TECH TIPS

[dick1172762]

The 2.0L Hedman header really does fit great. That's what I had on my 72 Pinto race car and it cleared every thing and ended up pointing to the rear down the driveshaft tunnel. In the 70's Racer Walsh sold them and stated it was the ONLY header that did not crack welds. Wish I had one for a 2.3L Pinto.

[Pintosopher]

If my 2.0 is a headman " Silver One shown here", it don't look 2 piece If mine is a headman, does it have good ground clearance??

The Silver header is indeed a 2 piece, But it's been welded where the tubes meet the collector. Ground clearance is a relative term. Is your car lowered? Most header collectors on Mass produced units are visible from the underneath at a distance. Only a custom unit is entirely tucked in and there are other considerations regarding clearances to critical components ( starter, bell housing, and floor pan. Even my one piece Hooker requires undoing the Motor mount to fully install over the Head studs. The starter usually has to come out with the Header removed. Finally, a 4-2-1 header is the best design for nearly stock engines. The 4 to 1 design is best for racing engines and require other mods to work well.
Been there, done that. 

[Crazy Lacy]

Say your going to put a header on your 2300 Pinto and your going to use 3" pipe all the way to the rear bumper. No way unless your going to the salt flats. Exhaust is very big part of how your Pinto runs on the street. Most headers except Speedway have a 21/2" dia collector. A 21/2" pipe all the way would be just right if your Pinto is a full race engine car. A stock Pinto on the street needs no more than 2" to really run good. 21/4" if its got a cam and duel Webers. Bigger is not BETTER. Stock is only 13/4" so 2" is plenty if your car is stock. No fart can too. A turbo or glasspack is all you need unless you want to sound like a sport bike at 12000 rpm. Just remember that your Pinto will not be run to red line each and every day.(not for long anyway). Best header? Hedman two piece header is great and fits ole so good. Hard to find but still out there. Stay away from Pacemaker as there way over priced. Factory Ranger and Mustang are ok.

If my 2.0 is a headman " Silver One shown here", it don't look 2 piece If mine is a headman, does it have good ground clearance??

[dick1172762]

http://www.suicideslabs.com/dw/index.htm is his old web site with more tech than a person can remember.

[dick1172762]

No way! He is talking about the 2000 Pinto roller rocker arms that came on German taxi cabs and were sold here by Racer Walsh in the 70's. I bought the last set he had in the mid 80's. They were great in a taxi cab but too heavy in a race car. They would loose you 500 RPM when you tried to use them. Ford never made a special cam for them. They worked just fine on a stock cam or on a race cam. Being too heavy was their only down side. Sold all of mine to an off road buggy that never saw much over 5000 RPM. In my post, Dave said the ranger rollers would work just fine on a stock 2300 cam. Who wants to be the first to try? If it's true, all you would need is the rocker arms and keep your stock cam. Dave Williams is one of the smartest people on earth when it comes to anything automotive. He now has a web site where people pay him a set fee to answers automotive problems. Pay up and for one year he is all yours. One smart guy with a 2L background. Shop is in Little Rock, Arkansas.

[Wittsend]

So, do I stand corrected then? When they talk about roller rockers on a 2.0 (EAO) engine will the 2.3 roller rockers fit?  Or, were they just speaking hypothetically that "if" there was a roller rocker that fits it would work?

[dick1172762]

Very good article on roller cams and rocker arms at   http://www.suicideslabs.com/dw/library/tech/roller.htm   Has some tech on 2000 and 2300 Pinto engines. Entire web site is good reading.

[Wittsend]

Wa - Wai - Wait a minute. Side step the carburetors here for a time.  I just read a half an hour story about a guy so obsessed with BMW's that he went to prison, lost his career and alienated his family.  A good lesson to be learned for sure. BUT..., what the story never said and I kept waiting for (hence, why I kept reading) was what happened to all the BMW's and parts???


Surely their value must have come near the amount he stole. Yet there was never any aspect of them being used for restitution (at least in the story).  Does Terrance still have ownership of all that stuff?  I would think not.  How does that all work out???

[dick1172762]

Having trouble with your carburetor? Then take a look at  http://www.bob2000.com/carb.htm  Much info here.

[robertwwithee]

Good read on this,  my wife has capped me off and I respect that.  It's not worth it.  Terrance ruined his whole family and when he dies, 50 BMW 2002s will not be there to remember him.

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[Pintosopher]

When you hear someone say you can never have too many Pintos, read what happen to this car guy at   http://www.jalopnik.com/the-bmw-addiction-that-complety-destroyed-this-man-s-1794882542    No tech tip in the world would have helped him.

