[Xmax]

Hello

6 Years ago i bought my Ford Puma 1,7 -98. Since then i´ve had a number of other cars but the puma have been keept all the time.

I have driven the car many times on trackdays and that´s were i´ve had the most fun experineces with it. So now i have decided to start the project of turning my puma into a sharp trackday racer.

The plan is not complete, but the gooal for this year is to make the car´s handling even better than the alredy good handling that comes with the original chassie.

I have tried a lot of diffrent tyres and weels om my puma. I´ve had 17" weels with ordinary road tyres (yokohama A539) and 17" with Race tyres toyo r888. The original 15" wheels and tyres that comes standard with the 1,7 Puma. 13" steel wheels with road tires.

I´ve found that 15" is the best size for the car. Road tyres is not an option thoug since they get overheated after a few laps on the track. I bougt a set of Toyo R888 in dimention 195/50 15.
I found four Teknomagnezio alu. weels. They were prety worn but since my plan was to powdercoat them anyway that did not bother me.

This post has been edited by Xmax: 28 January 2010 - 08:07 AM
Reason for edit: image tags removed as flashing was doing my head in

[FlashBastd]

Pics don't work!

[Xmax]

Strange. I see them.

I´l se if upploading them will work better

Picture 1:
The weels befor powdercoating.

2 and 3:
After powdercoating

4:
Tyres mounted

5:
17" vs 15"

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This post has been edited by Xmax: 23 January 2010 - 11:20 AM

[happy-kat]

Those who are serious about their Pumas on tracks agree that 15" is the right wheel size for the Puma

[Xmax]

happy-kat, on 22 January 2010 - 09:37 PM, said:

Those who are serious about their Pumas on tracks agree that 15" is the right wheel size for the Puma

Nice to do somthing right for once



The original brakes on the 1,7 is rather ok. I´ve tryed them on the track and they hold out for abaut 4 full attack laps on a rather long track ("Anderstorp" in Sweden)

But since this project is aming for more than ok, i had to do something abaut it.
I bought New brake disks for the front brakes and mounted them thogether with EBC brakepads.
Since the car is verry light and it works good today, and since im planing on making it lighter, i think this works perfekt with the car.

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[Xmax]

I´ve done a lot of driving on tracks here in Sweden and since Pictures are funnier than just wrighting Here is a few pics of the car.

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This post has been edited by Xmax: 23 January 2010 - 12:11 PM

[happy-kat]

Could save a little more weight and take the eyebrows off

Loving the last image with the gravel dust

Colin tried a few diffent suspensions out, could look for Posts by BOK in the Tyres/Wheels/Suspension section.
Colin fitted adjustables and spent a long time perfecting the ride height balance.

[Johnik]

The photos are really nice.

What is name of racing circuit in the pictures?

[Xmax]

happy-kat, on 23 January 2010 - 09:17 PM, said:

Could save a little more weight and take the eyebrows off

Loving the last image with the gravel dust

Colin tried a few diffent suspensions out, could look for Posts by BOK in the Tyres/Wheels/Suspension section.
Colin fitted adjustables and spent a long time perfecting the ride height balance.

I actually mounted the eyebrows as protection for the headlights knowing i was going to test the car on gravel. It´s very hard to find a new headlamps i´v heard and if you find one, they are expensive (have ford stoped manufacturing them?).

Thank you werry much for the tip! Have Colin left this forum? It dont seem like his been logged in recently?
I searced his posts and found a lot of useful info thoug! Thanks again for the tip!

Johnik, on 24 January 2010 - 12:07 PM, said:

The photos are really nice.

What is name of racing circuit in the pictures?

The second picture is taken at Mantorp Raceway here in Sweden. The third and fourth picture is from "gelleråsen", a track just outside karlskoga, also Sweden. Picture number three is from 2006, and pic. nr four is from 2008.

[R5CPD]

Xmax, on 25 January 2010 - 08:22 AM, said:

Thank you werry much for the tip! Have Colin left this forum? It dont seem like his been logged in recently?
I searced his posts and found a lot of useful info thoug! Thanks again for the tip!

Colin very sadly passed away last May and is very much missed to all of us. His many posts however live on and give great ideas and inspiration to many.

[Xmax]

R5CPD, on 25 January 2010 - 07:38 PM, said:

Colin very sadly passed away last May and is very much missed to all of us. His many posts however live on and give great ideas and inspiration to many.

I´m so sorry to hear that!

The content of his posts that i found searching his nic makes me understand why he was so loved.

[Xmax]

As you might have seen the next step in this projekt is to find a new, better suspention for the car. However i havent told you what i´v tryed on the car so far. when i bought the car it was 100% original. It had a wery low milage (2600mil, abaut 16000 miles?). The first year i had the original suspention on together with the 15" prop. weels. After abaut one year i got a very very nice deal on some 17" Cromodora Race weels. If you have seen 17" wheels on a puma with the original suspention you know that it does not look like a sporty car. My "every day" car is a Toyota Rav4, an SUV type of car. Not even my Toyota had that amaount of air i the wheelarches as the Puma had

The need of lowering springs was desperate. I bought four Sparco springs that lowerd the car 35mm. Just what the car needed. This solution has worked werry well for me and both handling and the look of the car became better. On all of the pictures above this is the settup for the cars suspention.

Now however i´m rather shure that a set of coilovers is what my puma needs.

[Xmax]

New suspention kit on the way!

After som thinking i now have decided to mount four fully adjusteble GAZ coilovers om my car. Hopfylly they will be delivered next week

[FlashBastd]

Excellent, look forward to hearing how you get on with it.

[Xmax]

No delivery of coilovers

However i have been cleaning out the garage that i keep the Puma in. It has untill now been full of things that dont belong in a garage. But since i wanted somthing to do while waiting for delivery i started cleaning it out. Turned out quite nice i think. I´m planing to paint the walls in another color later. But this will do for now.

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[happy-kat]

Wow nice wide garage plenty of room to work

In the UK we can buy headlights from a supplier for a very good price but I do not think they do the ights you need for LHD as the light unit is different (internally).
There is a link in the Wiki in the head light leveller article

[Xmax]

Ohhh my...

During the Ester holiday i wanted to take my puma out for a spinn. I started the engine, and right away it sounded like a diesel. A terible knocking sound. After 3-4 seconds i realised what was hapening and i turned the engine off.

I started by checking the oil level, nothing wrong there. So i checked the cambelt. But the cambelt was in place and was perfectly strecht. I looked att everything i could but did not find annything that could explain the harsh noice.
I decidet to let the pro mecanics take over and towed the car to their garage.

A few long days pased without any notifikation of the cars condition. Finaly after 4days i got a call. The mecanics confirmed that the car was now running again as good as before and that nothing was damaged. The problem was one or more clogged oil passages. The mecanics had checked the camshaft and valves to be shure nothing was damaged. But everything was perfectly fine.

Close call! I feel like wining the lottery. I thought the car was done with.

since i was not shure the car was ever going to be driveable again i cancled the coilover order (who had not arived after 2 months, i was thinking of canceling them anyway since they never arived). My plan now is to use the car as it is for a while just to be shure nothing was damaged. But just to be able to drive it feels lika a big win

The car is booked for MOT this saturday. Then hopfully i can put a new order for a suspention kit.

[happy-kat]

Wow that sounds like a lucky out come to a rather black cloud on hearing your engine start and run.

[ScubaSteve]

16's with the right size tyres are just as good as the 15's

[Xmax]

The car passed MOT. They found nothing to complain about. Now focus will be on the suspention order 2.0