Ford XR4Ti: The Road to Racing

Touge Techniques XR4Ti first shakedown: Gridlife CMP 2025

With any new race chassis, development really comes to light under heavy load and testing. The XR4Ti let us know where it would like to see improvements, mainly the exhaust manifold and airflow efficiency. I found the log manifold in combination of Ford 5-bolt exhaust housing was suppressing turbo response and ultimately the culprit to blowing the turbo gaskets which lead to a no-boost situation in competition.

Alan and assistant Kolby tackling turbo leaks with a temporary repair to make it to GLTC Qualifying.

Stack gauge paired with a BridgeMoto JGTC 2000 Series steering wheel. Beautiful Match!

Many spectators and fellow drivers were pleasantly surprised to see the Cosworth bodied XR4Ti in action at Carolina Motorsport Park, regardless of the teething pains of a new setup. This event provided me much insight and strategy to have the car revised and buttoned up for Gingerman Raceway in June 2025 with Gridlife GLTC.

No time was wasted upon getting the car back to the Touge Shop. The main changes performed will be to the complete head, turbo manifold and exhaust setup, and intercooler piping.

Ported out upper intake manifold is a perfect match to a port and polished lower intake manifold. This will aid in overall airflow and responsiveness with a bump in volumetric efficiency.

Garrett 5-bolt Ford Exhaust Housing on Left, Garrett V-band on Right. You can clearly see the v-band design is less restrictive and eliminates the internal gate design flaws when using an external wastegate.

Fully built head with solid lifters, high-rev springs, .595" IN/EX Cams solid roller camshaft, CNC ported and stainless-steel oversized valves. All in effort to rev the XRTi to 8000rpm consistently and safely!

Preparation is well underway with the turbo and head redesigns. A test and tune day is the next step once the fabrication is complete of the forward facing manifold and top mount turbo! More pics of these modifications coming soon...