'85 Merkur XR4Ti Rally Car

Kool on MR2 .......hill climb?   rallycross? track time?     I know whoa i just got it home sheeesh   

In reply to 759NRNG :

It has a 6 point cage and is prepped to the limit of CSP, so hillclimb, time attack, autocross are all options.

Was this a 'long weekend' ordeal for you and the Missus..........and I'm sure Mark57 is relieved that you are the new proud owner.  A thread of it's own in the future?

In reply to 759NRNG :

This was a 16 hour solo round trip for me on Friday- maybe a thread of its' own in the future, for now I'm just going to register and drive it, and try my best to do a thorough rustproofing this coming winter.  You seem to have insider knowledge of where it came from, you weren't bidding against me were you?   

No not me my project list (SWMBO) would bust a cap in me  if i entertained ANYTHING else......no just read Mark57's thread and with my expert deductive reasoning (and what little brain cells I have left) put 2n2 together..........you're a really good person Congrats!!!!!   Oh let's not go and get all personal with the Allentown shandarmes on your 'long' way to Lowes 

adding to the list of projects lol.....are we ever going to see one completed? ;) Not sure you have enough hours in the week lol...

In reply to irish44j :

There is no such thing as "completed" only varying degrees of "good enough" 

But for some reason your 'good enough' is "she is finished ...hooray!!!"

New straight edge has arrived so I can check things, drumroll please....

The block is good!  Can't even fit my smallest feeler gauge in there.  The head, not so much- .0035" out in spots.  Anyone have a compelling reason for me to do anything other than just get a rebuilt roller head off eBay?  There are shops who might be marginally cheaper but might also just sit on my parts for weeks only to tell me that all my spare heads are cracked.

Will the eBay head be a turbo head? The combustion chamber is different.

Might need to lower the boost a touch for a non turbo head.

I have bad luck with ebay rebuilt heads(and transmissions)

In reply to GPz11 :

88 turbo roller cam head

In reply to Patrick :

and I have bad luck with shops... but, point taken.  Any cylinder head sellers specifically?

Update on the cylinder head front- I found a shop by asking around.  Backyard operation, doesn't advertise, referrals only.  I gave him all 3 cylinder heads and he has made one good one which I'm picking up tomorrow- it turns out that the head which was on the car not only was warped but had some excessive porting, which just barely touched some porosity allowing a coolant leak.  Hopefully reassembly will happen this weekend.

Sometimes the best solution (machine shop) is right in your backyard.....good on you...sounds similar to the TS-250 story(bigeyedfish) here in the build forum.

There is a 87 xr4ti for sale on Craigslist here. How good are these stock for rallycross? Though they are asking $4k for an automatic but rust free car. I assume the 7.5 is garbage.

In reply to MrChaos :

They're garbage cars, you don't want one.  Even worse stock- heavy and slow.  There are a LOT of cars I'd pick for rwd rallycross over a Merkur.

Also $4k for one is alot of money unless it is in VERY nice shape.

MrChaos said:

There is a 87 xr4ti for sale on Craigslist here. How good are these stock for rallycross? Though they are asking $4k for an automatic but rust free car. I assume the 7.5 is garbage.

I'll sell you a manual, almost rust free car for $3000. 

Nah I'm really leaning towards picking up a classic mini and running SF until I get tired of the engine and taking it to SuperFast Mini's(aka Mini-tec) and having a b or k series put in and then terrorize MF.  That was the first merkur I have seen for sale.

Local region has at least 1 other classic mini running SF atm though I think he is also building a rwd Honda powered mini...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to MrChaos :

They're garbage cars, you don't want one.  Even worse stock- heavy and slow.  There are a LOT of cars I'd pick for rwd rallycross over a Merkur.

I've rallycrossed with Chris for years, and know that with a decent car he is very good at it (though he keeps getting not-that-decent cars for it since his MR2, lol)> 

The couple times he has brought the Merkur out, it wasn't even remotely competitive (whether due to the car setup or mechanical stuff, IDK). But, it always looked cool and sounded great :) Then again, stage rally cars in general tend not to do as well at rallycross due to all the weight of the cage and protection, among other things, compared to a stripped-out street car.

If being fast at RWD rallycross is your goal, the roadmap is well known.....Miata, e30, e36, MR2, RX-7 are the main ones on the competitive/affordable list. 

I had a busy day today.  Picked up a very nice refreshed cylinder head:  

Bolted all the things to it:  

Cleaned everything, a lot, reinstalled the head studs and put a new head gasket on the block:

Dropped the head back on using a hoist because do you have any idea how berkeleying heavy these things are?  

Install things:  

Even more things:  

Then the real fun started- or, didn't.  The engine would crank but not fire, and I spent several hours chasing ignition timing, cam timing, fuel pressure, injector firing etc. to eventually determine that for some reason the injectors don't like to fire at cranking RPM on a low battery- I cycled power a few times to pool fuel in the intake (because the injectors fire once on key on) and it started right up.

There are bubbles in the coolant.  With the new fancy rebuilt head.  I'm really hoping this is just a symptom of the system needing to be bled, and I'm following the machinist's recommendation to retorque the head hardware after it cools overnight, but I think that I may still have failed to fix the problem.

I hate this berkeleying car.

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

I’m pretty sure I’d have set it on fire at that point. 

In reply to Pete Gossett :

It's a stage rally car. Given enough time it'll probably set itself on fire. 

Retourqued this morning and fired it up- now there are minimal (but still present) bubbles.  Going to drive it, but of course now I'm waiting on an axle seal that was supposed to be here yesterday.