Soon after I purchased this 88 Escort GT, the car died unexpectedly. Somehow I came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to swap in a Zetec, rather than put in another stock engine. It must have been a period of heavy drinking and sleep deprivation.

One of the first decisions I made was to keep the original transmission, which makes the swap a whole lot easier and cheaper. I used a Zetec from a 98 ZX2, but other Zetecs should be similar. This is not the easiest swap out there but not the hardest either. You will need to weld and things like an engine lift will come in handy. Other than that it’s mostly normal hand tools.

With this write-up and some smart shopping I’m confidant this could be done in under a month with $1000. Trying to figure it out on my own a little at a time took more like a year and $2500. Yeah, I’m not too smart.

Note: While the Zetec bolts right to the MTX-III transmission there are some gaps that should be sealed by making a plate to put between engine and transmission. I still have to do that.

Required Parts

• Zetec Engine (I used one from a 98 ZX2)
• All accessories like the alternator, power steering pump, etc.
• Flywheel bolts (the reason I had to wait an extra month to drop my engine in)
• 95-97 Contour Zetec fuel rail
• Contour Zetec power steering pressure hose
• MegaSquirt 2 or other standalone engine management system
• EDIS 4 module
• SPI crank pulley, or modified Zetec pulley with crank trigger on it
• VR sensor
• Radiator fan
• Universal heater hoses
• Radiator hoses (more on this later)
• Accessory belt (Summit has them in many lengths)

What you need to keep from the 1.9HO engine, I’m not sure what’s different on the other engines:

• Oil pan/pick-up tube
• Dip Stick
• Starter
• Flywheel
• Clutch
• Passenger side “front” engine mount

We’re going to start with what needs to be modified on the engine itself.

Oil Pan
The Zetec uses the same bolt pattern for its oil pan as the CVH engines, so it would just bolt on, except that the oil pump is in the way. I ground on my oil pan and oil pump until they stopped arguing, but there may be a better way to solve the problem. I was recently looking at the contour oil pan, and it seems to be made of stamped steel, as opposed to the zx2’s crazy two-piece aluminum/steel thing. So it would bolt on and clear the oil pump. Then with some careful work with a hammer and/or a welder, it could work with the starter. Whatever you use, you’ll need the proper pick-up tube to go with it. Also, thanks to Ford’s block design recycling, there is a hole in the Zetec block with a freeze plug in it where the dip stick fits perfectly.

Fuel Rail
The contour fuel rail is needed because it uses a return style fuel system unlike the ZX2. All you need to hook it up to the stock fuel system is some various connectors you can get at any auto parts stores.

Flywheel
The Zetec flywheel has holes for the crank position sensor in it so the flywheel has to only bolt on one way. To do this, one or two of the bolt holes are unequally spaced. Unfortunately the Zetec flywheel is the wrong size, so the original flywheel/clutch is used. This means the bolt holes have to be drilled or filed slightly to get them to line up. Don’t forget the Zetec flywheel bolts, the original ones are the wrong size.

Crank Trigger

Because the crank trigger is on the flywheel of the Zetec, now you need to find a different place for a crank trigger. The second and third generation Escorts with the CVH engines have the trigger on their crank pulleys. They will bolt right on, but stick out a bit too far, so the back side has to be ground down. You could also put a crank trigger ring on the stock Zetec crank pulley. I mounted my VR sensor on a custom bracket coming off the bottom of the alternator mount.

Accessories/Belt

The ZX2 alternator and power steering pump will fit fine. The A/C could work, but it didn’t seem worth it to me. Depending on what accessories you want, the belt can be routed different ways, and some idlers pulleys can be moved or swapped. Just make sure the water pump is always going the right way. I think the length for my belt was 38” but that was a long time ago, so I’m not sure.

And now for everything else:

Exhaust

For a manifold, I used the header from my GT with the flange cut off, and then the flange from the Zetec manifold welded on. I don’t know how well this will last in the long run, but Zetec headers should fit with minimal issues.  I also welded up the holes from all the EGR tubes, making this swap of questionable legality.

