ashyers

Tom, It's a street car with some autocross duty. Current head is a 2.3 Ranger version that we plan on cleaning up with a fresh valve job, new cams, new buckets, and the existing valves, dual springs and Ti retainers. More parts have finally started arriving: the torque plate last week, the correct (!) set of pistons today. I hope to have enough bits to visit the machine shop next week. I still need studs for the mains before we can drop the block off. I was hoping to get the car running next month, but obtaining parts has been slow. The good news is once the machining is done things should go together quickly. Andy

Agreed! This has been one of my weekend reads for some years now. It's a great resource and I suspect more than a few on the site have purchased cars found here.

Update: Things are still moving forward, just a bit slowly. We've totally torn down cleaned and inspected the engine. Parts are taking a bit longer than expected to arrive, but I'm assured they are on the way . Essentially we're redoing everything. One of my students compared this engine to a Russian nested doll. He said whenever we pull something apart we find something else wrong! Unfortunately he's right. The good news is that there's nothing left to pull apart... I'm hopeful that by next week we can drop off the block and head for some machining and maybe have the motor back in the chassis by February. We'll see! Rebuilding an engine and sorting a car with high school students is not always fast, but it is always interesting! The help I've received from this forum has been great. I really appreciate it. Andy

Tom, I suspect we could work out a deal for the pistons. Do you have anything you would like to trade that may be useful for the rebuild?! Send me a PM. Andy

Here's the crown: http://www.usa7s.net/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=14888&stc=1 http://www.usa7s.net/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=14889&stc=1

OK, the motor is nearly completely apart and I need some more help . How are you guys at identifying pistons? These are fancy bits and I will likely need rings and possibly some spiral locks. They are gray in color and have no identifying marks. They're in OK shape and we plan on running them. EDIT: Found 'em, they are Supertec pistons with a -20cc dish. This yields a CR of ~ 9:1 in the 2.3L. I'm thinking very seriously about replacing them with something that will get me up over 11:1. I have no idea how these ended up in the motor. Anyone need some turbo pistons?! http://www.usa7s.net/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=14884&stc=1 http://www.usa7s.net/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=14885&stc=1 http://www.usa7s.net/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=14886&stc=1

I guess we'll have time to go through the short block while we wait.... for cams. At some point it would be fun to drive this thing .

Tom, Thanks for the advice. I have a set of buckets on the way in the orig. sizes and I'm curious to see how things end up. I did manage to decipher the P/N's and find a source, so now it's just a matter of inspecting the head/valves and getting a set of cams. I was told they're on back order :banghead: . Andy

Here we go!

Tom, Here's the list of what I removed with the old cams ! 3.000 3.202 3.222 (x4) 3.262 3.282 3.322 (x3) 3.362 (x3) 3.382 3.422 A few buckets that definitely not good enough for set up. A 3.222, 3.362, and 3.422 are junk. None of 'em are beautiful! I was planning on purchasing new buckets as I don't want to risk the new cams. If you know any magic on setting this stuff up without spending a mint on buckets I'm all ears! Thanks, Andy

papak, I've found that Esslinger stocks buckets for $10/bucket. The local Ford dealer was useless, they didn't even know what I was asking for... I suspect if I could get all of the Ford P/N's I could do better than Esslinger's prices, but they may win out on convenience. I think I'll be purchasing 16+ buckets to get the clearances sorted. Thanks for the offer of the flaring tool, mine just arrived today, along with a pile of other goodies. I'm still not sure if forward progress has been achieved. There's been a few more surprises than I anticipated in this car. Fun, fun, fun! Andy ps. Love the photos of your engine bay! I'll be studying them carefully .

Randall, Any idea of the lifespan of these things? My understanding is that they die due to fretting between the spring and retainer. Andy

We're finally making some progress tearing into the motor (progress, right?!). So far we've found it has Crower rods, Ti retainers, some form of snazzy pistons and what appears to be a wacky cam arrangement. The exhaust cam has a lift of ~.441" so it's darn healthy. The welding on the lobes is visible and I'm reasonably sure that's what failed. The intake cam has a lift of ~.360" and it appears to be stock! The tear down has proved a mixed bag. We've found some nice bits and some evidence of some "band-aid" repairs. They're getting fixed as we go, but it's frustrating to see some of the crappy work someone did in the past. On the other hand I'm working on the car with my Auto Shop students and they get to see first hand a bit of shoddy workmanship and learn from it. As far as cams I have some Crower "Stage 2" cams on the way. I think they will fit the bill well. What's the collective wisdom regarding Ti retainers? I would not have chosen them for a street car, but they're in there and appear to be in good shape. Andy

Hello All, I was wondering if anyone had the suffix list for the Ford Duratec buckets/lifters/tappets. The main P/N is CP9Z-6500-***. The "***" is a series of 3 letters that correspond to different thicknesses. For example CP9Z-6500-AAB appears to correspond to a 3.000mm bucket. It sure would make ordering them easier if I had that info! Andy

I used HPS: https://www.hps-siliconehoses.com/hps-6061-aluminum-tubing-pipe-t6.html I purchased a few couplers to see what I thought of them. They are good quality and shipped quickly. I have a 3' and 2' section on the way now that I'm going to cut to size and bead. I've managed to remove about 6' (!) of 5/8" hose from the car and simplify the system considerably.

