I was in a Walmart parking lot talking to one of my friends when one of his friends showed up that I didn't know. It was just some little beat up Escort ZX2, the thought of racing didn't even cross my mind, but then my friend said that little car would bust my 3.8. I still wasn't interested, I didn't feel like running my car hard that night.....until the guy popped the hood on the Escort. This thing is modded out the a**, every bolt-on possible for one of these cars is on it. I didn't get to run it because his clutch is messing up, but he's gonna give me a call in a few days and we're going to. I really can't wait, I'm thinking I'll get beat, but I'll still have fun. The driver of this grain of rice isn't your typical ricer ******bag, so I won't feel so bad losing if that's how it goes.

I hate to say it, but this is American rice done right, you should've seen the engine. Anyone heard of a modded Escort being quick? I really have no clue what I'm up against lol, it looked bada** under the hood, but it still may be kinda slow.

 

Someone with more knowledge would probably give you a better thought buuut..

Well I'm assuming your driving the 3.8L RS, which means stock you have 200 horsepower, 225 torque and weigh about 3400-3450.

I'm guessing his is a 2000 ZX2 and he's running 130 horsepower and 135 torque, but only weighs 2470-2500.

So right off the bat, you have a 70 hp and 90 ft/lbs of torque boost, but he has 1000 lbs difference on you. So stock for stock, you would have had him (according to a quarter mile calculator) by about .5 of a second. And according to the same calculator, as long as he made 17 extra horsepower from those upgrades, he's now able to beat you. So seeing as you said it's sick under the hood, I'm guessing he made at least a 50+ horsepower gain, I think your done for.

It'll still be neat to do it though, maybe get some pictures and a list of mods so we can all say we've seen our first pimped out escort.

 

Unfortunately for Escort owners they can't be made all that fast, not reliably anyway. You can get turbo kits and the like for them, but they have a bad habbit of grenading their differential under hard launches and load. If his car is done right you could get beat, but you can hope that he blows up his dif!

 

i dont think they respond all that well to boltons either. if its NA hes going to be fairly close to stock power

 

It takes a lot of money, but an Escort can be made pretty fast. Not sure why, but you could do it. I'd bet even money that he never gets his car sorted out to race you, though, that it is always a clutchor a timing chain or a turbo housing or something: typically a car pushed that extreme has problems like that all the time, never quite being strong enough for it to all come together and work right: something always breaks.

But if he is serious and his car is sorted out he might have 225 HP or so, and in an Escort, that would be pretty fun to see, and a serious challenge to you: better traction and low end torque might win, though, so like you say, no harm done in trying and if you lose, you lose to something pretty special.

 

hehe my second car is a escort great gas mileage :-D its only 2200pounds with 3 people and a 120 pounds of audio gear lol i weighed it at a truck scale at night when they were closed they leave the scale on for some reason... so they are extreamly light or atleast mine is its only got 69hp yes laugh it up its weak but it makes good use of that 69 atleast in the low end mine dont have anything for power above 50 but 10-45 is pretty quick for that little bit of horse power the engine is huge tho looks biger then my camaro's v6 sadly...

 

So I guess it is true about what the say...size DOESN'T matter...hmmm, well, if not, then I am proud to be Asian.

 

Size does matter, as does block strength, and the Escort block has neither, so it is difficult to get really high HP levels out of it, but with enough money . . .

I personally prefer big V8s - either seven liter pushrod ones like in a Z6, or 4 to 5 liter high tech ones like in the Ferrari 430, the Maserati, or the Aston Martin Vantage, but I have to admit there is something pretty cool about a 2 liter four banger turbocharged to 40 lbs.

 

the one thing you don't want to run into is a swapped Escort. i had a little run in last night with a 3.0 Duratec swapped Escort, lets just say this guy had at least a bus length on me (with the Duramax). all i've gotta say is, a 3.0 v6 with a good set of cams and a good tune in a light car is not something you want to be messing with. the guy i raced said he put down 267fwhp and 258fwtq, all motor.

 

im contemplating making some chicken.... but the real question is: buffalo or bbq?