Puma for road/stage rally

Hi Guys,

I am looking at the possibility of buying a 1.4 or 1.7 Puma to build into a road rally car, at the minute I am swaying towards 1.4 just because of the class it would go into on stage rallies.

Before I go and buy a base car etc, I just wondered if anyone could tell me if brakes from other ford models would fit the Puma? Also are their other interchangable parts, that would enhance the handling of the car, from other models/manufacturers?

Also what are the weak points that I woul need to look at and try to solve?

Any help would be appreciated.

Joe

crutts said:

Hi Guys,

I am looking at the possibility of buying a 1.4 or 1.7 Puma to build into a road rally car, at the minute I am swaying towards 1.4 just because of the class it would go into on stage rallies.

Before I go and buy a base car etc, I just wondered if anyone could tell me if brakes from other ford models would fit the Puma? Also are their other interchangable parts, that would enhance the handling of the car, from other models/manufacturers?

Also what are the weak points that I woul need to look at and try to solve?

Any help would be appreciated.

Joe

Click to expand...

Mondeo mk1 mk2 v6 discs and calipers for the front focus mk1 2.0 and st170 discs calipers and hubs for the back, both relatively easy conversions. I believe fiesta ST150 front brakes are an even easier but generally expensive option.

For road rallying the 1.7 is nice as theres normally no engine classes.. By time you are looking to convert to staging an engine swap to1.4 or 1.6 isnt a huge expense. theres also the option for staging to go for 2.0 fiesta st150 engine and gearbox...

the mondeo brakes work a treat, are nearly as good as the alcons on the racing puma...they are brilliant on my mildly tuned puma

Cheers guys.

Yeah I knew about the classes for the road rallying, but just had an insurance quote off my insurers and they want an extra £10 to go from my 1 litre micra to a 1400 puma or an extra £500 to go to1.7 puma....know which i want.

The mondeo brakes sound great, what about suspension? I have done a quick google search, but can only find lowering stuff for a Puma, anyone know of any decent but cheap (ish) competition stuff. Not bothered if its 2nd hand as I can re-prep it.

Mondeo Mk3 front calipers/pads and ST170 front discs are one of the most popular mods I believe for the Puma....standard Puma's that is not a rally one. They're 300mm and that means 16" wheels minimum unless you want to start grinding a little off the calipers to squeeze them under 15's.

as dtq said the ST150 brakes / Escort Cosworth brakes fit under the standard 15 inch wheels they are 280mm.

Puma disc size

Pre 2000 240mm
Post 2000 260 mm depends on change over year.

Sorry if this is stuff you already know but without knowing how much you do know i will start with the basics.

When i started the build our puma i hadnt joined a motor club- i wish i had. So if you havent i strongly reccomend you do so, there may even be someone who knows someone with the bits you need lying around in a garage.

What would you define as cheap suspension? Are you going to be doing tarmac or gravel stage rallies? If just tarmac are you looking at doing single venues or things like Otterburn/Epynt or the Jim Clark?

All of these are a factor in the type of suspension you need- a reasonable road set up will cost you say £500 and this will do you for most road events and the smoother single venue stuff. (Remember some road rallies use 'whites' that can get rather rough)

For anything else i would strongly reccomend looking at proper motorsport kit- i believe that Ka stuff is interchangable so keep an eye out for second hand stuff off the old ka challenge cars. The problem with second hand ex works puma units is that unless you have an frp they wont fit as all the works cars where wide tracked.

The cheapest new you can get are from avo for about £900, thats the option we have gone for our stage car as it will cover all the events we want to do, if your feeling flush then speak to reiger or proflex.


Moving on to brakes we have the 300mm Mondeo discs & calipers up front and Focus st170 discs/calipers and hubs on the rear linked with a bias valve in between (remember to take the abs unit out too) and these fit under 15's with only a small amount of shaving. This is the same set up used on the early 1400 works cars so its plenty powerful for our needs. As with anything in rallying it depends what you want to pay, yes you can go out and get a top spec AP big brake kit or some alcons but what you need to think is will the brakes really be the limiting factor for you?

All of this is my opinion, there is probably plenty of people who will disagree but my aim was and still is to get out on the stages for as little as possible with a car that will be reliable, cheap to run, safe and fun.

Phil

Hi Phil,

Yeah a little about me would probably help. I have been in rallying all my life, and started navigating on road events at 15, and then stage at 16. I am a member of more motorclubs than I can remember too... I am currently at uni doing motorsport, so while money is short, I am still able to make/alter things if means saving money while still having a good reliable car.

