1987 Ford Sierra RS 500 Cosworth from UK and Ireland - Comments

UH no, not like an F1 car, F1 cars have a very high torque figre when compared to most road cars, and the fact they only weigh about 600 kilo's help too.

Low torque figures compared to thier HP figures yes they do. yes it's a lot of torque compared to say a standard road car, but considering they kick out about 700/750 hp from the 2.4 litre engine the torque figure is low... same as s2000 because it's a naturally aspirated engine not a turbo. u can easily increase HP on say a supra or skyline to 750HP and the torque figures would be much more than the F1 car, but get destroyed by said car. the weight of the car has nothing to do with torque. my point being torque isn't everything.I've seen a 197bhp integra spank a seat leon cupra R with 225bhp and a turbo engine with a lot more torque.I've seen an s2000 annilalate a 300zx with more than 50HP more and a bag load more torque.

I would take the RS500 over any Honda Badged machine (maybe not the NSX, but that is a different class).

Who would've thought it that a Ford RS 500 over 20 years old would be fetching for nearly 20k standard!

Overall you have a unburstable block, great handling and as-long as you look after it, a car that will not only hold its value, but increase with every passing year!

Keep them standard guys as this classic does'nt need max power bodykits and silly neon lights.

I will :)

Better buy German.

Cosworth all the way

vtec = hand job

also you can get over 280 bhp from a cossy for less than £300 (nms gunship chip)

Spend £300 on the honda 210bhp if you are lucky.

Matt.

That's coz the honda is a NA car you pleb

u can get big power gains with a chip ON ANY TURBO CAR!!! even a diesel, not just a cosworth.

Turbo the honda then you will get the same power gains from a chip.

You wanna go messing around with a turbo on a VTEC? a car never ment for turbo charging? your wallet, (and head gasket!) cars like the cossie have it all in place, and are hungry for power upgrades.

I have done it very succesfully and so have thousands of other people. the only basic things you need to do to ANY engine to add a turbo is change the compression ratio, up the fuelling and its done. (OK that's the bare minimum, but some people just do that. i mean you can even buy a bolt on turbo for a ford KA these days. just because a car doesn't originally come equiped with a turbo or a supercharger doesn't mean it can't take it.

I have had a N/A car, then had a turbo conversion. But this was a simpler engine it wasn't a VTEC. The very essence of a VTEC I thought would be incompatible with a turbo, (I expect there have been a few people saying "what was that") VTEC's (I thought) are about gaining power by generating already dangerously high revs. Turbos kick in at low revs giving very high amounts of torque, then carry on through the revs. (so in theory you should have lots of torque and high reving BHP) but if it was my car I wouldn't like the thought of 9000 RPM, a 44000 RPM turbine and lots of boost. So boost will have to be limited in theory to keep any sort of reliability. Much less than a non VTEC car. I don't know too much about VTEC, but that's just my understanding.

Well if you search on honda turbo's online or on youtube you will find literally thousnads of vtec turbo's ranging from 200/800 bhp. there is no reason why VTEC would be dangerous with a turbo as all VTEC does is change cam profiles to a higher degree giving more power. its no different than adding a fast road cam to any turbo car, its not dangerous at all. as for boost my T3/T04 turbo is running 5.6 psi, soon to be changed to 8.7 psi. the only limiting factor on boost is the compression ratio which on mine I've dropped from 11.1 down to 9.0 so I can safely run a bar of pressure if I want to. and as for revving the engine to 9000 rpm, that's all down to the cams and head work that honda done before the car came out of the factory. so revs are nothing to worry about, these engines can go on for 200,000 miles no problem. as for the turbo spooling up to high rpms, again its no different than on any turbo car as long as you have the cooling needed theres nothing stopping the turbo revving high, go back to the eighties when F1 cars used 1.5 litre turbo engines producing 1300bhp and revving over 13,000 rpm. o and my turbo spools up to full power at about 4500 rpm and yes like you say I have bags of torque now all over the rev range.. especially when I hit VTEC, and yes it makes wonderfull noises all throug the rev range changing pitch on VTEC crossover.

I just wish to add a comment here, I am not biased in anyway. Its OK saying that the Japanese can build a good engine, but people are putting ford down here and I wish to make a point on it. Yes the Japanese can build high horsepower engines now, but it was ford that built the best and they done it 20 years earlier than the Japanese so they had the sight to see that it could be done even then. the rs 5oo cosworth is still the greatest and the best.

The Cosworth YB engine is a motorsport legend, and needs no apologies or comparisons. It's won rally championships, touring car championships and is still one of the most sought after powerplants in club level motorsport all over the world. It's even won at Bathurst for heaven's sake. There is no motorsport discipline at which it was eligible that it didn't win convincingly. British engineering at its absolute finest!

This is why people remember this engine, and the cars it appeared in fondly after 20 years, and why the Sierra Cosworth will always be a performance icon among people who know. No disrespect to your Honda VTECs, but turbocharge them all you want, the Cossie still did more for less 20 years ago and will be remembered long after the Honda is forgotten. 450 bhp isn't even breaking a sweat for a YB in road trim and that's on standard internals. Try that in your VTEC and let me know how long before the internals become externals. lol.

I have to wonder if all these people with hopped-up motors have informed their insurers. There is also a great deal of other baloney.

For example one poster reckons that "you can stick a turbo on anything". Well you probably can, but engines designed to be turbo-ed usually have oil cooled pistons and many other heavy duty parts.

About 30 years ago I worked at Longbridge, and part of my job was calibrating the dynos in the engine test cells. I asked the engine builders their opinions of turbos and the consensus of opinion was "not much good really, terrific heat and puts a lot of strain on the engine". For diesels things are a bit different.

By the way another poster reckons that "diesels don't have any power". Hmm what about diesels winning the Le-Mans 24 hours then? The latest diesels have four valves per cylinder and are turbo charged and intercooled. Detroit Diesels V6 (VM really) will be powering the latest Cadillac. Now that diesels are no longer rev-limited by a "jerk-pump", power has increased tremendously. Best of all fairly high power can usually be used continuously as there are no sparking plugs to overheat.

As to spark plugs, I once had to check the calibration of a dyno that was allegedly faulty. This was because the engine coupled to it had lost 20HP whilst the engine builder had been on holiday. Turned out that apprentices had fitted dodgy plugs to wind the bloke up. I have to take my hat off to the bloke though for being the only mechanic I have ever seen who could produce new spark plugs from his sleeves and craftily make the duds vanish just like a magician. After that the lost HP miraculously returned. Grrrrrr! I spent ages calibrating the fraud.

Well considering the honda has a compression ratio of 11:1 which is way too high for boost, of course the engine would go bang at 400+ hp. but your missing the point. if you lower the compression ratio to something more suited for boost (on a honda anything below 9:5) then that engine can take 400+bhp no problem too. o and to the last comment the honda b18c engine already has oil jets built in to the standard pistons and a coating to reduce friction too.

In standard form I have never had any problems keeping up with a sierra cosworth or an escort cosworth in my 1.8 16 valve honda. with the turbo added nothing around here could touch it; from evo's to scooby's and skylines.. they all trailed in the hondas wake.