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It's not pretty to look at in it's stock form isn't it? Initially I needed a car fast because my other car had given up on me or rather me given up on it. It just so happened that I had a friend that was trying to get rid of his Escort because his lease was up. We made some arrangements with bank and the car was under my name and I was paying the note.

At the time the three things I liked about it were 1) It runs! 2) It's got A/C! (I live in South Texas by the way) and 3) It's stick shift! Up until this point I had never driven a stick shift. After two lessons I was on my way. Well... sorta. I managed to drive it back to my dorms but not before stalling at least 4 four times, burning up tires 3 times (let the clutch out too soon), and revving it till I almost redlined for fear of the car dying on me. But I loved every minute of it.

The stock engine is an inline 4 cylinder, 2.0L SOHC, with 110hp. Not much at all but I believe it's more than some stock Civics have but don't quote me on that. Parts were intially very hard to find for this car. I mean really hard. Because when you think about it, who in their right mind is going to fix up a Ford Escort. (Ahem, I raise my hand.) Yup, yours truly. I love a challenge don't you. It's because of this car that I've coined a phrase that describes me, "Imagination is key in my world". Aside from the fact that it might hint about my imaginary friends, it definitely holds true when one desides to modify a car with very little or no aftermarket support.

This was back in 1999 I believe and the import/sport compact craze was just hitting hard. I started out initially by cutting the air filter housing and exposing the stock filter. Ooooh, sounds better. After about 2 months of that I needed a better filter so I bought a K&N. Sounds a bit meaner now. After about 3 months of that I figured I needed something more so I bought an exhaust. It's a Bonzai exhaust with a Focuz tip. I'm not even sure if they still manufacture those brands. I was initially disappointed with the exhaust. It didn't "sounds" right. Maybe... not loud enough. I asked several friends and they said it sounded good. Eventually I found out that the sound level increases a bit once the exhaust is broken in. After the so called "break in" period, it was like music to my ears.

I was pretty happy for a couple of months but once again I got tired of it "looking" the same. So I whip out the rattle cans. I started out by accenting interior pieces in purple. I don't know why purple it looked cool at the time. The racing pedals I had bought a Pepboys looked good in purple but when I was painting the A/C vents it didn't look exactly right. I only painted once vent as a test. Rode around with it for a couple of days and decided that I didn't like it. I go to Walmart and I pick out a nice bright yellow, Sunshine Yellow to be exact. Go home paint the pedals and A/C vent again and stand back to observe my work. This looks way better. I ride with it for a couple of days and decide that it'll compliment the interior well. At least to my eyes.

I was pretty happy for a long while. I ended up moving out of the dorms and into my first apartment with a friend. FREEDOM!! Well I got a little trigger happy with the plastic and I bought an intake from (link)CTA Motorsports. I loved it. It was a bit of a pain to install at first because the bend wasn't exactly right but I made it work.

Soon there after I bought some (link)Magnecor racing wires. Initially I couldn't feel a difference but when I changed out the spark plug with some platinum ones I felt a big difference. I'm not sure if the plugs were really old or what not but I felt a difference in take off. It felt quicker so to speak. I also decided to accent the engine with yellow silicone hoses and convoluted piping. In retrospect, that was too much yellow. But hey, we all learn from our mistakes right?

After that I bought the Accel Supercoil. I've heard bad remarks about this coil but it hasn't given me any trouble thus far. I had a slighter better take off and better acceleration through out the entire RPM band. I felt the difference now.

I also picked up a Superchip module and that did help. It got rid of that damn governor for one and it had all around better performance. It was a bit pricey for that piece of chips and plastic but I still believe it was worth it.

Then I bought a Clarion CD player and some Pionner 6X9's. That cleared up the sound a lot and I could now play CD's!! Now I started thinking, hmmm... I could use an alarm now. Not that anyone would "want" to steal an Escort but they might want to take it for a joy ride now that it was drawing more attention. I bought an UNGO alarm from Clarion also. I had them install actuators and now my doors would open at the push of a button.

I chilled for about a month, hell, maybe even less when I decided to get rims and tires. Boy did they look awesome! Some Tenzo R Passion 5's!! They had just hit the market about 2 months prior so they were a bit pricey but I loved them. I soon there after installed some cross drilled rotors. Now it was looking sharp! After I had them on I noticed something that I hadn't noticed before. The car was too high! Gotta drop it!! So picked up some Progress Sprngs from (link)ptuning.com. Very helpful people. A week later they were in and the car looked awesome!

