This was my first build, and real car effort of any sort. It was a great learning and experimentation platform. This won't be much of a writeup because the whole list of modifications can be seen on the 97 Escort build that came after this one, because this car was scrapped in favor of a more rust free and cleaner chassis, and all the parts were transferred.

Following is a quick summary of lessons learned and conclusions, followed by a gallery.

• Northern chassis are much worse than southern chassis, due to rust and sometimes the thick rubber undercoating.
• The 50 dollar paintjob, although popular on the internet, and uses Rustolleum colors, ensures bad results. Rustoleum colors suck. Though it was necessary at this point because the car had two of it's doors swiped and required quick replacement on a budget.
• Aerocatch hoodpins can sometimes work below expectations.
• The flexible steel braided radiator hoses from Summitracing.com and others are a waste of time and money, it's better to just hook them up with various cut combinations of pre-curved hoses from an auto parts store. The steel braided design is a pita to work with and doesn't do much. They don't really flex either.
• The F1 style Carbon Fiber mirrors are just a carbon fiber overlay and while the view angle is nice the mirrors themselves are cheap junk on eBay. Need to find a real quality pair.

Also see

• Ford Escort & ZX2 section for the entire index of all Ford Escort and ZX2 related articles.