Right first I am going to say that this isn't strictly a drift car. It may possibly see more track driving or even drag racing but I thought you guys would appreciate the project anyway. We would like to use it for a some more drifting but due to the way its being built I don't think it will be eligible for many comps but I am sure we will be able to have some fun with it!

So it pretty much starts here:





An extremly clean MK1 Escort shell with the front end panels removed, the wings have just been fitted quickly as a mock up.

and this is what will be powering it:



A 350Z VQ35 engine that has had a few light mods and a remap to produce 311bhp. The VQ was chosen as it is quite a large capacity engine for its relatively light weight. There is also many tuning options avaliable to up the power in the future and it is coupled to a pretty robust driveline.

So obviously this wouldn't be the easiest fit in an original MK1 escort shell so we have decided to build the car as a full spaceframe chassis. This should allow us to keep the weight as low as possible, it has also allowed us to choose our suspension and running gear freely.

With this in mind we first decided to run an independant rear suspension set-up. We considered a few choices but wanted a readily avaliable, reasonably priced option. so...



Yep your pretty much straight forward S14 rear subframe. This was an obvious choice as there are plenty about, they can be made pretty much fully adjustable at a low cost and with the addtion of GTR parts can be made to handle large amounts of power.

Again at the front an S14 front set up was chosen for pretty much the same reason as the rear. Got hold of this lot to mock up the front:



As you may have seen in the first pic the car already has the rear arches just mocked on the rear. You may have thought that they look a bit larger than the regular 'bubble' arches fitted to MK1 escorts. This is because a complete Zakspeed kit has been purchased (hence the project name!) to run on the car which will allow us to run some mega sized tyres for high levels of grip.

So the next job is to consult with the frame builder and take numerous measurments to see how we will want to mount the running gear and suspension in the frame and then get cracking with constructing the frame as at the moment it is just a load of pipes!

Will update as we go along!