Engine Mount

I used the original engine mount and some plate steel to make a sturdy mount. I also had to drill and re-tap the holes on the Zetec side of the mount because no one sells grade-8 metric bolts around here.

Intake

For the intake, you can pretty much do whatever you want. I used some universal pieces from PepBoys and sent the intake through the firewall into the space next to the (shortened) washer fluid bottle. This gives it quite a growl, and it’s actually quite a bit louder than the exhaust. I also used part of a plastic bin to make a shield over the filter.

Hoses/Cooling
For power steering I used a pressure hose from a Contour, which may or may not be the same as one from a zx2. It needed some sections bent a bit to get it to fit right, but it’s mostly right. For the hose from the reservoir to the pump, I used some heater hose. I left the original radiator in place, but with an eBay 14” fan on it, because the original was just huge, and the motor barely cleared something, I don’t remember what though (it’s been a long year). For coolant I used the stock hoses with some various copper pipe sections to make everything fit right. For heater hoses I just used universal heater hose and a few hard sections I had laying around.

Wiring

For wiring and engine management, I’m just going to direct you to http://www.megasquirt.info/ because they can tell you what you’d need a lot better than I can. Note: The VCT actuator on the ZX2 engine can just be left unplugged, because it acts like a regular cam when unplugged.

Some other things you can try that I didn’t do would be swap in the ZX2 or another radiator. That might make the hoses a little simpler. You can also try the contour oil pan.

While I’m on the subject, in retrospect a Zetec from a Ford Contour may have been a better place to start. It doesn't use VTC, it has a bunch of the right parts already, and it's probably cheaper. You can also try one from a Focus, but the accessories are all different. You could also swap in a whole engine/transmission, but that would likely double the cost and quadruple the fabrication.

A couple of notes from The Jawa - the Contour Zetec doesn't have the VCT system at all (or at least not on the '95-97 cars) so that would simplify things. IIRC, Contour went to a return less fuel system in '98 or '99, so again earlier parts are better. Also, the Contour Zetec had a in-block water pump driven off the timing belt much like the one on the CVH engine, whereas the ZX2 Zetec had an external housed pump. So that might simplify the belt system.

Swapping the Engine (Adapted from Randys ERDT Post):

After several months of work, the engine started to come together. I had the 1st Gen oil pan fitted (pain in the ass) and was starting to work out details like the dipstick. Finally I dropped the engine in to make sure it bolted up right and to modify the engine mount.

You can see in the next two pics that I had the A/C compressor bungee corded out of the way but I soon gave up on trying to save it. (Turns out there was no refrigerant in the system anyway.)

The engine came out again to do the final preparations for it which took about 2 months longer than it should have. (That's what happens when you're constantly waiting for parts.)

Finally, I dropped the engine in "for good". You can see my header, which is the 1.9HO header welded to a Zetec flange. It's a little ghetto but it gets the job done.

The intake threw me for a little bit, but then I noticed a nice empty spot on the other side of the firewall.

Once I had the rest of the coolant hoses sorted out, using stock pieces and copper fittings, I finally could try to start it. It would sputter for a little while and die, but it was progress. I determined that it needed a stronger fuel pump and I discovered that it had a fuel leak. Then the starter died and the MSII was giving me crap.

The project went on hold for a bit at this point while I went off to college.

I spent a few months working out these issues and trying to figure out why the Megasquirt wasn't getting an RPM signal from the EDIS module. I literally spent 3 months of working on it about every other weekend trying to figure out what the problem was. I rewired everything, I tested the MS on the stim board, I bought a new EDIS module. Finally when I was about 1 weekend away from giving in and parting the car out, I decided to reload the firmware on the Megasquirt, and it worked. It would barely idle, but it was finally working again.

After that I fixed all the leaks and started to do some tuning. Before long I could get the engine to rev nicely. I got it to run consistently and to rev without backfiring.