zetaboostboy522bhp

yeh i know alex as i built his exhaust manifold , i honestly did around 37,000miles in one year in my 300bhp zetec turbo which still used the standard oil pump and when the engine got developed futher it was the same bottom end with no changes (only head , inlet manifold , exhaust manifold , turbo )got changed the pump did 522bhp on the dyno and is currently still fitted to the engine with no failures.
like i said maybe iam just the lucky one , who knows but its now not a risk iam willing to take
my advice is just because someone has run one fine for years dont mean anything , listen to the failures then seriously decide wether you are willing to take the risk and can you afford to replace the engine for the sake of £850


cheers paul

mattseries2

iTrader: (1)

£850? Is that all they are then?

zetaboostboy522bhp

they are if you know the right people , hes a good lad who is on here and iam sure he would be willing to help out if i asked

cheers paul

mattseries2

iTrader: (1)

For fwd application?

Liams

Titan unfortunately dont make a straight fit kit... the kit was designed for formula fords!
They know it works on N/a cars and fits straight in a race car, but its down to you if you want a kit for the road its your job to make it fit and re-config pump position and so on!

On mine I found it a blinkin mission just to plumb it back into the engine, the pump and fittings just didnt seem to want to work together with the position of the pump and origional oil pump housing!
When I phoned titan with the problems I kind of got the impression of "its your problem we know the kit works"

But once all together it did work and solved all my issues!

With people wanting to run 300hp or so I wouldnt honestly be that worried.. when my engine was in my fiesta first time round the engine was faultless at 280-300hp! Running standard pulleys I add..
Then when it went in the cortina it had a custom flywheel and custom front pulley so whether these contributed?? Oh and a gt30 with 2.4 bar put through it

Second time round.. yes I had 2 failures!! Once rebuilt I had a new ford oil pump crio-treated which obviously did bugger all due to the gear just being poor quality material in the first place!

When I rang Ian howell with the news and mentioned billet gears he said he had seen as many break as standard items.. I felt I had no choice but to drysump!

I personally am amazed that paul johnsons pump has lasted all these years in the focus but then it is a blacktop which seem to have the upper hand!

If anyones looking for the 400hp+ figures with a silver top im afraid its drysump time!! People say the kit is too expensive but when your playing with expensive engines you cant skimp on such important items!!

Liams

£850 will get you the standard kit... then you will have fabrication costs (unless you can do it all yourself)

Then you need to buy the oil tank, fittings, lines etc.... all in I reckon it cost me £1700-£1800

Liams

If your a bufty boy like luke you spend £500 quid on just an oil tank

mattseries2

iTrader: (1)

I want a solid reliable 300bhp, so do i go blacktop/silvertop? Dry sump or not? May well increase power later on, so i dont want to risk it to be honest, would rather do it right 1st time.

mattseries2

iTrader: (1)

Haha im not as bad as him!

Liams

Providing built properly in the first place silver tops are fine!!

Blacktops are a little less work I suppose being turbo'd in the first place so a standard engine will do the job for 300hp-380hp I believe..

Its funny because over the years seeing lots of articles on cars with Ian Howell engines your never heard of any problems and I dont think he had any problems! Zvh or 16v
Maybe its just the power barriers are being pushed or materials are getting cheaper and crapper!!

mattseries2

iTrader: (1)

Im thinking of gettin Ian to build mine.
If built well and balanced standard pump should hold 300-350bhp am i right?

Rick

Blacktop with a set of eagle rods and whatever forged pistons, 7100 rev limit, uprated valve springs - job done.

Rick.

grant_xr

the more i read this thread the more depressed i get lol.
ive got a silvertop with standard crank, eagle rods and je forged pistons built by devil developments.
Its got a high pressure oil pump - manufacturer unknown for now but could find out.
I'm planning on using a cvh efi flywheel and all other standard zetec pulleys.
I was planning on running around a bar mibbie 21psi if possible, hopefully around 300bhp.
Dont fancy risking it if the oil pump may fail tho - had enogh issues with my last engine - (cvh)
Don't know if my zetec engine has been balanced but i could find out.

Grant

Liams

Blacktops already have better rods dont they..?! Standard zetec items are only good for 280hp max..

It should do... but then it seems to be luck of the draw..

XRT_si

iTrader: (2)

I didn't think they made high pressure oil pumps for these engines? They certainly don't need them anyway.

I wouldn't worry mate, I think you have Matt's old engine, which made over 500bhp and 300bhp isn't stressing them enough to worry about, there's plenty making that kind of power. As long as you don't rev it too high.

Liams

I havent heard of any either.. maybe the pressure valve inside can be changed? My standard pump always had very good pressure anyways so as youve said they dont need one!

grant_xr

Maybe its not a high pressure pump then, I thought Lee had mentiond it but I may have just made that up lol.
It is Matt's old engine yeah, hope it will be ok!

Grant

clarke5700

gessing your also on xrtwo.com lol that engine has been run to over 400hp with no problems

Luca

iTrader: (2)

Probably one of the hardest parts to fit on a zetec conversion.

Mainly due to the fact there is not a direct kit.

As Liam has stated, the dry sump kits were only ever intended to be used with Rwd applications. This means if you want to fit it to a FWD you have a lovely job on your hands.

With every engine and car being so very different, its hard to make a Fwd kit suited to all.

You just have to offer the kit up and make adjustments as you go.

Price wise, you have to budget £1600-£3500 dependant on the spec of parts used if you were fitting yourself. More if being fitted by a suitable company.

