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Introduction

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When I first built my Sylva Fury in 1993, the internet was still in its infancy, for me anyway! I bought my kit from the respected Jeremy Philips, owner and designer of Sylva Sportscars. The Fury ticked all the right boxes for me, it had a race proven chassis (based on the Stryker) and had a good looking 60s style body.  Having test driven Jeremy’s British racing green demonstrator I had no doubt this was the kit for me. I picked up the kit in the summer of 1993. The donor vehicle for the engine and gearbox was a Fiat Mirafiori sport. Both the engine and gearbox needed rebuilding, which I did myself. The mk2 escort axle and hubs were sourced from the scrap yard, in the days when they let you climb around the wrecks and remove the parts yourself! The build was all done in a small steel framed, asbestos paneled garage that barely kept the rain out! Getting a rolling chassis was relatively easy but the bodywork took a lot of measuring (twice) and careful cutting to make all t...
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Out of Hybernation

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In early 2001 our family moved to Texas from Lowestoft Suffolk. Initially we were not sure if it was a long term move so I put the Fury in to storage for a couple of years. Once we realized the move was for the long term I shipped the car over to Texas involving a lot of red tape. For many reasons I won’t go in to, the Fury sat in the corner of the various garages we had for over 17 years. I had an attempt to get it running in 2009, but it would not idle at all and disappointed, I let it go to rest again.   Earlier this year (2019) I cleared the way to get it on the lift and was determined to get it back on the road. I had purchased an all-round disc brake conversion and 5-point harnesses in 2007 that had sat in the boxes they came in. As the pictures illustrate it all started with a good wash.  So on March 27th this year the restoration began.  After getting it up on the lift the first task was to get the carburetors cleaned up...
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New water header and breather tanks

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The next plan was to remove the old Mini heater as it will almost never be required in Texas. It was always next to useless anyway.  I also wanted to use the space the heater occupied for a new water header tank and a crankcase breather.  I had originally used the left-over Fiat header tank, mounted on the heater box, as this is the highest place in the engine bay. While I never had any over heating problems, I'm not sure if it did its job or not, plus it was pretty ugly. With the heater gone I needed to make up a cover plate for the hole in the bulkhead and to mount the tanks. The breather tank came with 1/2" hose barbs, I am a bit concerned this diameter will be too small but we will see. With the water tank installed I can fill the cooling system. I have tried to research the best coolant for the twin cam engine. It appears Fiat originally specified Petronas Paraflu 11. And whilst it is still featured on the Petronas website, I cannot find a d...
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HiSpec Rear Disc Upgrade on a Sylva Fury (Mk2 Escort English axle) video only.

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This conversion has been far more problematic than I'd ever thought it would be.  1. The discs supplied had to be machined to fit over the ends of the axle. 2. The calipers required a Sierra handbrake cable, my Fury was set up for the Escort cable. 3. I had to re-drill the holes to bolt the caliper support bracket to the axle casing ends. 4. When all was assembled the inside of the wheel rubbed on the caliper. I had read some poor reviews of the handbrake mechanism on these calipers and have to say when I tried to make it work on the bench it didn't look good. Coupled with the work required to make the Sierra cable work, I decided to take a completely different route. I adapted the caliper's mechanism to be 'operated' by the Escort cable, but also placed a hydraulic cylinder in-line to the rear brakes to operate the calipers hydraulically.  I realize there is some question of the legality of these 'hydro-hand brakes' on the road, but I think if the original ...
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New Brakes

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When I first built the Fury I used the standard Escort brakes, discs on the front and drums on the rear. They were adequate since they were designed to stop a small steel bodied saloon. However I wanted to upgrade to discs all round so in 2007 I bought a kit from HiSpec Motorsport. The kit stayed in the box until recently so I unpacked it and dismantled the front hubs.  Everything came apart easily, the new 280mm cross-drilled disc seemed like it wouldn't fit on the back of the hub, but putting the hub in the freezer overnight to 'shrink' it made the disc fit perfectly. The front kit came with an adaptor to fit on to the old caliper mounts with everything reassembled I offered up the new calipers and...... they didn't fit. Long story short, I had been supplied calipers that were a direct replacement for the originals with the original discs! After a lot of  correspondence with HiSpec over a few months, I ordered new, correct calipers.  I moved to the...
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