That is a profound story, but we all have our own levels of Obsession or Just poor timing when it comes to cars and the money issue. It does beg the question, Will we ever allow ourselves to be "balanced" without counseling?
The fools at CARB would love to see us labeled as Environ "mental" ly  criminal.

Life is a Padded cell, belief is the key to freedom

Pintosopher, Bump steer is a tough setting to correct

[dick1172762]

When you hear someone say you can never have too many Pintos, read what happen to this car guy at   http://www.jalopnik.com/the-bmw-addiction-that-complety-destroyed-this-man-s-1794882542    No tech tip in the world would have helped him.

[dick1172762]

Want to build a race car? Just copy this one.  http://www.ebay.com/itm/292087134632?rmvSB=true  I saw this run on tv a while back. Looks great.

[dick1172762]

Biggest swap meet on the left coast at  http://www.pomonaswapmeet.com  have fun.

[dick1172762]

Is your family / tow car / truck in need of a timing chain? Well I can't help you there but I can help you in the future.  When your stop for any reason, turn the  key off before you put the car in park. This will keep the chain in tension till the engine stops. If you do this the chain will last as long as the engine will. My old Suburban has 215,000 miles on it with the same chain. Sorry but it will not work on a stick shift.

[dick1172762]

Need seat belts for your Pinto? How about over 45 colors. Go to  http://www.sr.seatbeltsplus.com  Looks like the real deal with prices as low as $19.95

[dick1172762]

This is the kind racing that Pintos are best at. Ford didn't have many cars at the time except Pinto's and fox body Mustang's that were capable of this kind of motorsport action here in the states. Both could and would hold their own. The rules changed so much that now days you need a new wiz bang car with all the tricks. Most if not all of the Pintos run vintage now days and do good. Vintage is like what racing was like after WW2. But sadly not cheap.

[Pintosopher]

Go racing down under. Best I've ever seen, but sadly no Pintos.  http://www.community.ratsun.net/topic/71754-2017-adelaide-race-watching-datsuns-on-action   If this doesn't fire you up, you must be driving a Vega.

Not to be branded, I have no Vega, But Dollars  would change the dynamic real fast  Check out how King Jerry is stripping the wealth of the middle class with his new infrastructure plan... 

No man shall be free if he abdicates his responsibility to cast a vote..

[dick1172762]

Go racing down under. Best I've ever seen, but sadly no Pintos.  http://www.community.ratsun.net/topic/71754-2017-adelaide-race-watching-datsuns-on-action   If this doesn't fire you up, you must be driving a Vega. Jack/Art/Joe this looks like it was over here 30 years ago. ENJOY.

[74 PintoWagon]

That's always a good read, lol..

[dick1172762]

ACME company sued! I just post this bit to cheer up the world a little ever couple years. Its always funny, young and old.  Go to http://www.lectlaw.com/files/fun19.htm  I read that Wile E Coyote problems are because he's using a Vega for power, and we all know how much power a Vega has. Get a Pinto Wile E and go kick some Mopar's (roadrunner) asap.

[dick1172762]

This is in relation to tip #118. Got this addition to the above tip from a friend at Ford R&D department. "There are cases where you can run a roller follower on a cam not designed for a roller follower. A prime example is the 2.0L Pinto engine. The Pinto isn't really a flat tappet design because the stock followers are curved. So are the 2.3L followers. Loads are about as high on these cams as rollers, which is one reason the 2.3L engines had so much cam problems in the early years. You can put roller followers on the stock 2.3L cam and they will work just fine." This is what Ford says. I have no idea if this mod works on a 2.3L cam, but it sure sounds like it does. Do this mod at your own risk. I know I will try it.

[dick1172762]

I've read several articles about being able to run Ranger/Mustang roller cam rocker arms on a stock non roller cam. On paper it looks like this would give you a hotter cam than the Ranger/Mustang roller cam. Has any body tried this mod? Any body willing to try it? If it does work it would be cheaper than changing the cam to. I do know we used to do this all the time with the 2.0L engines. At that time you could get 2.0L roller rocker arms from Racer Walsh. These rocker arms worked very good on both stock and race cams even though the cams were for non roller rocker arms. Only problem on a 2.0L was the roller rocker were heavy and cost you about 500 rpm above 7000 rpm. We ran them anyway in long races that were several hours long. Any takers on this mod??

[dick1172762]

2300 Ford go fast parts at 4m.net / classified / mini stock. This is the kind of parts required to go really FAST with a Pinto.

