fiestaturbo.com

[megaflea]

Glad to see more people doing this now! I know I was really interested back when I first saw Freak Power mention this. Seeing this post come back up makes me want to do it again!

I may have asked this before (probably in this topic!) but do the pistons clear the under piston spray jets OK?

yes, they clear them just fine, i went for an rs1800 block with under piston oil jets, for added cooling, however, if you google under piston oil jets, some people say they are pointless and others say that are amazing..

[megaflea]

Cheers, for the reply. I have a set of rods apparently made for these pistons- are the pins 19mm?

If so would it be a straight fit if i got a set of AGU pistons with gudgeon pins?

no, it is not a straight fit, the block must be machine and rehoned to 81.00 mm,

also you will need the AUQ pistons, they have the 19mm pin, the AGU/BAM ones, are 20mm

(prime performance had a small batch of rods made for the audi 1.8t pistons, a few sets with 20mm gudgeon pins and a few with 19mm gudgeon pins, the 20mm rods went pretty quickly and there 19mm pin rods were available for a while and then get reduce in price to sell quickly i assume)

the piston skirts them self are 80.95mm and the zetec block was originally 80.6mm even if your block had done 200k miles the pistons wouldnt fit past the lip at the top where the rings end on the stoke.

a good machinist will charge about £130 for a cut and hone.

[TomPengelly]

What head gasket do i use if im keeping my 1.8 head?

[freak power]

Use a black top 1.8 Zetec.

[megaflea]

What head gasket do i use if im keeping my 1.8 head?

The blacktop gasket from an early 1998-1999 mk1 focus is the best one to get they come up at 1mm compressed (4 layer mls) [but hard to locate]

The 1999 onwards focus gaskets comes in at 0.8mm compressed (3 layer mls) and is way easier to find and cheap (around £23 on trade at ford)

The standard 1.8 zetec silvertop gasket yeilds a lower compression rate, but may be weaker.
In an ideal world a cometic 1.8mm headgasket would give a nice low CR and be strong but they are expensive £100+ and are custom made (but apparently reusable).

I can supply a good but not yet tweaked safe map for megasquirt for anyone who's building one of these.

at some point this year I will be having it mapped (Baileys performance have been recommended but it means flatbed and driving the car across the country , however my local rolling road Quest Motorsport are keen to map it also.