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Hot Car - Road Test: Fiesta XR2 Lumo 105T
"Blow By, Blow By, Blow"
July 1983
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Road Test: Fiesta XR2 Lumo 105T




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.....from a Pace Products developed turbo kit, that is unique in many ways. The first reason being that it is the first aftermarket kit that works in conjunction with fuel injection and the second is that it incorporates a water to air intercooler as opposed to the more conventional air to air intercooler to cool the intake temperature.

Basis for the conversion is the standard XR3i that utilises the Bosch K Jetronic fuel injection system. The kit itself includes an IHI RHB5/2 turbo with integral wastegate that is attached to the front of the engine via a specially cast exhaust manifold that connects up to the original exhaust system. Because of the extra under bonnet components, the injection leads are re-routed. The airflow itself, after being filtered, is sucked into the turbo unit and blown into the specially fabricated water to air intercooler. The reason this type is employed over the more conventional air to air type is purely a question of space. To achieve low intake temperatures with the air to air type would have meant cutting the bodywork, to fit a more bulky unit. A much simpler solution and one which is no less effective was to use a more compact water to air system that is nothing more than an aluminium box equipped with a heat exchanger through which water from a separate source can circulate. In doing so the induction temperature has been reduced from 80-90°C to 25°C to help stop detonation. From the intercooler the air then passes into the plenum chamber and cylinders. A special 'L' electronic injector richens up the mixture. This injector increases the fuel flow on boost and is set to operate from 3psi upwards. Below this figure the standard fuel economy is retained.

The car that you see in the photographs uses a special Micro Dynamics engine management system, but this has now been changed in favour of a specially developed pressure retard distributor by Pace, which, besides featuring the normal vacuum advance facility, retards the ignition under boost to avoid detonation.

Another contributing feature in this department is the fitting of water injection into the airflow. Basically water is injected through a .011" jet at 3psi boost or over, into the eye of the impeller. This is instantly atomised, turns to steam and in doing so helps reduce the intake temperature as well as helping to prevent carbon build up in the engine. Normally around two pints of water are used per tankfull of petrol. Other components of the kit include a high pressure oil line feed to the turbo, boost gauge and various hardware. Cost for the complete kit is £1,050 plus vat, plus fitting.

The turbo is set to a maximum of 7psi boost and as such provides ample power with bags of torque between gears.

By retaining the standard compression ratio, throttle response is every bit as good as the standard car, whilst power output is now a claimed 140bhp. The 0-60mph time has been reduced from 9.4 seconds to 8.3 seconds, whilst top speed is just over 120mph with the speedo showing a slightly optimistic 130mph.

To drive, we found the car both exciting and sure footed, although a faulty rev limiter that cut in at anything from 5,700rpm detracted from the driving pleasure, but once this was rectified the car accelerated well. The RS suspension coped admirably with the increased power keeping the car squat and firmly planted on the ground in all situations.

Unfortunately, during the period of our loan, the car developed a mysterious oil leak, that eventually led to an engine explosion at high speed, but to be fair to UBM, this was in no way a reflection on the turbo installation and simply developed from a faulty factory fitted oil pressure regulator.

Fortunately, we had recorded all the performance figures required prior to this mishap, although to be sure that these were a true representation, we got hold of another car from Pace with exactly the same turbo installation. We put this through our usual test procedure before rain stopped play halfway through although the figures recorded were similar in both cases.

Standard equipment on the XR300T includes a number of features, normally offered as extras, including a sliding steel sunroof, tinted glass, stereo radio/cassette, electric aerial, opening rear quarter vents and an RS steering wheel. Options include a choice of wheels/tyres, electric windows and the RS handling pack.

Overall, we liked the instant response and power afforded by the turbo conversion, although incorporating fuel injection does seem to be an over complicated method of achieving the kind of performance that is not really much superior to the turbo-carburetted car that we tried sometime ago......

Captions -

Middle-Right - Full Kamel body kit is featured on the XR300T and includes special grille and relocated rear number plate. Undervalance visually lowers the car