SKCC - Southern Kit Car Club. A Club for kit car owners across Southern England. Kent, Sussex, East Hants, Surrey, Berks, Middlesex, London

Firstly, I'm new, go easy on me

I'm guessing that Pinto's are used due to their lack of electrical gubbins which aids fitting and working on etc., but is it that difficult to get a more 'modern' engine into car?

I'd like to put a K Series into one if/when I get a car; they are lightweight, produce decent enough power in VVC form and are 10 to a penny. Feel free to add your own headgasket jokes

And ultimately I'd love to put a Honda K20 lump into one, 9k redline and VTEC

Is it really that hard?

Short answer is you can fit just about any engine if you have the room

So why is the Pinto so widely used? That's all I seem to find in the 'cheaper' cars.

The majority of kits were built from Escorts / Capris / Cortinas / Sierras, so they were either built with X-flows or Pintos, the pinto is an easy upgrade for the X-flow, so that's why most cars have them.

Zetec is the easiest more modern swap as it's mechanically simple, but as Dick says anything is possible if you throw enough cash & cleverness at it. The limiting factor is often the gearbox rather than the engine as most modern engines are transverse.

But don't be put off by low power numbers, as the cars are light, a standard Pinto can come close to 200bhp / tonne & in a very low open car with sticky tyres, that can seem pretty quick.

As has been said, you're best bet is to do some passenging, see what brings out the biggest grin.

Love it, already got the upgrade bug before buying a car, one thing I would say is seriously compare the purchase price of a car plus your upgrades with a car that already has what you want, you might be surprised! I swapped my pinto on carbs to a zetec on TB's, engine is the cheap part, the shiny bits add up though! Good luck, oh and welcome!

Second what Phil said,be careful you can buy a kit pinto or crossflo for cheap money,then think oh well I will just pop a zetec in, this will cost,properly more than the car, tho there are bargains to be had.......martin

Dav wrote:So why is the Pinto so widely used? That's all I seem to find in the 'cheaper' cars.

Hi Dave and welcome.
Because cheaper cars = older cars, or cars that have been built from one donor vehicle (usually old Escort/Sierra). That's why cheaper cars will have a xFlow/Pinto/CVH - but don't take that to mean that these are particularly 'good' engines - they're fine - but old-fashioned and a bit long in the tooth now. Zetec, MX5, etc. would be 'better'.

RE: converting Pinto to K-Series....
One issue with doing that particular conversion is that those engines have inlet/exhaust on opposite sides.
Guess it could be cheap though... buy a whole VVC MG-TF for £500 and swap everything over. Could it run on the MG-TF wiring loom, ECU and fuel injection? Don't know but guess it could be made to.

Buy the best you can afford I'd say - as it'll cost far more in the long term to upgrade. But, saying that, the upgrade/modification process is kinda the fun part for some people.
Decide how much money you can outlay now, and what you actually want to use the car for, then post up some cars you find for sale so that we can all rip them to pieces

Ok ill post it up before you go to far the vvt k series can be a problem if you have a head issues

q james

I am a lover of the Rover K engine.

I have built quite a few of these. But is always worth checking the liner heights as a badly over heated engines can damage the bottom end, as well as the head problems. But a well built one are fab units.
Don't forget about about the 1.8 Turbos from the Rover 75t's. Not as flexible as the VVC, but without the complicated 5 camshaft head!

Choose your car first and that will generally dictate the upgrade path as has been pointed out above. I'd also not go for a Pinto era car but go for the Zetec era car as they are very capable, more modern and lighter than a Pinto. (My first Rush was Pinto engined and my current RV8 weighs the same (slightly less, in fact) as it did.) You do not need fuel injection if you don't want to so just put a simple carb on instead.

In my view, it's the car that you want that comes first.