After this I installed a guage pod from an Integra and used a heat gun to make it fit. Threw in an oil pressure gauge and a A/F ratio gauge. Then I bought a MOMO shift knob and I sewed (yes I can sew... kinda) my own shift boot. This intial boot cracked because the vinyl I used wasn't flexible enough so a friend bought my one from Pepboys. Starting to look pretty good huh?

Then reality hit. Ohhhh... I need to pay the plastic money back?! Yeah well, I worked my butt off for a while to pay it all back so I didn't do any mods for a long time. At least none that didn't cost any or too much money. I bought a yellow paint marker one day and decided to paint some of the lettering inside the car. I painted the engraved letters around the ignition key hole, the SRS lettering on the steering wheel and the passenger side and the engraved letter on the dome light. It came out great. Some people don't notice it at first because you don't expect to see that. But when you show them they're like, "Wow! Did it come like that?" I always get a grin on my face when they ask that.

I also rattled canned my rotors, drums and valve cover. I think it came out pretty good. The paint I used on the valve cover is different from the rest. It's like a clear finish. The idea is that you spray it on something like polished aluminum so when the metal shines through the paint it has an anodized look to it. Pretty cool huh?!

By this point in time I'm racing around trying to see what my car can do. I go to the track and my best time was a 17.4 in the quarter mile. Now I don't condone this but I know we've all done it at least once but... yes I used to street race a bit. I took done several Civics, Tegs, Cavis, and Sunfires in various states of tune.

My car was doing pretty well till one day when I was racing this old school BMW. Man... I had him I was pulling away from him when I noticed my temp needle was starting to peg. I slam on the brakes and turn the heater on. I didn't know what the hell had happened. I found out later that the thermostat was getting stuck. I had it replaced and the car was good to go.

About a month later I was practicing a bit of e-brake drifting, (yes I know don't do it in a FWD) when I slid up to the gates of my apartment and my car shut off. I figured maybe I let go of the clutch or something. I start it up and it make a horrible clanking noise. Awww hell!!! That doesn't sound goood. My roommate and I push it in the rest of the way. It sounds like a valve or something. Not good at all! I decide to try and take off the head on my own. Bad idea. I broke off two head bolts.

By this time I'm saying screw it! I'm just getting another engine. I'm looking around for a wrecked 3rd gen from junkyards. One guy has it but it seems kinda pricey. Then I strike gold. This guy tells me that he's got one from a (link)ZX2 S/R! I just about pissed in my pants. I ask him to describe to me a bit and sure enough it sounds like one. My roommate drives me over and there it is. Pretty torn up but the engine and drive train is complete. Engine swap!!!!

I picked up the engine, tranny, axles, ecu, and the engine harness. I also ended up getting the seats just for gits and shiggles. I took it to this local shop, which has since shut down. (The owner had no idea how to run a business, but he had a great mechanic.) Later on I learned that I didn't need the axles and my old tranny could be retro-fitted but this was after the fact. A week later my engine was in and I got to start it up. It felt great to be behind the wheel of my car. I took it for a spin and all I could say was WOOHOO!! I really felt the difference. I felt myself being pushed back in my seat.

Everything was great for a week. The only annoyance was that the check engine light was on because there were a couple of sensors that needed to be bypassed. No problem, I figured. Little did I know that it would build up into a problem. A week later the car felt like it was bogging down after 4,000 RPM when I floored it. Took it back to the shop, which by this time I was working at part time. After a lot of trouble shooting and going over the Chilton we came to the realization that I didn't have enough fuel pressure.

Turns out that the ZX2 doesn't run a fuel return and it builds up pressure via a driver module that is controled by the PCM. I tried to bypass it. I rigged up my own fuel return with an adjustable regulator but that didn't work. I tried getting the driver module along with the wiring under the carpet. Still no go. I got on the net and found out some sites that helped me alot. One of them being Escortracing.com(RIP). This site got hacked and was never brought back up which was a real shame since it was home for a lot of information and very informed and helpful people. Through them I learned that in order for this swap to work I had three options.

