S4 Duratec Project *The finishing Touch*

[Spyder fan]

My thread that was originally started in The Gallery ( S4 FHC, Soon to be DHC ) should now continue in the new MODS discussion group.

Progress has been slow, but it has been positive and the finish date may well be before June this year. The car is now definitely a DHC and we are comitted to a 2:0L Duratec mated to a Mitchell Cotts MTX75 5 speed gearbox (Mt75 minus bellhousing). After trialling various bellhousings Spyder have found one that puts the starter motor in a half sensible position although they have had to alter the chassis in a few places to provide clearance for the starter motor and the remote oil filter.

The Duratec series of engines have the exhaust and inlet ports on the opposite sides to a Lotus twincam or Ford Zetec, this presents a unique problem for routing the exhaust manifold as there is very little clearance between the chassis and the sump on the right hand side. The pictures below show the almost artistic shape of the specially fabricated manifold.

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

Wow, that's an incredible bunch of bananas, I am very impressed.
Equal length primaries, I assume?
Will the master cylinders still fit & not cook?
Pray tell, who did that fine piece of work?

Cheers
John

[Spyder fan]

John,
I'm assured that the master cylinders will go in and live there nicely without a hitch and yes equal length primaries they are. I'm afraid I'm totally ignorant regarding who actually did the job, Spyder sent the car away before Christmas all very hush hush and it came back just last week. The legendary "Mike the Pipe" would have been proud of this job I'm sure.

This was really the last major non standard item, everything from now on is stuff that Spyder do every day. It's now a fact that a Duratec will fit in an S4 or +2 without needing a huge bulge in the bonnet.

Regards

[bcmc33]

Alan,

I'm interested to know why Duratec and not another Zetec?

[Spyder fan]

Alan,

I'm interested to know why Duratec and not another Zetec?

Hi Brian,
The zetec is getting long in the tooth now, they have been around for 20 years. The Duratec on the other hand is a current engine and is well catered for by tuners, its also very easy to extract big numbers from with a simple cams swap and jenveys, 210bhp straight out of the box is what you get. Bigger power is straightforward and 280bhp is not unusual with some going over 300. The Duratec is a very tourquey engine for a twincam, its also lighter than a zetec being alll aluminium, some of the components are more robust, notably the timing chains instead of a rubber belt. This is the next stage in modified Elans IMHO, I'm having a great time being involved in pioneering this.

Regards

[gerrym]

Alan, are you doing anything special for the sump and oil pickup. Dry sump perhaps. Always keeping in mind the need to maximise sump to ground clearance whilst retaining a decent amount of sump capacity.

Those exhausts, you really must tell us who did the work.

Re the MT75 gears, with 300+ BHP being posibble are you sticking with Ford OEM teeth sets and ratios, or are you looking at fancy internals such as big teeth (and big money).

I see ypu have what looks like a Raceline water-rail.... John I feel a debate coming on re how to control water temperature, flowrate, bypasses etc

Just another pointer, did you every see my pictures showing the machined off edges for the MT75 prop shaft. Enables the propshaft to be inserted and removed without disturbing the gearbox.

Regards
Gerry

[Spyder fan]

Hi Gerry,
Nice to hear from you.

I will ask Sean at Spyder to spill the beans about who made the pipes and report back on here soon. I had a meeting in Spyders workshop last week and the biggest topics of discussion were boring stuff regarding trimming and chrome plating, we were meant to meet up before Christmas but the weather put paid to that and work has got in the way since then It was actually quite nice to talk about the boring stuff because there was a long period where we thought it wasn't feasible to use a Duratec on a road car without compromising the look and feel of the car, meaning there was the possibility of an ugly power bulge or graduated bonnet and the bellhousing options initially meant we would have to cut away the passenger footwell to get a starter motor sited, this is all solved now and its relatively plain sailing zetec style from now on.

The sump being used is the Raceline lowline wet sump setup, details here http://www.raceline.co.uk/products/part_section.asp?SectionID=22&CategoryID=1 we have quite literally raided Racelines catalogue for quite a few parts including the Duratec R cam cover you can see in the pictures which saves 25mm on the overall height of the engine, this together with the sump means the engine fits under an S4 bonnet and it also fits into a +2 bonnet (just) we know because Spyder have a spare front section from a +2 that was trial fitted over the S4 chassis with the Duratec in place (everything is the same at the front of the chassis whether +2 or S4).

The Mitchell Cotts MTX75 is capable of handling up to 250bhp in standard form, or so their blurb states, I'm not going above 220bhp with this car so I will leave the development of enhanced drivetrains to some other brave soul to solve. A total weight of 800 ish kilos including the driver equals 275 BHP per tonne, this puts it in the ballpark of most so called Supercars.

Regarding the Raceline water rail and cooling setup that has been criticised here on the forums before, I have done 15000 miles in the last 3 years in my +2 and at least 5000 of those were abusive miles including track days and 35+ celsius hot summer days. Apart from the initial warmup where the temperature gauge rises to 90+ C the temp never goes above 85 in traffic or after a hard run on circuit. The initial warmup figure is a false reading because the sensor is effectively on the wrong side of the thermostat in the configuration it is run on the zetec rwd engine. Their blurb on the system as follows

Raceline use and recommend the 1800 Zetec water pump for all its engine conversions, and when the Raceline water rail is used in conjunction with a 1800 water pump the system operates as follows: the water pump draws coolant from the radiator and pumps it into the water jacket, and as the coolant absorbs heat from the engine it flows back and up into the Raceline water rail at the rear of the cylinder head, where the Ford thermostat housing was previously mounted. Coolant then passes forward along the water rail towards the thermostat housing. From there, it returns to the radiator, provided the thermostat is open. During the warm-up phase a small by-pass hole in the thermostat allows some water flow, so preventing local overheating.

