in need of some knowledge and advice ! pls help !

[GreenBogey]

Hey !  

so basically my first car at the age of 22 was the 2000 ford focus ghia with the 130hp 2.0 zetec lump.

i had a crash that resulted in my front bumper and crash bar being destroyed and i then proceeded to put on a facelift bumper and mk2 headlights with the crash bar from the mk2 to keep the car roadworthy etc and everything went great ! colour matched the bumper, tinted the fog lights yellow and lowered the car on 35mm Apexi springs with the st170 drop-links on the front and standard shocks all round. 

i absolutely love the car but the state of the rear bushings meant that the nearside rear wheel was off and the whole rear end crabbed off to the right when rolling anywhere. 

recently i have written off my beloved "gerty" (it was a very emotional day and i even said the words goodbye as i slowly walked past with a wobbly lip) and have acquired a 2002 mk1.5 1.4 focus CL due to both my crashed being in my first year and the second one bringing two separate claims. 1.4 is good on fuel and makes a nice noise but is gutless 

 

i would absolutely love to put my 2.0 engine in the place of this new 1.4 and proceed to lower this second focus on the same springs whil renewing all the bushings underneath as i am desperately infatuated with the way these cars handle when stiff :) the plan is to brace up this three door body with front and rear struts, convert it to run the brakes and wheel hubs from the ghia and transfer some trim along with the clocks and trip computer with the engine. 

 

in an ideal world i would have all the central locking brought over as well but i just dont know what is possible at this stage and how much i would be looking to spend.

 

i plan on keeping this car for 2-3 years and driving it with appropriate vigor.

 

so basically..........

 

can anybody help me pretty please ? 

[Tom-B64]

[GreenBogey]

anybody know if the engine mounts are different ? anyone done something similar to what im proposing ?

 

[goldtail77]

4 minutes ago, GreenBogey said:

anybody know if the engine mounts are different ? anyone done something similar to what im proposing ?

 

I'd expect the actual mount points in the Engine bay to be the same but the actual Engine Mounts to be different.

Someone some where may have done similar however I see absolutely no point in it.

You are talking about making a low spec car into another common-ish spec car. Were you trying to make an ST170 replica or similar I'd maybe understand it. You will need to probably replace the looms, engine, fuel pump, rear drums for disc, possibly steering rack, radiator, brake servo, etc. Then you need to tell your insurance, which will cripple you beyond belief. All this after you tell the DVLA of engine change and possibly get it signed off as road worthy.

Just find a better spec car, you can't be looking at more than £1k to get a 2002 2.0.

My advice is make the car look right but practice the art of A-->B slow but safe arrivals first. I had many scares in my 88 1.3 Escort. Thinking back now anything more powerful would have resulted in carnage.

[GreenBogey]

My first car was the 2.0l, have had to downgrade due to bad luck in my first year as I was driving around the city center constantly for work. 

I've still  got the 2.0l as a doner,  had 7 months of incident less driving before an a4 driver swiped me at a junction then I got distracted by a level crossing in slow moving traffic. 

 

Please define "etc" ?

[Arwen]

So you have a car that is cheap on insurance bacuase you had two crashes in your first year. 

And you now want to heavily modify this cheap run around?

You do realise that modifying cars like this will increase your insurance ?(if they don't simply refuse it in the first place). 

 

 

[TomsFocus]

Distracted by a level crossing?  Lucky you're not splattered across the rails now then.  

As above, cheaper to just buy and insure the car you're after.  Plus major reshells (it is more of a reshell than an engine swap in this case!) will inevitably cause problems for a while.  I've done and helped on a few, would never do it to my own car lol.

[south_bound]

On 10/20/2016 at 1:08 PM, goldtail77 said:

 

My advice is make the car look right but practice the art of A-->B slow but safe arrivals first. I had many scares in my 88 1.3 Escort. Thinking back now anything more powerful would have resulted in carnage.

As above, if I was you I would invest in driving lessons to prevent a repeat and then use the insurance savings to get the car you want in a few years of good behaviour...maybe not the advice you were after?

[ayup]

On 17/11/2016 at 9:52 PM, GreenBogey said:

 had 7 months of incident less driving

wow makes my 27 years of incident driving look feeble.....only kidding mate reading between the lines i think you need to get a slower , cheaper car to get the insurance down as i'd hate to guess what you're paying