First one being that I buy a stand alone fuel management system. At $2,000 that seemed a bit too steep. Way too steep. My 2nd option was to find a wrecked ZX2 or a 1998+ Escort and get all the harnesses that are located under the dash, under the carpet, in the trunk and under the car next to the wheel well. That my friend's is a lot of wires and sensors. I also later found out that I have to switch out my gas tank to that of the newer models because it had provisions for a sensor housing that was absent in my tank. That seemed like too much work for me and possibly more money than I had left to spend. My last option was to build my own fuel return system. But I tried that remember? Ah, but I figured out that I would probably need to control the fuel injector pulse width to allow more fuel to enter during higher RPMs. By this point I was frustrated with the car and then I learned that the frame had moved over to the right almost a whole inch. Why did it move? Well it happened when I hit a baracade on the highway when I swerved to avoid hitting an SUV that was PARKED in the middle of the highway.

Boy was I frustrated, disillutioned and generally pissed off with the car. The only thing that softened my frustration was when I entered a sport compact car show with the shop I was working with. The talked me into it saying that it would at least be fun. My roommate and friend Paul entered his Nissan 240SX also just for the hell of it. Well we spent the night before cleaning and detailing the car. We only got like 2 hours of sleep. Probably less, but we got to the show regardless. I thought I was going to be the only Ford there but there were at least 5 Focus and one Contour SVT. The Focus looked real clean and were in various states of tune. The Contour looked awesome but upon closer inspection it wasn't as "detailed" as it could've been.

When I saw my car in the morning light it looked real good. It was shiny and real clean from the inside. I had printed out a flyer detailing the modifications that had been done to the car. I was pretty proud of my car even though it wasn't running right, and the frame was a bit bent. While I was looking around at the other cars my friend called me up on my cell telling me that there was a judge at my car. I ran over and boy was he ever detailed. He even checked under the wheel well to make sure that I had cleaned down there. Good thing I did. He wrote somethings down on his pad and moved on rather quickly. I figured oh well, at least I had fun doing it. Well the show went on till the early evening. It had been a rather warm day and with only 2 hours of sleep a had a splitting headache by the end of the day.

I was getting ready to leave when they started announcing the winners. I figured I hadn't won anything so I was going to start packing my stuff but my friends told me to wait because, "You never know." So I waited, the went throught the Hondas, Acuras, etc. They got to the Fords and 1st place went to an awesome looking Focus. They called out 2nd place and they called my name. I was like, "Did they just call my name?!" All the guys from the shop were yelling at me to go get my tropy. I was like, WOW! I actually had something to show for my efforts. That was incredible. Even though I was tired, hot and had a splitting headache, I had a smile from ear to ear. I felt like I was on top of the world.

Well I still have that trophy and even though it's only a small piece of marble with plastic on it I still treasure it. It shows that my efforts and imagination paid off. I also thought of getting rid of the car but at the current time I can't afford it. I finally got a promotion at work to manager and I'm going to earn some good money but I have bills I need to pay off. I was still thinking of getting rid of it but when I showed my pics and my flyer to some online friends they convinced me to keep the car. They said, "After all the work you've put into it, it's taken on your personality. It would be a shame to lose a car like that."

Sooo.. I'm looking into getting the frame straightened which I've been quoted a price of $500 so far. That sounds better than $4000 for another car. But what about the engine? Well, with the promotion I should be able to save some money and either replace all the wiring harnesses and gas tank or maybe even go with a stand alone system. I also forgot to mention that one rainy night I dented my driver side rims real bad when I went over some real killer speed bumps. They weren't your regular speed bumps though. I'm sure most of you have seen those dots on the highway or streets that are in between the painted lines. Well these were about 8 inches wide and about 4 inches high. So yeah they're pretty bad and my driver side has stock wheels while my passenger side still has my rims. So now I need rims also. All in all though the car's been fun and it's actually still running. If I can fix it I can start going back to the drag strip and the car shows. Who knows but I'm going to give it a shot.

I'll keep you posted as time goes by. For now go ahead and check out the rest of the sites. If I've gotten you interested in modifying an Escort go ahead and check out my mods and my links. You'll find some interesting stuff there. If you happen to run into a 2nd Generation Ford Escort GT (1992 - 1996) in the South Texas area let me (link to email)know. I've been looking for one and they're kinda hard to find around here. Enjoy the rest of the site.

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