TURBO, the magazine

[neuspeedescort]

a general rule of most states that do inspections is you can swap a motor into a car no older then the car itself. it also has to be an option in those years by the manifacture.

kreator im not trying to pick a fight. but the escort is not a great platform for those that want to go to the local speed shop and get teh check book out and walk home with goodies. but that doesn't make an escort or any other bg chassis car worthless like turbo mag made it out to be. as for the comments about hack stuff. just cause something is homemade doesn't make it hack it makes it cheaper. i know people that own/work at full metal shops and have had a few things built on the side with and for me. so whats that mean? its hack? its a shop doing the work. as for not knowing about your car there are alot of things i don't know about you. but i do remember very clearly you bitched about a stupid throw out bearing. so im will to bet its not the only thing you are willing to bitch about when it only takes 6 bucks to get a new one.

it comes down to this guys......

escort is not for peopel wanted to spend there parents money to fix up over a summer. that is what honda's are for.

NEUMAN

[aliennation95gt]

its a car if you like it do what you want, if you dotn, then well sell it, cut your loss, and start again, dont ever expect to get your full money back on a car.

its a hobby treat it like one!

[swalltr207jg]

wrong. the stuff you are listing is only available to us because of the miata. And even then - there is no direct fit manifold other then for the stock bpt turbo because miata is rwd.

i dont want to go into discussion, but here are a few things that pop into my brain when i think "lack of parts":

lsd
coilovers (real, not struts/gc combos)
turbo kits
axles
rollcage

hell. there are only 2 exhaust versions for the car. and for the ricer folks - only craptastic body kit knockoffs and not even a single headlight swap. lol. not even a pillar pod.

respect? screw that. I bought my car to build it into a race car. I was wrong to choose the escort. . And if thats the question TURBO mag was attempting to answer - i totally agree with their opinion. Although the poser letter they decided to put as teh headline for the article is pretty lame. they had a catchy ending to it though, thats probably why they picked it.

all in all, if you want a challenge - shoot. People build geo metros too.

If you want to build something serious, practical and not waste lots of money/time into hacking your way through - step away.

is it harder to find parts for an escort than a honda? YES, but that is because you have retards like the author of this article that dont give it a chance, and don't know what its capable of, .....so you have a million or so people out there that read the same thing and become ignorant to the fact the the escort, protege,323, are all good tuner cars.......I'm sorry that you had trouble finding parts, If you want a honda like everyone and their grandma thats your choice, I choose to be different, thats why I choose the scort, and rotories for my tuning vehicles of choice. Off the top of my head I can think of a place that sells all the parts you were looking for for this car.
axles-corksport, zxtuner.com(also does upgraded and rebuilt tranies with closer gearing.
LSD- corksport
coilovers- I'll give you this one they are hard to find, but you can have real ones made for less than 2000 which believe it or not is the price for most aftermarket "real" coilovers out there for everyother car.
turbokits- uh you can swap in a gtx engine for less than most aftermarket turbokits for everyother car out there.
rollcage- there are a few made for the proteges, that will fit.
camber kits -corksport can get you some
ecu-microtech makes an lt-8s which comes whith a preconfigured map for the 1.8l mazda engine in the egt, protege, and mx3
bodykits-andysauto and a few others, nothing of really good quality though (zxtuner makes carbonfiber hoods) such as carbonfiber or frp
interior- its always custom anyways
port and polished head, enlarged valves and better springs-corksport
tiallights-altezza's are gay who cares
struts, strutbars-corksport again
anti-sways - suspension tech.
tie-bars- many for proteges, and 323's will fit. I have some custom "quickor" ones which are thicker and better anyways.
pillarpods- are easy to mod to fit, and ones made specifically for a 323 with power seatbelts fit exactly.

I could go on and on......I have been moding my car for longer than most, so I know where to look for what I want, and who to ask "in the know" questions to. but this post is getting way too long so I'll leave it at that

[SPENONE]

somone please link this thread over to the escort community please!

[aliennation95gt]

its was started already in feoa like a week or so ago

[neuspeedescort]

the thing i don't understans is if your going to build a race car. why would you even care if that is a booming aftermarket for it. once you hit a point your getting custom stuff built anyways to replace any stock spec stuff. so that in itself defeats the point of trying to say one car is better then another. you thing 545hp off feoa got thta kind of power out of shelf purchaused items? most all my stuff is off the shelf jsut from other cars. but most of them are mazda parts.

NEUMAN

[Kreator]

kreator im not trying to pick a fight. but the escort is not a great platform for those that want to go to the local speed shop and get teh check book out and walk home with goodies. but that doesn't make an escort or any other bg chassis car worthless like turbo mag made it out to be. as for the comments about hack stuff. just cause something is homemade doesn't make it hack it makes it cheaper. i know people that own/work at full metal shops and have had a few things built on the side with and for me. so whats that mean? its hack? its a shop doing the work.

ok it seems like noone gets what im trying to say... im talking about people who are out there to build a car for a purpose of having a performance car, not a show car with some pep to show off to your friends. In other words people that are not looking to just put a coilover or a turbo on their car to tell others about it, but those who are actually trying to find the best combo for what they intend the car for. If i'm building an all out drag car, i want ot be able to put a T4 on it, not just the vj turbo. Or if i want professional grade coilovers for racing, i should be able to at least have some choice. Most of people here have an approach of putting something on the car so they can show it to others. That was not my approach and thats why im dissapointed in the car.

