# New pics of the XR2's bay



## VIPER (May 30, 2007)

I've changed a couple of things over the last few days, so I thought I'd just post up a few pics of how it's looking at the moment 

I've been gradually toning down the the 'bling' aspect of the engine for a while now and whilst I'm never going to put it totally back to stock, I've been trying to go for a more 80's period look and changing a lot of the silver painted components to satin black. I've removed all the stainless braided hoses to reveal the OE Ford hoses with their 'Ford Motorcraft' logos on. I've also redone the cam cover in a textured finish red (doesn't really show in the pics but it's a bit like the crackle effect Ferrari use).

Still got a few bits of carbon fibre to remove but nearly there now 




























(this is what it looked like before for those new to the site or who haven't seen it in it's former guise)










Dug out the original sales invoices to get some info to make myself a little period dealer sticker for the rear window 










And nothing to do with engine bays, but a quick reflection shot for good measure










OE Pepperpot alloys are next on the list.

Cheers for looking :thumb:


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## Gandi (Dec 18, 2007)

Much prefure the OEM look not a fan bling TBH, when you putting pepper pots back on lol


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## colarado red (Jun 5, 2008)

i like that a lot.did you see paul roose's gold plated engine bay in his 3 dr in this month fast ford must have taken some bs to do that:argie:


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## VIPER (May 30, 2007)

I've seen that gold cossie bay yes, and tbh. about 5 years ago I'd have loved it, but nowadays it's not my cup of tea anymore. Credit to the guy for doing something different, and it's a crowd puller at shows.

Must be getting old! :lol:


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## NKS (Feb 22, 2007)

Looks great Viper:thumb:

Are you putting the OE wheels back on too?


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## THE CHAMP (Aug 1, 2008)

Looks very nice PV better than the before shots :thumb: just one thing I would change is the corners on the ally plate need to have a radius for better looks and to save yourself from getting scracthed on the sharp corner


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## swordjo (Sep 17, 2006)

Looks lovely... can't wait to see it on Pepper Pots!


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## Andy_Green (Oct 27, 2005)

massive improvement over the chromed up bay before, like you say few more bits to change and it'll look 100%.


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## 98m3/4 (Aug 12, 2009)

Great decision! Love the subdued appearance.


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## Edward101 (Jun 5, 2009)

Looking great :thumb:


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## *MAGIC* (Feb 22, 2007)

Looks sweet Mark and i love the black filter top and K&N still in chrome.

Robbie


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## ChrisJD (Apr 15, 2009)

Looks fantastic. I liked the strut brace and inlet pipe as they were, as it brightened the bay up, but it actually works rather well in the black.

Looks very tidy:thumb:

Chris.


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## nortonski (Jul 10, 2007)

That looks soooo sweet :thumb:


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## The Cueball (Feb 8, 2007)

That is some nice work there......

I prefer the de-bling'd look as well.....

:thumb:


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## -Kev- (Oct 30, 2007)

stunning Mark


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## mk2jon (Mar 10, 2009)

nice touch with the dealership sticker


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## MATT ST (Aug 19, 2009)

That definatley better there mate. oe sticker in the window to looks good.


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## SteveTDCi (Feb 8, 2006)

looks lovely although i'd stick a set of RS 7 spoke on it


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## VIPER (May 30, 2007)

Thanks everybody :thumb: 

I'm quite pleased with how it's looking now, Red Magnecor KV85 HT leads and removal of the remaining carbon bits (which aren't very 80's) and that'll be about it 

The only RS 7 spokes I'd consider putting on it would be the dealer option 13" ones but tbh. finding a set of those would be very difficult, so the Pepperpots is the easier option. I want to go back to the original sized wheels for 2 reasons; Ford's SVE department (Special Vehicle Engineering who built these, and who did the Sierra Cossies and Capri 2.8i and so on), engineered the handing around 13" wheels and also when these cars had their own race series back in the day on the support slot for the BTTC, they all ran on standard sized wheels. So I figure if the designers and racers didn't see a reason to use larger wheels, then that's good enough for me.

The other reason is that certain 'old school' cars have signature wheels that define the look of the car, and I think the classic pepperpot does this for XR2s.