Regards

[Mark B]

There's been several debates reg the raceline water rail on the wscc (westfield club) over the years. I've fitted about half a dozen of them to raod and track cars in the past 8 years and have never had a problem, period.

Although racelines fitting instructions aren't terribly descriptive and can be viewed by the user from different perspectives, the people who have had problems usually have plumbed them in wrong, or have confused a header tank with an expansion tank system. I always run a header tank with them and have changed the thermostat to suit the cars airflow/radiator/engine spec. There are another couple of tweaks I've done to get it working spot on. I personally really rate all the raceline products & Chris and Pete are very helpful and informative if you do need help.

If anyone is struggling with a water rail install I'd be happy to help or post pics of my westfield cooling system as an example.

Cheers,
Mark.

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

I've said all I want to say about the function of the Raceline coolant rail & the way it can't work in conjunction with the Elan heater system without major modification.
Gerry has written fully on the modifications that he has made to one, to make it work properly in a +2.
Maybe Gerry is up for renewing the debate & if it does re-start it'll be interesting but reach the same conclusions in previous discussions.
That sounds a bit pompous, for which I appologise.
I only ask those interested to check the earlier postings on the subject & to indicate to us the "tweeks" that make the, as supplied, Raceline part work in an Elan; note not a Seven or a +2!
When I asked them, niether Raceline nor Spyder could provide acceptable answers

John

[Mark B]

Hi John,

Apologies if it sounded like I was trying to open old wounds or start an argument, I wasn't.

I've had a fair bit to do with most of racelines products and in particular the water rail, and merely offer any help if wanted. I haven't seen any earlier threads about it and will have a search for it, but can't see off the top of my head why it wouldn't work in an elan with a zetec instead of a westfield/caterham with a zetec.....

A sensible discussion is always worthwile though....

Cheers,
Mark.

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

Hi John,

Apologies if it sounded like I was trying to open old wounds or start an argument, I wasn't.

I've had a fair bit to do with most of racelines products and in particular the water rail, and merely offer any help if wanted. I haven't seen any earlier threads about it and will have a search for it, but can't see off the top of my head why it wouldn't work in an elan with a zetec instead of a westfield/caterham with a zetec.....

A sensible discussion is always worthwile though....

Cheers,
Mark.

Mark,

no apologies needed, your posting didn't offend me in the slightest & fresh thoughts on any subject here are welcomed by all.
But please do take the time to sift through earlier postings on here about that water rail; mostly covered by either Gerry or myself.
Perhaps you can tell us what measurements, observations & "tweaks" you have made for you to conclude that the component works well.
Having said that it is of course vital to know how the rest of the cooling system is configured & what type of thermostat/housing is used in that configuration.
I only have a hand drawn sketch of the cooling system that I applied to my Elan but the flow is identical to that of the Ford Mondeo, which the Zetec was designed for.
Unfortunately my computer ability is lousy so I couldn't provide a good diagram of the system & a scan of my sketch would look like some sort of Cave drawing.

Cheers
John

[Mark B]

Unfortunately my computer drawing skills are no better, but I will dig out a photo which should help immensely....

I had a search yesterday & found gerry's thread with pics, I'm still not totally clear on the problem in the first place though, is it because of the height (or lack of) of the heater causing airlocks or temperature fluctuations?

The raceline instructions are poor I have to agree and only really relate to a car using no header or expansion tank for circuit use.

The supplied thermostat needs the lip grinding down to fit properly between the rail and stat housing and isn't always the correct temp spec depending on the car, radiator & engine spec installed.
I always use a header tank & fit a standard (non pressure cap) to the stat housing on the rail to prevent coolant pouring onto the exhaust manifold.
This has always worked a treat for me & with the correct rated stat warms upto approx 80 ish degrees and stays there unless in traffic.

I'll dig a pic out in the next day which should make my ramblings clearer!

Cheers,
Mark.

[theelanman]

blimey....
300bhp....
thats gotta be brown trouser teritory........
Ive seen one with a 2.0 vauxhall touring car engine in and boy did that fly.....
a duratec with 300bhp will need to be treated with care I guess......
all looks good tho.....

[Mark B]

As promised here are the pics. I did some searching and found gerrys modification thread but not much from you John?





The header tank feeds the heater via a 16mm pipe and goes to a T at the water pump/bottom hose, the rail feeds the top rad hose & has an 8mm return to the header tank, aswell as also feeding the heater. The stat is a higher rating than the standard raceline supplied item and has a 5mm bypass hole in it. The cap on the rail is a standard blank cap and the radiator is a vw polo unit with a ducting system feeding it with cool air. Originally it did suffer from overcooling with the ducted system, and with the other thermostat the temperature used to drop back after it had opened, but once the correct stat was found for the engine & car it's spot on.

The temp rises and gets to about 84 degrees and stays there (unless in traffic) with no fall off in temperature, the heater is nice and warm and the coolant never needs topping up.

Cheers,
Mark.

[gerrym]

Mark, we are pretty much talking along the same lines. A key part of the system you describe is a continuous bleed / recycle back to the header tank, with a feed back to the pump suction.

Various tweaks and that's all they would be, would be to move the bleed takoff to the part of the system where any air/vapour would create the most harm (generally top corner of the radiator). A thermostat with a bypass function (rather than a simple hole) will give better warm-up and modulation in general. This will also improve cold coolant flowrate through the block / head and avoid pump cavitation. Generally cold water cavitation is much more destructive than hot water cavitation.

Regards
Gerry