as for hacking - im talking about adapting different parts from different cars to make work on the escort - things that require alot of work to get the result. For example, i wanted a t3 turbo as vj is too small for my needs. I had to adapt the miata header, which forced me to adapt a radiator and a bunch of other ****. I dont enjoy that. I want a header, that will replace the stock gtx header, and puts the turbo in the same place, or if it doesn't - i want a downpipe that will work with the t3 and adapt to the factory exhaust outlet.

but i do remember very clearly you bitched about a stupid throw out bearing. so im will to bet its not the only thing you are willing to bitch about when it only takes 6 bucks to get a new one.

you dont remember that episode clearly enough. The reason i bitched about it was that i got shipped the wrong bearing. or at least a bearing that was wrong for the escort (since the kit was for mx-6). however from the search i never found people who installed this kit mention anything about it. and since i threw the old bearing out, this preloading caused alot of frustration. that episode had nothing to do with my opinion of the car and again, if the kit was made for the escort - im pretty sure that problem would not be there

it comes down to this guys......

escort is not for peopel wanted to spend there parents money to fix up over a summer. that is what honda's are for.

NEUMAN

hrmf. i have my own money to spend. but then again. you are talking from the approach of - how many parts can i put on the car considering i have unlimited money. i'm talking about this from a point - how many variations for a particular part can i pick from, to assemble the best setup for a particular activity i want to participate in with my car, also with unlimited amount of money. And in this department escort looses to pretty much all - 240s, hondas, dsms etc. And the reason for that is obviously the lack of interest - most people who tune escorts are pre-20, interrested in altezzas, body kits and interior crap - not racing which is expensive and that they have no money for.

now if TURBO mag is as serious of a magazine as i think it is, then i believe they were answering that question from my point of view. if not - and they are no different from scc or ss, then i withdraw my comments: yes. you can make escort look like anything with abit of work, and put as many random, non-needed and mismatching parts as on any honda and 240sx.

[95pro]

oh this thread is fun to watch.

[Kreator]

the thing i don't understans is if your going to build a race car. why would you even care if that is a booming aftermarket for it. once you hit a point your getting custom stuff built anyways to replace any stock spec stuff. so that in itself defeats the point of trying to say one car is better then another. you thing 545hp off feoa got thta kind of power out of shelf purchaused items? most all my stuff is off the shelf jsut from other cars. but most of them are mazda parts.

NEUMAN

ummm why is it that everyone thinks drag racing is the ONLY type of racing out there. Screw drag-racing - lamest autosport after nascar anyway.

Here is an idea. If DSM 50 (rally racing suspension) for a subaru - which is the most popular rally racing car - costs a little under $4K, then how much do you think a custom part of similar quality for the escort would cost? Now consider an option of buying an escort for $1K, or alternatively getting a subaru for $4k? then think of lsd, transmission gears and a crap load of other parts you will have to get custom made and watch the gap grow. In the end, to build a race spec escort will cost you as much as building a newer subaru or other better suited car.

and coming back to hondas - building a race spec honda of the same year is going to be much cheaper - even if the original car is going to be more expensive to buy.

[Tazman2]

and coming back to hondas - building a race spec honda of the same year is going to be much cheaper - even if the original car is going to be more expensive to buy.

Sure its cheaper until its stolen within a blink of a eye and stripped within 20 minutes for parts because EVERY RICER knows how to steal EVERY honduh because EVERY RICER has one! Did i make a point yet? Good... and btw i feel you on Nascar being *snore*!

PS: Remember its good to be different, DON'T buy a honduh!

[95pro]

yeah nascar sucks ass.

but, you have to admire all the tech that's been done on those cars though.

[neuspeedescort]

i used the mx6/probe kit on my red car when i did the gtx swap. i used all the act stuff and had no issue.

drag racing you can use just about any car to do. yes its a straight line and can be boring. but auto-x is going to be hard with a t3 turbo that is on the verge of boost in all the corners.

if you want to talk game wiht your friends then get something that is easy to build and modify. if you want the walk the talk then get something you have to spend money on to get it respect. then when your donw wiht it plan on keeping it for along ass time cause your not getting your money back.

as for the show car issue. i know that is pointed semi at me due to teh copper cars appearance. but a 400hp fully built 1.8L is not a show car with a little pep. its a ****ing street sweeper. im not building my car to sit in a meigaurs booth and look cool. im building it for the same reason people build muscle cars. performance and looks an all around performance. it will seethe track only a few times. it will also only see a few car shows. both things are something i don't care about as much as just enjoying a spirited round of back roads driving.

look at my car domain and you will see its not jsut a few little bolt-ons and a body kit.

NEUMAN

[Lex]

I don't see how a 1991 Honda Civic can be built into any more of a quality race car with less work than a 1991 Ford Escort. The point here is on quality - there are a lot of Honda parts out there but not only do you have to strip down and replace everything on the Honda (including motor, brakes, etc) but the quality of a lot of the parts out there is nothing stellar.

You can build a race car out of any platform and it is just as easy to put a cheap bodykit on an Escort as it is to put it on a Civic. The Escort gives you more value and a better base to build on but may require more custom work in the end. You can be serious with either platform or just do a hack job on either.

So if you don't like the Escort, get a different car and be done with it - it comes down to that. Just because turbo mag pulls everything off the shelf when they do a build doesn't mean you have to. They write for the masses and the masses want it easy.

[95pro]

amen!

[Denis]

But you guy's do realize that my E-penis is sooooooo much bigger.....