As for suspension, I am looking at around £400-500. I dont want some cheap stuff that will shit itself at the sight of a pothole, but can afford to spend £1000 on 3 way adjustables. I have read the forum, and see some people recommend an eibach spring on a new OEM strut, which sounds reasonable to me.

I currently road rally a 1.0L Micra, good cheap fun, and that has the set up I mentioned above (not eibach but an uprated spring) and it seems to handle very well.

Where do you buy you bits from for the Puma?


Joe

Found a calculator which I believe should give a good comparison between systems. I believe the MK1/2 v6 Mondeo calipers and disks provide more braking effort than mk3 mondeo calipers and pistons. The MK1/2 calipers have bigger pistons that more than compensate for the increased disc diameter. The MK3's will cool better but not be quite as powerfull at least so that calculator Ive been using tells me...

http://www.tceperformanceproducts.com/bias-calculator/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ive been changing the disc diameter piston diameter and pad height figures to compare those two systems and the stock system...

The figures Im using are cobbled together from diagrams and specs on ebay and on the net etc. after the stats I converted and entered into the calculator are the resulting brake torque figures I got from the calculator.

Stock (early), 54mm piston, 240mm disc, 46.4mm pad height brake torque = 2755lb
MK1/2 60mm piston, 285mm disc, 59mm pad height brake torque = 3972lb
MK3 57mm piston, 300mm disc, 60.5mm pad height brake torque = 3784 lb
ST150 54mm piston, 279mm disc, 67mm pad height brake torque = 3017 lb
FRP 41mmx2+38mmx2 pistons, 295mm disc, 65mm pad height brake torque = 3508 lb

Im particularly unsure on the ST150 piston size, I only found one source for that which was on this forum and the person didnt sound 100% certain...

To give the results some sort of meaning Ive used the stock system as a reference point and given the other 4 systems as a percentage of that braking effort...

Stock = 100%
MK1/2 V6 = 144%
M3 = 137%
st150 = 111%
FRP = 127%

The FRP figures were quite a surprise originally I had misentered the details, they are now corrected, but please note these figures use the same pad friction ratings across the board, this is good for comparison but not realistic! a good pad can boost the ratings a long way. comparing a stock brake system on cheapy pads to a mondeo set up with racing pads and you would see a far larger difference than these examples suggest, but fit the same standard pads to the stock system and the difference would close up again.

If the calculator is "wrong" then this could all be way out, Its very very dependant on the calculator.

edit: Ive double checked these figures with this calculator http://www.jakelatham.com/radical/info/brake_calculators.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and the relative braking force values come out identical! so it looks as if the underlying maths is fairly solid.

The "actual" figures of forces exerted will likelly be out due to pedal ratios and master cylinder sizes and foor pressure etc etc etc, but the relative braking effort for the caliper pad \ disc combos should be "right" as those other values are set by the pumas pedals mastercylinder \ servo etc etc.

crutts said:

Hi Phil,

Yeah a little about me would probably help. I have been in rallying all my life, and started navigating on road events at 15, and then stage at 16. I am a member of more motorclubs than I can remember too... I am currently at uni doing motorsport, so while money is short, I am still able to make/alter things if means saving money while still having a good reliable car.

As for suspension, I am looking at around £400-500. I dont want some cheap stuff that will shit itself at the sight of a pothole, but can afford to spend £1000 on 3 way adjustables. I have read the forum, and see some people recommend an eibach spring on a new OEM strut, which sounds reasonable to me.

I currently road rally a 1.0L Micra, good cheap fun, and that has the set up I mentioned above (not eibach but an uprated spring) and it seems to handle very well.

Where do you buy you bits from for the Puma?


Joe

Click to expand...

Im currently using Eibach springs on stock dampers, and find it bloomin good for road rallying. Wouldnt stage rally on it though. I will before too long be swapping over to a full set of FRP suspension that I picked up for £30 on ebay. Going over to full FRP suspension involves a little machining of the front hubs etc, but I consider that well worth doing. But then ultimately Im planning on going to FRP spec suspension track width, actual track width will be about 10mm narrower each side due to wheels! but the suspension parts will all be FRP spec, and as far as I can see with some judicious use of mud flaps should be able to get away with stock wings at the front!

When I do get round to fitting the new FRP suspension I will be flogging my few eibach springs which are only a couple of months old.

Excellent, thanks for all that info. The FRP figures are a huge suprise, would be interesting to try them....

And If you want to sell the springs just shout.

Joe

crutts said:

Hi Phil,

Yeah a little about me would probably help. I have been in rallying all my life, and started navigating on road events at 15, and then stage at 16. I am a member of more motorclubs than I can remember too... I am currently at uni doing motorsport, so while money is short, I am still able to make/alter things if means saving money while still having a good reliable car.

