Right the time has come(well actually the money has come) to upgrade my 1300cc crossflow. I have purchased a nice set of weber 40's however still need a manifold, but I think i have got this sorted.

I am planning to take the engine out and change the cam, (what type of cam should i use? ) then fit the webers.

What other things should I do when I change the cam, and does anyone know what jets are suitable for a 1300cc.

And what are the mods required when fitting a set of twin 40's I understand that the distributor cap needs to be changed anything else?

Any help is always appreciated

Cheers

Stu

First thing if you intend to keep it as a 1300 is to ditch the twin 40's. Unless you are going to full race tune the engine then it will be overcarbed. A 32/36 weber twin choke is good for about 125bhp and even then this is sometimes considered to be too big! Put a 1600 sport/gt head on it and a BCF2 cam + followers together with the 32/36 carb and you'll have a nice little engine. Having said all that if you insist on the twin 40's then I would seriously think of going the 1600/1700cc route. Oh and you can't get an angled cap for the std dizzy. You'll have to change it for one an escort/fiesta fwd, it's a bosch electronic type and don't foget the coil too.

as "ptm" has just said
ditch the 1300 and put in a 1600/1700 one, dont forget that the 1600 block is about an inch taller
it costs the same money to build a decent 1600/1700 as it would to build the 1300 and as i found out 3 years ago (my car started life as a 1300) the 1300 is boring, any half decent saloon car will wee all over you, going the 1700 with twin 40's is a diferent ball game, i have yet to be beaten off the lights by anything,
but i have yet to matched with the ison blade and he'd wee all over me, as does "hicost" but then all the bits under his bonnet are worth more than my house

Hey Stu, more power route would be 16xf, but there ain't very many up here.
Ian Harewood has some but he is in englandshire somewhere. He advertises in classic ford.
Given your'e plans for the winter have you given cvh or zetec an thought?
We'll speak soon over lots of beers at the beefeater
Regards
Ewan

I also agree with the 1600 route,these are some specs for a nice little performance engine;

keep the 40's,
throw in a 288' cam(kent 244 I think) port/polish the head,
balance the bottom end(lighten if you want),
maybe some 1300pistons (increased compression)
Pit the pistons and get double valve springs (due to new high lift cam)
add a nice branch/exhaust and that should give you a nice little suprize!

What do you guys think?

put a propper engine in it

He is!

Cheers guys, now all I need to do is to find a 1600 in decent nick. My orgnial plan was to fit a 2.0 zetec that I was given, but this looks like it is going to be a lot of expesive work for a similar performance engine. Well I better go make some calls then cheers......

I too have a 1700 X'Flow with 40's etc and fair degree of tuning - similar to PTM's I suppose - (I work on engines for a living so its easy for me to experiment).

I used to race 1300 X'Flows and there isn't a problem using 40's even with a fairly mild cam. If you buy them now they can go on your 1600 at a later date - with some jet mods of course. The performance increase will however be minimal.

A problem you will have with the 1300 engine is getting the distributor in. Even the electronic type with side entry cap will only fit with certain inlet manifolds. I have fitted a distributorless system and put a core plug in the dizzy hole! The lot cost be £15 from breakers - even with the taller 1600 block things are still tight.

For what its worth, if I were building another car (god forbid) I wouldn't use a X'Flow. The power outputs quoted are generally overstated and whilst a good road-usable 1700 is fast, it isn't fast when compared with the big 16v Vauxhalls or 1800 K Series motors. Bike engines will leave you for dead.

The advantage of the X'Flow, and the reason I used one, is that they are physically small and the book uses one! I felt I had enough challenges without changing the engine/box. I was wrong.

If you are building from scratch and don't want too many changes from the book, use a Zetec. If you have a 2 litre already then that option is going to be far cheaper than trying to get good power out of the X'Flow. The ignition side can be done for nothing and use those 40's that you were going to put on the X'Flow. The engine bolts straight up to your X'Flow or Sierra gearbox. A std 2 litre Zetec with carbs would easily outperform my car.

Is that THE David Walker???? of CCC?

Yep it is the Dave Walker, but not the one who writes for Triple C.

16xflow is a better route than 13 unless you want to keep cc down for insurance.
If you do use 1.6 Xflow then make sure its a 711M block. Stronger main bearing caps, and bigger cam followers that ride on wide cam lobes. beware of using early followers, they fit, BUT, the engine sounds like a demented sewing machine and then the cam fails after about 700miles! when the followers break up.