[robertwwithee]

How do you hop up a 2.0L pinto engine? First move to England or get a real good friend over there. Why? Because the 2.0L was not used over here after 74, but was used in England to a few years ago. The Brits wrote the book on 2.0L Fords and make and sell all the good stuff in the world. Aluminum heads for a start. The stock 2.0L head is a real piece of German junk! Why? Because the intake ports are the worst ever cast that is known by man. They go straight into the head and then make a 90deg turn to the valve seats. Not too bad for a turbo but pure junk for an engine with carbs. It can be fixed but only with VERY high $$$$ to spend. The intake ports need to be moved upward almost 1 inch! That's 1 inch! Racer Walsh had a welder back in the early 70"s that could make the mod if you had the money. $1000+ in 1973 dollars. If you do, some how move the ports then the intake manifold will not fit. The intake manifold will need to be relocated. Everything else for the hop up can be bought over here or in England and maybe Germany. Bryan Walsh has a very fast 2.0L Pinto and may very well have one of those heads. Easy to tell as the intake manifold will be up near the valve cover. I do not know if the English aluminum head has the ports moved but it would be really dumb if they didn't. Now you know how to get that 200 horse power on the street.

That's why 72dutchwagon is here.  We trade parts.  Europe to US and vice versa

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[dick1172762]

Want your Pinto autocrosser to be a little quicker next Sunday at the local track? Mount the battery in the trunk. Easy enough with parts off pf E-gay. A battery hold down mount/tray. 15 ft or so of #2 or larger welding cable. Various cable ends. I mounted my sealed battery in the spare tire hole pointing in the same direction as stock, and never crossways please. Then you'll need to run the cable forward inside or under the car. When inside the car I run the cable inside poly hose to insulate the cable a little more. I hook the ground cable to one of the seat belt bolts under the back seat. If you do this right, it will start ever bit as good as stock. I an not telling you to do this! Only that this is the way I would do it if and only if I was doing this mod. Use a sealed battery to get rid of fumes in side the car. Then go kick some Vegas asp.

[dick1172762]

Someone told me that they always wanted to time their distributor's rotor in. Well here's how. With an old distributor cap drill a hole as big as you can in the top of the cap between the coil post and the number 1 wire post. You want this hole to be dead center on a line between the two post and again as big as you can make it. Now take  the rotor and paint a white line 1/16" wide between the center of the rotor and the rotor tip. Now install the cap with wires and the rotor on your engine. Now you should be able to look down the hole you drilled on the cap and see the white line on the rotor as it passes by when the engine is rotated. Now start your engine and with a timeing light look down the hole and see where the white line is. In a perfect world it will be dead center in the hole you drilled. If not you will need to work with the slot in the cap to align the cap to the rotor. Be VERY careful when drilling the hole as its very brittle.

[dick1172762]

Want better spark with your Pinto RACE car? Fine tune your distributor's rotor by filing down the electrode on the tip of the rotor. File it down at a 45 deg angle on each side of the tip till its only 1/16" wide. Make sure you file an equal amount off each side of the tip. Make SURE you don't file the 1/16" wide tip. What this does is make it easy'r for the spark to jump over to the cap. Will not give you 100 HP more, but ever little bit helps. This is only good on a race car due to short life of the rotor.

[one2.34me]

Sorry to hear about your RA Dick. The Pinto's doing good. Looks like an old beater, but runs great. I drive it often. I like driving it as much as my '13 ST. There's been some rain out here, way too much for some areas. It's a brisk 80 today in Southern LaLa Land. I have an Ace 1" spacer for the stock manifold, and a 1" Racer Walsh spacer/adapter for the efi manifold, which doesn't completely cover the efi's plenum and sets the carb more over the aft runners than the fronts. I'm considering the Ace 5001 adapter on ebay. Reading your tips, I realize whatever I do, the stock intake it won't outdo the efi one. Love those 510's, such cool little cars! Hope you your FoPi is on the road real soon! Take care Dick.

[dick1172762]

Well Jack, at 82 I need to write it all down before I can't. I have RA and do all of my typing with one finger, so I'm very slow. How's your Pinto doing these days? Our weather is crazy this winter. It's 30 one day and 60 the next all winter. Better than up in the north east with their once a year snow (all winter). Got the door seal's and the window wipes finished. Not too much to go now. I think one good week would finish it. (I hope). Did you change intake manifolds yet? Hope that works out for you. You'll need it out at the springs diceing it out with the Datsun 510's. That and a big bumper to use for a push bar. More later.