As for suspension, I am looking at around £400-500. I dont want some cheap stuff that will shit itself at the sight of a pothole, but can afford to spend £1000 on 3 way adjustables. I have read the forum, and see some people recommend an eibach spring on a new OEM strut, which sounds reasonable to me.

I currently road rally a 1.0L Micra, good cheap fun, and that has the set up I mentioned above (not eibach but an uprated spring) and it seems to handle very well.

Where do you buy you bits from for the Puma?


Joe

Click to expand...

All the bits have came from different places to be honest, the full ss exhaust we got off here second handand is a quality bit of kit although the backbox is a bit big and shiny, its on bike throttle bodies with a custom manifold that i made up, to be honest pretty much all of it is home brewed as that was the main aim of the build. Ive got a few bits from the mtorsport section of pistonheads but there isnt a great deal on there. Its a huge learning curve as im not a trained mechanic and it will probably still be a while before it is out on the stages as its still not even log booked yet but its getting there.

Sorry if my previous post was just telling you what you already know, if anything you will probably know more than me!

Phil

Sounds like it will be a great piece of kit.

Im not adverse to anything 2nd hand, as I can freshen it up etc no problem.

Cheers

crutts said:

Excellent, thanks for all that info. The FRP figures are a huge suprise, would be interesting to try them....

And If you want to sell the springs just shout.

Joe

Click to expand...

The FRP stuff is expensive because the FRP is rare, it might be no more expensive to find an aftermarket 4 pot set up just as good...

paulob1 said:

the mondeo brakes work a treat, are nearly as good as the alcons on the racing puma...they are brilliant on my mildly tuned puma

Click to expand...

i would have to disagree with this, the mondeo brakes are very good for a cheap quick improvement, a brilliant little upgrade over the standard brakes.

but against a decent set or 4 or 6 pots im afraid they dont compare. My wilwoods are a world apart from the mondeos i had before

dtq....

Have you used just one side of the FRP caliper for the piston sizes as it says so on the first calculator?

If you then use 1*41 and 1*38 it comes to 3508.865

Is the pad really that high as that's to the detriment of the system. Smaller height means more torque.

If you change the pad CF to the street perfomance setting it boosts it to 4210.638 and with racing pads 5263.298.

I may be wrong with the above as I'm only guessing the Alcon has one of each size piston on each side. I don't think you can actually use these figures accurately unless you had the exact pad surface area, not just the height. And as you say, you need all the other factors too.

yeah if i was after some decent brakes i wouldnt pay for alcons not because i dont rate them but purely because you can buy equally as good kits without paying for a name and the car they are off, hi spec do some alright kits although iv heard mixed reviews, you can get brembos and wilwood setups fairly cheap these days

yippeekiay said:

dtq....

Have you used just one side of the FRP caliper for the piston sizes as it says so on the first calculator?

If you then use 1*41 and 1*38 it comes to 3508.865

Is the pad really that high as that's to the detriment of the system. Smaller height means more torque.

If you change the pad CF to the street perfomance setting it boosts it to 4210.638 and with racing pads 5263.298.

I may be wrong with the above as I'm only guessing the Alcon has one of each size piston on each side. I don't think you can actually use these figures accurately unless you had the exact pad surface area, not just the height. And as you say, you need all the other factors too.

Click to expand...

SO it does, I miss read that, I entered all 4 pistons when it should have only been two.

Just rechecked your figures and will correct the post in case anyone wants to refer to it in the future...

The pad figures Ive confirmed from 3 different sources, I guess the idea is that yes you lose torque figures, but you gain in heat dissapation area...

I deliberately left friction figures etc identical across the setups to try to get a handle on the difference the disc diamaters and caliper design made as you can get a range of pads for most of the calipers.

I thought the FRP figures looked a bit high ...

ScubaSteve said:

paulob1 said:

the mondeo brakes work a treat, are nearly as good as the alcons on the racing puma...they are brilliant on my mildly tuned puma

Click to expand...

i would have to disagree with this, the mondeo brakes are very good for a cheap quick improvement, a brilliant little upgrade over the standard brakes.

but against a decent set or 4 or 6 pots im afraid they dont compare. My wilwoods are a world apart from the mondeos i had before

Click to expand...

Having had the error on the FRP brakes pointed out and recalculated, the FRP brakes dont seem that much better than the mondeo units.

Do you have the specs of your setup to hand? Would be interesting to see, your brakes could well be quite a bit better than the FRP standard stuff. Would need disc diameter, piston diameters and pad height.