Spent some quality time at the parts store and found some hoses that will work, but I've decided to use aluminum tube for some of the longer straight sections. papak, what kind of beading tool did you purchase? I'm considering the Earl's one for 1.25" tube: https://www.jegs.com/p/Earls/Earls-EZ-Beader/1140092/10002/-1 I'm curious to know what you chose. Some of the small beading machines look good in the photos, but I'm not sure of their quality when in use. If they are decent quality they may be worth the $ in the long run as I can use them to bead tube on other projects. Andy

I'm going to try that too, I've narrowed it down to 20 or so hoses by photo. The parts store is going to kill me!

Tom, This is an early Duratec car so it's possible it used the Rover hoses. The one in the photo is 1.25" ID. Sound familiar? Too bad there's no dimensions on the Caterham site. Andy

Hello Crew, I'm looking to ID a Caterham coolant hose, it's from around 2003 and I hope it's still available. The car is an early Duratec installation and uses 2 of these S bends. Thanks, Andy

Tom, After seeing the cam I want to inspect the bearings and make sure there are no surprises inside the short block. I don't want to find an issue when something fails... Andy

papak, I spoke with Tom C. the other day, he's great! He was able to give me some insight on Crower cams. I also spoke to Shane at Crower who was very helpful. I need to get the engine out inspect things and get it back together so I can spend some time driving the car . Tom, You mention Comp Cams, I haven't been able to find a cam listed for a Duratec motor. Would this be a custom order from them? As far as the cam damage, I'm hoping that I'll be able to to get to the bottom of the issue when I tear down the engine and inspect it. Andy edit: added stuff...

Tom, Thanks! Both the gauge and the ECU's sender are in the housing at the rear of the head. It appears they are working OK, so I'm rethinking the hose routing. I'm going to pull the engine for some other issues so it will be a good time to simplify the system and hopefully get it working as intended. This is the first reverse flow cooling system I've worked with so I want to make sure I understand how it's supposed to work before I reinvent the wheel. Andy

papak, What grind are you using? How's the performance? I don't intend to push this motor over 7250 and will be driving it on the street with an occasional auto-X. You mentioned Crane is in San Diego, is it possible you have Crane and Crower confused? Crower is in San Diego and Crane is in Mississippi. Thanks, Andy

Mike, Thanks, I'm not sure what happened there. Is there a way to eliminate the 2nd images? So Crane gets 2 votes, how about Crower? Andy

Yesterday I pulled the dry sump filter screens, cleaned the tank, and opened up the oil filter. The screens were clean and the tank had a minute amount of tiny metal particles on the floor. The pick up is about 3/4" off the floor of the tank so any chunks would tend to collect there. The filter looked OK. As far as the cam, I dropped by a friend's shop who builds mostly high end sprint car and drag motors. I saw my first 900cid NA Hemi with a 1+" lift cam. You could put a tennis ball down the intake ports! The general consensus (guess?!?!) is that the welding on the cam failed to adhere to the base metal. As I was monkeying around with the oil system I found a few things that bugged me about the wiring and cooling system, and decided to pluck the motor. As I said earlier, down the rat hole... While preparing to pull the motor I've yanked out about 10' of 5/8" heater hose, gained access to the ECU, and if I can steal some time during the holiday I'll finish the job. When I opened up the ECU I also found some this: http://www.usa7s.net/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=14793&stc=1 Anyone want to try and decipher the engine description. It's "car-chelogy" . and this: http://www.usa7s.net/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=14794&stc=1 I guess this is the orig connector for the factory ECU? There's was some splicing done to fit the MBE unit that I'm going to clean up. I'm pretty happy that the ECU was not "locked" and I've also obtained the PIN to open up the Master level and really cause problems! This will be helpful it I replace the cams with a different grind and that's looking like a good option at this point. I'm not sure I want to go down the road of welded cams further. Does anyone have cam advice? The map info above gives an idea of the current setup (7250 Limiter, 11.5:1CR) and even with a flatted cam (.400" lift, 244deg dur.) it's pretty healthy. It would be nice to obtain them on this side of the pond. Andy edit: fixed images