Actually make that 3 reasons; I also plan on a GAZ coilover adjustable suspension set up with slightly lowered ride height, and only 13" alloys will accomodate this properly - the current sized wheels would require rolling the archlips on the front which I'm not willing to do.


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## swordjo (Sep 17, 2006)

I agree with the pepper pots being classic. My mum had a 1985 XR2 with Pepper Pots and one of the neighbours had dodgy after markets on theirs. Pepper Pots made the car look 100% better.


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## andrewst500 (Nov 2, 2008)

stunning great work


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## ashg (Feb 25, 2008)

WOW :thumb:


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## rolspoles (Jul 17, 2009)

That's absolutely stunning mate!

A set of pepperpots would top it off!


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## Rowan83 (Aug 21, 2007)

MINT!!!! :argie:

I wish my engine bay was that clean.


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## ads2k (Jul 12, 2006)

Truly stunning mate. Much prefer the look you are after now :thumb:

I hope to one day be able to see the car in the flesh and really admire all the hard work you've put into the car. Totally agree on the pepperpots as well, had them on my white one back in the day. Funny you should talk about the RS 7 spokes - had them on my 1.4S before I bought the XR2. Shame you can't get the original Pirelli P6 tyres that would have been fitted to them :lol:


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## VIPER (May 30, 2007)

ads2k said:


> Truly stunning mate. Much prefer the look you are after now :thumb:
> 
> I hope to one day be able to see the car in the flesh and really admire all the hard work you've put into the car. Totally agree on the pepperpots as well, had them on my white one back in the day. Funny you should talk about the RS 7 spokes - had them on my 1.4S before I bought the XR2. Shame you can't get the original Pirelli P6 tyres that would have been fitted to them :lol:


Thanks vary much mate :thumb: (and everyone else )

Yeah, I could bloody kick myself as I let the original set of pepperpots from this car (complete with the P6s) get sold fitted to an old Mk.2 fiesta I had as my daily driver years ago. _SO_ wish I'd took them off, bought a set of old steelies or something just to put on the car to sell, then I'd have had the orignal ones now to refit. Can't tell you how much I regret that - stupid, stupid boy :wall: :wall:


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## -tom- (Jan 27, 2009)

this is one stuning xr2i, it looks fantastic there is somethink about old school cars if wheels just saw thease http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FORD-FIESTA-X...s_ET?hash=item45edcddc1f&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14 only 8 mins left?

nice work thow bud what u doing with the interior?


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## -tom- (Jan 27, 2009)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Set-of-Ford-f...s_ET?hash=item1e5830f564&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

or them?


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## KennyC (Aug 11, 2008)

Liking that a lot 

Where did you get the textured red paint? I was looking for it before but only found 25L buckets of white stuff for painting walls etc.


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## Dipesh (Oct 12, 2007)

going to be perfect after the pepperpots are on there PV.

Lovely car!


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## VIPER (May 30, 2007)

tom_k said:


> this is one stuning xr2i, it looks fantastic there is somethink about old school cars if wheels just saw thease http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FORD-FIESTA-X...s_ET?hash=item45edcddc1f&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14 only 8 mins left?
> 
> nice work thow bud what u doing with the interior?


Interior? not a lot now, I like the stripped out look with the racing buckets, no rear seats, strut brace etc. and so the only thing I'm considering is finding some original seats, removing the cloth and having the centre cushions of the Cobras retrimmed in the XR2 material. I'm only really interested in getting the exterior to look totally bog standard now (pepperpots being the only thing to do now). The rest of it, engine mods, suspension, brakes, interior etc. as long as it's done and finished in a period 80's look then I'm happy with it.

In essence I'm going for a combination of bog standard exterior with everything else similar to the XR2 racers that had their own race series in the 80's supporting the BTTC 



KennyC said:


> Liking that a lot
> 
> Where did you get the textured red paint? I was looking for it before but only found 25L buckets of white stuff for painting walls etc.


Thanks! I made it myself with regular high temp red paint with fine grain sand mixed in. Sounds a bit odd and it's a bit tricky to do, but I've done this before on a Fiat I owned a couple of years ago:-










_____________________________

Thanks for all the other comments :thumb:


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## VIPER (May 30, 2007)

This isn't engine bay related, but I'll stick these in here anyway as it's not worth a new thread.

