Vovchandr

Alright. The good. The bad and the ugly. The good. Appears misfire is fixed with just new cables! Starts and holds idle and sounds alright/good The bad and the ugly. Overheating/boiling issue is still there. Got upto temp. Using good coolant this time. Everything was looking good. Then I noticed drastic increase in coolant again and more bubbles and started taping as the expected happened. More and more air kept going through my sight glass, turning violent, volume increased drastically spilling over. And the aftermath This was one of the main things I was trying to fix with head gasket swap. Yet its still around. Any ideas? What do I have left? Heater core, radiator, plugged block cooling passage somewhere? New thermostat, new water pump, new head gasket, using coolant this time etc. Got a friend stopping by with a vacuum coolant system filler so I don't have to bleed it after. Don't think it's going to fix it but I'm out of ideas myself.

What's the latest time I can register by do you know?

Current stat report Battery is dead from cranking/testing. Leaving it on overnight to charge. My theory is similar to @wemtd cams might be out, might not be out, but I don't think they are causing the misfire and I can't test to see how well they are until misfire is solved. Looking back at the history of the thread #4 cylinder being cold was an issue even before I took everything apart. Clearly something is going on with it. I'm hoping it's the ignition/wires and new testing tomorrow with charged battery will let me know

Brief internet search says NON SVT is Non interference. SVT is like you said. I have regular ZX2 type Zetec from a Contour or similar with VCT (deleted) on exhaust cam. I think you might be on to something. Since #4 is missing and it's the shortest one, I can't swap the wire over. I'm about to run out an pick up another coil and another set of wires. Saw some local.

Today’s updates Compression seems good 165 145 165 162. Dry test. Leakdown looked good too. 10% or less. checked for spark with a rudimentary method of a lawn mower spark tester and 3 and 4 were firing. moved the spark plug over to see if it would help cylinder 4. It did not. here is new video with thermal. Cold start I’m likely going to try to play with cam timing next. Reading up on retarding the intake cam 5? 10? Degrees and see if that helps. Stock zetec is non interference. No idea if my cam work changed that. I don’t believe it would as to best of my knowledge it’s a stock Ford cam that has been ground and the lash caps compensate for work. Worst case scenario is a hard stop and messaging KitKat about his block?…

Here is a video soon after the first start. Holding idle. A bit of shaking, you can see it in the overflow tank

the dogs might be into something. at around 20 seconds it’s Combination of clutch and me letting the car stall by no longer forcing idle with throttle. It held idle early and then needed help after. To be fair I haven’t adjusted the cable right yet and I still have no IAC turned on or connected. So idle is a little hard to chase down right regardless until everything runs fine. as I recall it was about 100 degree F different or more. It likely I have a few things going around at same times which is what I was afraid of. priority number one is figuring out whether timing is a problem as is and needs dial in or fine as is

A few points on the phone before I get back on the computer 1) pretty important point is that pre existing timing is not recreated. I couldn’t be certain whether pre existing timing was purposeful (tune) or accidental (slip/jump). I have adjustable cam gears now so I could try to dial the cams close to what I’ve had in the picture before disassembly but I’m not quite configured that my timing is off if 3 of the cylinders appear to be running fine. (Could be all of them are off but something is else compounding. Im not ruling that out) 2) I likely have waged spark. Not sure how that effects my situation. 3) just to get that out of the way - crank case only has 2 position. TDC (1 and 4 are up) and non tdc (2/3 are up). It’s not 4 separate positions like the cam right? Want to be cover the obvious and make sure I didn’t time #4 tdc instead of #1 (assumption is that they are equal) revs are stable until the very end. Once it got warmer it wanted to stall and i needed to keep giving it throttle to keep it going. Idled very ok at first. Noise at the end of the video if I think what you’re talking about it me releasing the clutch and the it chattering. That’s normal for my sequential. I’m using a new Ford thermostat. I got very close to operating temp or right around it. I hope it’s not a timing issue because I’d be over my head but I’ll do this tomorrow. 1) swap plugs. 2) compression test 3) leak down test 4) I can swap injectors. Not ruling it out but doesn’t seem likely. 5) I’ll double check I don’t have an air leak from ITBs

Update. I need hive mind help to form a think tank. Starts. Runs. Misfiring on cylinder #4. Not sure why. Cat was glowing red and sparks were coming out of exhaust. Checked the temp on the runners and 4 was drastically colder then rest. I'll grab a compression tester and leak down tester tomorrow and try test with those I feel like if misfire is solved I'll be in good shape

Thanks. At this point I doubled down on the car working and kept my reservation at the villa. If I can't get the car sorted in time we might still go down and make a trip out of it. Im past the point of cancelation now on the room. I'm a bit anxious about the rebuild. Too many variables to go wrong for my liking and in my personal experience, statistically something always doesn't work quite right on first try. Even if I did all the labor perfect there are still a few wild cards. Is the timing being set at 0 going to work without a tune? Will this sort my overheating issue? Will the broken cam work fine? Will this solve my problem of misfire/lack of power after decel? Will my metal noise from cylinder one be resolved? Etc etc. The amount of guesswork for parts between different Zetecs compounded with uncertain history of what exact parts are in it, even after contacting the original builder and engine builder contractor makes me feel uneasy.