Canada1

High rpm and high power on a Zetec - dry sump no question.
Why spend all those pounds on the rest of the engine, and skimp on a high quality
oiling system?
Porsche 911's have always used a dry sump system - probably the most reliable winning engine in endurance race history. I can't remember how many 24hr of Lemans a porsche flat six has won.

Just my opinion.

Cheers

massivewangers

iTrader: (1)

That is the ideal solution of course. But for those wanting a moderate power engine (300bhp-ish), spending £2000 on a bottom end can effectively double the bottom end build cost. The Zetec has always been a pretty cheap way to make decent power, but adding a dry sump makes it very expensive suddenly, and a lot of people want to avoid that if possible.

Think this has been one of the most interesting threads on here of late. It's nice to see some proper discussion on the matter.

XRT_si

iTrader: (2)

Agreed, no one's doubting for one second that a dry sump isn't the ideal solution; we all know it is and we all know it costs £2000+ as well.

The original post was to try and determine at what stage/power/revs the engine oil pump fails/need to go over to dry sumps basically.

Liams

Well in my fiesta the rev limit was set at 7k and had standard pulleys and was good as gold and was driven hard... With 280-320hp somewhere between the two..

XRT_si

iTrader: (2)

That's why I'm going to try and keep mine at 7k on standard pulleys and just try and put as much boost as it can take through it.

Fingers crossed! If it doesn't work...I'll buy a YB

phil_rs

iTrader: (3)

It amazes me how nowadays a moderate power ZT is 300 horse

I remember, back in the day, if you had a GENUINE 200bhp RST you were king!

I should imagine 300bhp is more than adequate for any fwd old Ford IMO, my bonus is a bit of a handlful at around 250!

PF Dave

I've been hitting nearly 8000rpm (quite literally) in mine for what, 4 years now on the standard pump (albeit rebuilt) without any problems.

Looks like I have the option of fitting a better item for the new engine...

XRT_si

iTrader: (2)

It seems revs alone don't kill them Dave, as Dunnell says he's yet to have a pump fail on even a race engine.

HockeyNomad

Im Running 500+ bhp on a Zetec Turbo in my focus RS,

I am currently on the standard pump and as such i have the Rev limit set to 7300 rpm soft cut - 7400 hard cut,

I do however have a ford racing oil pump and im looking into sourcing billet oil pump gears to fit in this, before raising the rev limit,

Personally i dont want to dry sump seems like and expensive and complicated way around it,

so im doing what i deem to be the best solution next to the full dry sump and taking my chances,

No failures yet,

where to buy the billet gears though lol,

I know c-f-m.com have them, but they are currently out of stock,

and i want the new oil pump and gears fitted for the MLR 30-130 day,

zetaboostboy522bhp

did ian howell build your engine , and are you using pectel t2 , if you are i may of built your t2 loom, i bet it feels really good in a cracking car like that?

cheers paul

JonnyBravo

Dry sumps aren't sadly £850 installed.

Steveboyslim can do the kits, the tanks and pipework can run to a LOT of money so allow atleast 2k for a complete install.

HockeyNomad

Hi mate no Ian didnt build my engine, although it does have one of his GT28's on it,

The engine was built between myself & Simon & Nick @ Sitech Racing, they done the headwork and cam profiles, and fitted and mapped the Heltech ECU,

Car has proven itself on a few different rollers now and im very very happy with it

The only thing now is this oil pump issue, as the power is still rising when i hit the limiter,

so i need to extend the rev range in order to realise its full potential,

Thats why this topic interests me so much,

I also had thoughts, what about using a dry sump pump and running it with the stock sump, albeit modified, and removing the shitty zetec oil gear,

Is that a possibility, i havent given too much thought to the ins and outs of it as yet, but at least that way you wouldnt have to find space for and oil tank in the engine bay, and you could mount the pump where the a/c compressor usually sits on the focus??

XRT_si

iTrader: (2)

Interesting idea!

Wasn't there someone selling electric oil pumps? Could an Accusump be used as a fail safe at least?

Rick

If you kill the engine when you see the pressure drop, you are unlikely to need to replace anything but the pump.

little bram

XRT si thanks for putting this thread up. my car is just about ready to come out and you've got me wanting to take the engine back out
i think am going to try to get a standard zetec flywheel on as soon as.
never seen a electric oil pump mate would be good to look in to

lee

XRT_si

iTrader: (2)

Yeah I've heard a few people get away with replacing nothing, but just for piece of mind in case you don't see the gauge drop in time. Which is what most people seem unlucky to be victim of.

Rick

my ecu is mapped to cut fuel if the pressure drops.

XRT_si

iTrader: (2)

Now that's a good idea, what ECU does that?

Liams

Having an external pump on standard sump you need the oil to be directed to where the pump scavenges from.. the drysump pan is designed so there's not much surface area so the oil is directeced straight to the outlets! If you could replicate that then who knows It could work?!

Karlos G

iTrader: (4)

Wouldnt it be better to cut spark rather than going lean? If your flat out full boost for example.

Think Rick is on Megasquirt MS3.

ST Turbo

Me and lee at devil developments had an idea of getting the gauge to control the coil pack on the engine. So once the oil pressure drops too low and the warning lights comes on it kills the power to the coil pack, this way you got more chance of saving the engine!

Like clarke and si have already said, mine let go after a few power runs at a reasonable power and reving under 7k! Lucky i spotted it really flashing away! lol!

Again i think its down to, unbalanced set up, and the movement of the oil pump around the crank, as once its turning at even 1000rpm there moving pretty quick and only need the slightest movement to crack as they are very delicate!