Was this engine well maintained?

[1biggun]

It's got a CFS protective rust coating lol. you don't see many pintos these days. I was considering a pinto motor for my Suzuki Samurai.. I helped my body build a Pinto motor up back in the eighties. thing was pretty fast it had about 12.5 to one compression
And a custom head. his boss raced Formula Ford for some sort of open wheels type thing. we got a lot of take off parts. that little Pinto was pretty fast for the first eighth of a mile.

[kernelkrink]

Only seen one Pinto motor, in my Brother's 4 cyl Pinto Wagon. He drove it up here from FL in the middle of a blizzard with a line of tea candles on the dash as a defroster! My Dad instantly traded him for his Ford Ranger pickup as he wanted him to get back alive! The car lasted another couple weeks then snapped the timing belt. Snapped the new one too. Pulled the valve cover and discovered the cam had worn flat and was jammed against the rocker. Ford in their infinite wisdom made the cam bearings decrease in size at the front, so to pull the cam one has to remove the head first. I said screw it, removed the radio and cut a panel in the firewall to remove it through the dash! When we junked it we discovered the problem with the defroster, a dead Palmetto bug was jamming the door that moves to divert air to the defroster ducts! You FL guys use Mouse Traps on those suckers? This thing was huge!

[Bradrock]

Anything less than a bowling ball will not faze them. The name palmetto bug was made up for the snowbirds. Somehow not as disturbing as cockroach.

[1biggun]

yea we had a major malfunction with a timing belt failure an destroyed some very expensive titanium, custom intake valves an banged up some custom pistons . that little motor was a bomb anyway, was close to a midget motor in street legal ugly ass green pinto with some big ansen slot mags. he used to piss off Camaros an Stangs on the street all the time. I think we put 3 different rear ends in with welded up side gears.
The spare stock motor had a timing belt let go also seems like that was common on them.


I had a 240z Datsun with a 410" chevy with brodex 10 heads an full roller valve train at the time. guys could never tell what hit them LOL the 240 z looked stock except for the Enki rims an tires had about 650 HP with out the bottle LOL first they would get beat with a 240 z on the highway then some kid in pinto would dust them from the lights. LOL. it was about the only ford engine I really played with. had one in a boat that was OK.

I miss the Z it handled really well an was ungodly fast if Id had a 5 speed instead of a Muncie 4 speed back then it would have been a porshe killer. I blew a front tire an rolled it hard on hwy 1 north of bodega bay almost went off a cliff into the pacific. sold the motor to guy with a Anglia drag car it went low 10,s.

The pinto was junk aside from the engine an was junked at some point the motor grenaded when a shift got missed .

I should just sell all the gun parts an build a new car, or finish one I got. maybe they wont out law them in the next 5 years . LOL

[Bradrock]

I never had belt problems. But I did break a few distributor shafts. We had to run stock distribs. Not made for 6 or 7 grand I guess. The pinto gets a bad rep from media hyped up stories of gas tanks exploding. Never mentioned that getting rear ended on the highway speeds would fuck you up in any small car. fire or not. Great circle track cars.

[1biggun]

we had some sort of prehistoric crank triggered ignition that was made from some other 4cyy ign race car parts. I do recall that the stock distributer was not up to the task. we had head bolt issues an used arp studs an oringed the head. that motor was apart more than together. I always thought the pinto was a decent little car.
id like to have that old motor in a sports car on a road course

[Bradrock]

They still run them in racing hydroplanes last I knew. There's a really nice dirt track near where we live now but the four cylinder class is front wheel drive only. Otherwise I'd be over there picking up a rule book & building a car. Even test & tune night is way more fun than I could stand!!