CAKUNDU AUTO MECHANIC

NEWS

Rotary Engine on an Escort!

Back in 2001 my friend Frank Spiteri decided to put a Rotary Engine on a Ford Escort. He wanted to race it at Hal-Far Race Track in Malta. It wasn’t an easy job but between the two of us we did well. Finally the day arrived to start the car. What a beautiful sound that was!

We encountered a lot of setbacks. One of our biggest problems was, and still is, that to get to the race track it takes us half an hour ferry and another 2 hours to cross to the other side of Malta with the car on a trailer. That doesn’t encourage us at all to do the trip often!! So that leaves us no option but to end up trying to set the engine in the garage and hope for the best when we go to the race track. More often than not, a race would serve us to test our car out more than to actually race it and give us the best performance possible.

With the standard rotary engine 13B \'86-\'89 model single turbo, 2 Rotor engine, standard ECU we managed to do a quarter mile drag race in 11.8sec. Then Frank decided to modify the engine by porting it and switching to a programmable ECU. At that time the best choice fell on a Wolf3D V3. A bigger turbo was installed. The best time we did so far after the modifications was a 10.321sec in a quarter mile drag race!! And it wasn't even a full run!! Pretty impressive, no? Especially when no nitro was ever used.

I must take this chance to thank Steve Taylor from Australia whose helpful advice in installing the ECU was priceless. Our aim is to do the race in the 9sec. bracket without any help from the nitro's. We still have our ups and downs, but that never discourages us. Hopefully one day we might have where we can test run our car in Gozo.

Cyprus

One day early in 2004 we were contacted by our British Wolf3D supplier and friend Andrew of Centauri, UK. He wanted to know if we were interested to go to Cyprus to set up a Wolf3D ECU on a Lotus7 Kit Car with a Nissan Engine! That sure seemed challenging and it quickly got us interested.

The day came when on a beautiful February day we travelled to the inviting island of Cyprus. We were met by our client, Angelo, and treated with a lot of courtesy. The 3 day stay couldn’t have been better. We worked hard those 3 days because we really wanted to get the job done. But luck wasn’t with us. We needed a part that had to be shipped over from Australia.

Disappointed that we hadn't been able to start Angelo’s car we came back home to
 

Gozo where we awaited the arrival of the part. When it finally did, we tested Angelo’s ECU and it worked great.  That quickly sent us back to Cyrus to finish the job we had started. Again we were met by Angelo and were treated like old friends by him, his friends and his excellent mechanic. Another 3 days of hard work and a lot of testing and adjusting of the engine, but WOW!!! It finally paid off and the wonderful sound
of the engine was heard. Nothing could compare to the smile on Angelo’s face and the satisfaction Frank and I felt.

Leaving Cyprus was like leaving old friends behind, but now we are hoping to have Angelo come to visit us and join us at Hal-Far Race Track.