Escort Sus Front

Escort Upgrades - Front Tie-Bar Suspension

This is one of those fantastic modifications that are so easy it's criminal! The picture show's the standard front suspension anti roll bar setup at the top (except pre-may '83 1.1 cars), and the seperate anti roll bar and tie-bar set up as found on the Series 1 RS Turbo underneath.

As you can see, the standard set up comprises of a rather bendy looking anti-roll bar that also acts as the tie-bar to locate the front Track Control Arms. Due to the shape of the bar, it allows a certain amount of movement of the TCA's away from there normal plane. This does have the benefit of providing a little extra comfort by soaking up more of the bumps and 'insulating' the driver a bit more from the road. However, it isn't so good as far as road holding performance is concerned! Under hard cornering it allows the front suspension geometry to get rather out of shape as the anti-roll bar flexis and gets pulled straight by the loads put onto it by the TCA's.

The lower set up overcomes this by having separate rigid tie-bars that keep the TCA's fixed where they should be and only allowing them to move in one plane of motion so retaining correct geometry. This set up was used on the original racing version of the Series 1 RS Turbo to bring the handling of the car up to scratch for the demands of the race track. As the Series 1 RS Turbo is a proper homologation car, it had to retain this uprated suspension system. The Series 2 RS Turbo did away with this system as it was not a homologation car so went back to the cheaper standard set up as found on the MK4 XR3i.

The RS 1600i was also a race bred version of the MK3 Escort and came before the RS Turbo and has it's own tie-bar set up. There are differences between the two but they both achieve the same goal. The main differences are the RS 1600i version has a one piece cast alloy cross member that everything mounts onto and the front mounts of the tie-bars are of a different design. The shape of the anti-roll bar is also different and it is of a thicker section at 26mm diameter. I have only covered the RS Turbo set up here as that is what I have and is the more commonly available, but fitting both types is the same.

To fit the bar you will need a complete unit if you can find one from any specialist breakers. You will also need 10mm longer mounting bolts for the iron plates as they are thicker than the pressed steel originals. It is then simply a case of unbolting your old bar and fitting this one in it's place. It really is that simple, well, almost. There is a couple of trouble spots. First of all, the clamps that hold the anti-roll bar to the tie-bar usually break when you try to dismantle them. This is due to corrosion between the aluminium clamps and the steel bolts passing through them this causes the clamps to swell and grip the bolts. As there only cheap castings they usually break under the force of trying to separate them and replacements are no longer available. This is not the end of the world, get your local engineering firm to make you some new ones giving them the originals as a pattern.

The other bit that'll irritate you is trying to free the gearbox mount as this tends to suffer in a similar way and you won't be able to remove the mounting bolt. Chances are the replacement unit will still have this attached anyway but if not, then cut through the bolt between the arm and the rubber mount. You should then be able to punch the remainder of the bolt out of the arm. New mounts and bolts are still available from Ford.

All you need do now is get the tie-bars set up at a suitably equipped garage and look forward to nice crisp handling. That is of course assuming that you have replaced your suspension bushes as well!

The contents of this website are purely a reflection of my own experiences and knowledge gained whilst working on my various projects. Anything you do based on what you have read here is done so entirely at your own risk.
Personally I wouldn't trust someone like me with a lawn mower! You have been warned! Flapper-bat!