Hello I own a 1989 Merkur XR4Ti… a little about it i bought it back in april of 2013 for 1600, now for 1600 you would already assume that it had issues which it did… i had bought it with a shot from driver strut, the drive shaft was about to fall off, the engine cam was warn head was cracked in many places, the exhaust rusted to hell, the rack and pinion steering bad, pretty much all sensors and such… but transmission was good, engine block good, for a wisconsin car hardly any under body or frame rust… its what you expect for a 80s car that has 150k miles… it is my daily driver and i have so far replaced pretty much the entire upper end besides the intake, turbo, headers, throttle body… distributor is new, cam is a ranger cam which is one of the best cams for this car, and stinger performance valves and springs… as far as i know ever problem that was of the car is now fix up and perfect aside from my interior… my leather seats are cracked, tach does not work, fuel gauge does not work… etc little quirks, but my plans are to come this summer, i plan to add a cosworth intercooler with a bypass valve, new polished headers, new intake, throttle body, and fuel rail, boost up the turbo to a safe 17lbs and from what im told from fellow merkur owners just that will put me up into the 250’s at least… then after about 2-3 years im getting the engine, trans all rebuilt and then goes in new connecting rods, crank shaft, give it a slight bore etc… fantastic plans! it currently is my daily. These are about the best pics i have atm…
Sounds like you have some good plans there, best of luck man.