a VVC head would give bigger valves and better porting, but you are then going to have to start considering the reliability of pistons and liners.