Well tomorrow I'll get more oil and let it be judgement day. Had a moment of stupidity earlier Cam gear was hand tight and I expected it to be spinning when we were rotating the engine to make sure on TDC. I shouldn't have had the bar in at all. My friend was curious that it was fighting him to spin and kept at it. I consulted with my other friend. He said it should be fine operationally. Just hope it runs without needing a tune

A few concerns in that video. #1 is that I can't do full pass like that due to bolt tabs sticking out in areas to go into head. #2 the amount of debris that falls down into cylinders and bolt threads makes me very concerned. Went over to a machinist friend of mine and he gave me machine bars that worked pretty perfectly so far While there I discovered that my exhaust adjustable cam gear doesnt have the right hole size so also quickly machines that down too Planning to get the head on tonight and get pretty far with reassembly barring other issues

The fun never stops! Making small progress today, getting everything sorted out. The Zetec source of year and model being a mystery is still coming back to bite. At this moment I believe its from a 1998 Contour. Up until this point I've primarily been doing 2000 Contour based on the fact that the car is a 2001 and I didn't expect the engine to be drastically older than build date. With Zetecs there few minor differences in the years. One of which in particular is timing belt either having 2 idlers or 1. I appear to have a car that had the two. Amusingly this is what the bottom idler looked like. Doesn't appear to be wear but could be. I believe it came like this but could be wrong. Car should have less than 5000 miles of wear on it but true miles unknown. Slightly different in looks with a locked bolt instead of free bolt And here is the groove Also mild head gasket/block issues. Part of the block is a bit elevated due to rust and I'm finding that my headgasket is very similar but isn't an exact match to what's on the car. Debating on using it or getting a FelPro quickly that looks identical in the cooling channels. (Ford isn't typically available same day, especially over weekend) vs

The head is back! Lash cap issue is considered closed until noted otherwise. Going to try to reassemble most tomorrow and find out what the next problem is. I see a 50/50 shot of it running well with timing zeroed out. If it runs decent but not optimal I don't care and will deal with it later. If it doesn't run well with going back to zero cam position I'll either have to find a tuner in short notice or mess with timing myself. Not interfierence Zetec I'm fairly certain) Issues in primary trying to close 1) horrible brief lack of power after decel 2) constant overheating at low speeds Honestly. If it runs decent but those issues persist I should still be able to make it. I feat it might not run well at all once zeroed back out in timing.

That's a good question. What is the registration cap and cancellation? I still haven't signed up. Got the head back today

Some progress finally. Today the right caps were sourced and delivered to the shop. If anybody with a custom Zetec runs into this issue... Ferrea didn't fit. Manely weren't right. After talking to the very helpful people at Artistry in Engineering they discovered a supplier that works - https://www.vacmotorsports.com/ They have all sorts of custom varieties and I was able to order ~2.5mm ones that the shop can work with. They said they can take out any minor differences from the valve. VAC-LC-6-2.50 is the part number. I've ordered 8 of the 2.5mm and one of the 2.55 just in case. Shop also replaced all the valve seals and didn't find any other problems in the head. It should be ready for me tomorrow. One interesting note that the shop was surprised to see is mis matching original valve seals. Either two different generations or a mix of intake and exhaust ones (green vs brown). All my replacements had just one part number. Also got my report from BlackStone today. Not very good, I could potentially have a bottom end issue, but they didn't see evidence of blown head gasket. Random notes: *I've never over-nighted anything before in my life and broke that cherry on at least 3 items now. *Somehow a $6 part so far has cost me about ~$200. Lets see how many things I can return.

In regards to the wild card on the throttle revving is an issue I had. It was two fold. 1) Cable would travel free until I parked. Then when I got into it the pedal was "frozen" in off position until I gave it a push and then it worked fine again until next cold stop. Issue was it was freezing up inside the cable housing right above the exhaust manifold. I think it's only a LHD Zetec issue, and wouldnt be a problem in the routing for a RHD Duratec. 2) Issue 2 was the cable end cap was actually coming out of the housing under acceleration at random times and upon relief of the throttle wouldn't go back into the housing but rather get stuck on the outside of the housing causing acceleration or revving regardless of throttle input. Not sure on your exact setup but certainly sounds familiar. It's a two man job to catch that happening and took me a long time to figure out. Somebody was in the car playing with throttle and I was under the hood looking at it. Cold cylinder doesn't sound good however.

This is still in the back of my mind. Maybe going into the fall I'll see where the dominos fall. For the next few weeks its still a mad rush to get existing motor to work for the track weekend.

Here is what I have. They never came with the engine, they were installed by the builder on intake cam. In thousands Width: ~356.7 Height ~200 Depth ~101 ID ~235 In mm Width: ~9.06 Height ~5.08 Depth ~2.57 ID ~5.97 I've ordered from Ferrea C10004, C10005, C10008, C10011 and none of them were close. FocalJet is a forum isn't it? They sell caps? Google doesn't link to a store Checked Summit, Jegs, Crowley etc. Catcams might have something close

Yes the lash cap. Aren't these specifically hardened and treated in other specific manufacturing techniques? Not sure if a local machine shop can just cut one out and make it work.

Here is my dilemma Time to fix my car is running out and the part to fix is is potentially in the attic of the house. The owners I believe are in a senior age and it's too hot for them to go into the attic My last correspondence last week said this "THE NEXT ABLE BODY CUSTOMER THAT COMES OVER WILL GET VOLUNTEERED TO FETCH THEM" I'm aware that this isn't worth their time to hassle over a business proposition and reached out to them a few too many times over the last few weeks trying to get this $6 or however much part, so I'm not trying to push my luck too much but time is of the essence. If I was certain that the part was there I'd drive down but it would be a very long venture to do if I came back empty handed. I've considered ordering a pizza and tipping the delivery guy extra $20 to go into the attic, however I haven't proposed that yet. Biting my time at this moment.

I might have a favor to ask next week. Weighting options at the moment. It's a 16 hour round trip drive for me, and it would be much easier to find somebody local that might be able to help with a set of hands.

The engine and hard idle sound very similar to my car and it's issues. I however had ITB's and a problem with IAC. As the car would get warm it would hold but it was very hard to start at the beginning.