RS Motorsport :: Classic Speed Restored

Following on from this topic viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5778, I figured it would be O.K. to post about my little Laser. There's a bit of catching up to do so I'll post in stages.

I bought it in November 2011 as a cheap and cheerful means of getting back on the track after a three year break. My Mk1 project was still nowhere near finished and Escort prices were already getting a bit silly to buy another, so this seemed like a reasonable alternative. Plus it was old enough to go on the CH Plate scheme which was a bonus.

I always thought KAs were an ugly thing, but this one looked alright! It had a relatively fresh 1500 engine, Clive cam, rebuilt factory twin carbs, extractors, 2 inch exhaust, lowered springs, Nolathane bushes in the front end, 15 inch OZ Racing rims (from a Lancer), had been re-sprayed 18 months prior and was registered.







Let the smart arse comments begin!

The first task was to strip the interior, hit the sound deadener with dry ice and a chisel, order materials for a harness bar and weld it in, clean everything up and give it a lick of paint.








Yes the shoulder straps were subsequently crossed over after the photo was taken. The idea was to log it for Improved Production so the original side trims were kept and anything removed from the dash was paneled off.

I also managed to pick up a genuine KA Laser S rubber rear spolier in excellent shape, and found that the front lip from an old Cressida was fairly easy to adapt the KA's front end.

This is how it looked at Small Ford Sunday 2012. Photo credit to Peter Hackney.

Looks good Simon.

Years ago I had a 1981 Mazda 323 SS (same car different badge) and it went really well for a stocker. Always wondered what I would have went like with a bit of extra work.
Looking forward to seeing where you take it from here

Who did your welding Simon

Great stuff Mate,

Great welding to

Matt

Thanks Matt

To get the car ready for competition, my mate Warren who'd had a KB Laser Sport in the past, advised that the gearing in these things was way too tall and grab some small wheels and tyres to gear it down as much as possible. Given the car came with 7 original 13 inch alloys, I figured I may as well use them! I picked up a set of new old stock hard compound 175/60-13 A032s, which might not sound that exciting, but at $50 a pop they provided a good starting point.

So me and the Laser had our first crack at hillclimbing on a bitterly cold day at Rob Roy, and oddly enough managed to win the Non Logbooked class!





After having such an amazing time at Rob Roy I had the car log booked and we did the remaining two rounds of the Victorian Hillclimb Championship at Ararat and DECA, Shepparton. The added bonus was that because of the very social nature of hillclimbing, my family was having just as much fun as I was!

Nice welding

underrated little car the laser.

trying to find parts was one of the reasons i sold my KB turbo

Car is a great replacement simon, and any fun you have is a bonus of the hours youd have to spend on the escort to get to the same fun...
That's Why I also have the subazuki!
keep it up


Justin

I'm enjoying this. Keep it up.

Matt

yes it was a 5 door white lightning i think it was build 105

Love this car Simon. You've done a cracking job on it, and it looks like so much fun to punt about.

And the bonus for you was that it was up and running in double quick time so you could get out and drive the thing straight away. It didn't need hours and hours of fixing up like the Escort did.

Here's a closer pic of the wheels. Love these too.



And a couple from SFS in 2015

Thanks everyone.

Justin and Pete, you are 100% correct - having a solid platform to build on and just develop from there has been fantastic. Apart from a couple of spots of rust that were easily dealt with, it has been great not having to deal with panel and paint. It just allows for more seat time which is what I was missing!

After a pretty successful couple of years competing in the VHCC, the aim was to give the car a bit of a power up for 2015. I'd purchased a B6D long motor (1600cc twin cam from a fwd Capri - essentially an MX5 engine) from the wreckers the year before, so out came the E5 and work began fitting up the new engine and box.

First up, the standard KA front gearbox mount didn't quite align with the later gearbox, but after a few trial fitments and adjustments, I think it's about right now.







The rear gearbox mount probably would have been perfectly fine, but I'm a bit of a fuss pot so it got some tweaks too.


The driver's side engine mount, however, was never going to fit.





The plan was to remove the original KA body mount and adapt the Capri's engine mount.





I wanted the whole installation to look like it was just bolted in OE style, so I made some M10 threaded 6mm thick plates to provide mounting points on the chassis rail, welded them in and ground them back to try and make them look like pressings in the rail.






The next task was to add a third mounting point on the inner wheel arch, so I made this bracket from scratch. Again, the idea was for it look as OE as possible.





Welded in place and with a quick squirt of paint (ignore the runs, the whole lot will be repainted later).





Trial fitment of the Capri mount with the redundant spot welded plates removed and mocked up in place for the third mounting point to be added on.





All done.

Woops, been slack with updates.

The start of the induction set up - bike carbs from an R6 I believe. I drew up the mounting flange and had it laser cut and made up the short sections of tube at the carby ends. The carbs have been mocked up to match the port angle in the head, which is very similar to the angle the float bowls in the carbs need to sit at.



Bolted up to check clearance.





Next task was to make up the four inlet runners, some weld on vacuum ports, mounts for a vacuum manifold, a larger throttle pulley and some ram tube retainer plates.

A year since this thread started, how did it go with the new engine?
time for an update.

JP

Hey Justin,

It's going pretty well. So far I'm managing to better all my PBs set with the old engine before the cage went in, so it's made up for the added weight and then some, which is good.

Still plenty in it though - it is very much a bog standard wrecker engine tarted up with some bolt ons.







Unfortunately at the last round at Mt Leura I was looking for some extra time in the wrong place and found the new limit...







But we bashed it about a bit, taped it up and went out again to set a new PB. It's not too bad, just very annoying

All caught on camera too... https://youtu.be/p_BwE6k-BXY