Recently I've been deswirling some little parts that I couldn't do by machine (some of you might have seen the light clusters and the tailgate threads), and I did the door edges the other week:-

Under regular lighting they looked fine:-










But not when you got a light source on them 










So out with the good old Menzerna 203S (love this stuff ), and an MF pad. 2 hits and much better now. All the other parts of the door edges were done on both sides in the same way.


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## -tom- (Jan 27, 2009)

looking realy good bud i like it alot, would u ever consider selling her? the interior is so fresh and just right 

tom


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## Brazo (Oct 27, 2005)

Very nice mate, much more natural look!


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## mattjonescardiff (Dec 12, 2006)

203S is pretty darn impressive. I'm still amazed by it's cutting ability, yet it finishes down so well. It's cut hours off my Details and turns out brilliant results. God bless the germans and their fine polishes!

Definite thumbs up to the more OE engine bay. The 'factory fresh' plastic pipes look cool. Bring on the pepperpots now and I think that's exactly how I'd want it.


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## Ross08 (Apr 8, 2008)

Beautiful car... Any more exterior shots?


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## VIPER (May 30, 2007)

Ross08 said:


> Beautiful car... Any more exterior shots?


Thanks mate :thumb: Just click on 'Garage' under my details on the left <<


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## Nofastyerlast (Dec 2, 2008)

I loved the XR2 back in the day and they were a common sight on the roads, but I can't remember the last time I actually saw one of these on the road apart from at car shows, so its great to see one as well looked after as yours Viper. Keep up the good work:thumb:


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## alankennedy03 (Oct 21, 2008)

iv had three of them and still miss all of them 

there great motors yours being an exulent example the engine bay is spot on mate top job thumbs up and a gold star.:thumb:


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## rtz62 (Jul 20, 2009)

Looks stunning; I had 2 Xr2's and a Turbotechnics conversion, loved them all.

A polite suggestion? Do something with the radiator header tank and the screen washer bottle; the rest of the 'bay is so good, it's noticable that they are 'discoloured'. Not a fan of ally tanks myself, but unless they clean up well, or you can get NOS ones....

Blinding effort though!


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## VIPER (May 30, 2007)

rtz62 said:


> Looks stunning; I had 2 Xr2's and a Turbotechnics conversion, loved them all.
> 
> A polite suggestion? Do something with the radiator header tank and the screen washer bottle; the rest of the 'bay is so good, it's noticable that they are 'discoloured'. Not a fan of ally tanks myself, but unless they clean up well, or you can get NOS ones....
> 
> Blinding effort though!


Fair comment, and whilst they look more discoloured in the pics than they actually do in reality (and the screenwash one is fine in real life), I do conceed that the header tank could be better. I'm doing a front end underside tidy up over the winter, and I was planning on changing the coolant at the same time, so I might have a go at cleaning this one, or more likely, sourcing another and cleaning that one up, then swapping it.

Thanks for the comments :thumb:


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## dps1973 (Dec 18, 2008)

Fook ive just wet my pant's stunning and flaweless cant beat a good old skool ford,ive just sold my series 1, got an offer i could'nt refuse on it. As for the washer bottle stick it in the dishwasher. :thumb:


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## Danno1975 (Mar 30, 2009)

Cor, looks better than my cars did when it was new!!!, much prefer the new look too much less busy.

Top notch matey can't fault your washer bottles either LOL


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## Select Detailing (Feb 19, 2009)

Bill from the pics seen this is a real credit, I was only a lad when these come out and remember them with many a fond memory, Ford in those days really did make a very cool looking hot hatch.

I was 17 when i gotmy first S2 RS Turbo, in Nimbus Grey, remember spending thousands on her, well my dad spending thousands on her lol.

Would as a suggestion be nice to have a rest thread on the site, where people can show us there rebuilds.
I know other sites have this whats your views?

Would also like to see some more pics of the beauty.

Regards

Gareth


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## VIPER (May 30, 2007)

Thanks a lot Gareth :thumb: (new pictures might not be for a while as I'm changing some things over the winter ).

We have a section for those types of threads already, mate :- http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=160

:thumb:


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