slomove

Thanks for the link! But I am not sure of that would get me much further. Besides the fact that I would lose about 20% friction surface the bearing adaptation may be complicated. While it is a bit lighter it does not say that it can handle higher rpm. So, I guess I will just keep the regular clutch. But you guys have now scared me enough into some containment measures. I looked up the blankets but that does not convince me with the rather loosely strapped belt and no contiguous hoop. There was discussion about blankets on some drag racer forums but the recommendation was mostly to use shatterproof steel bell housings which is obviously not an option here. I will just wrap the critical area of the bellhousing with 3 or 4 layers of shockproof nylon webbing. It has almost the same breaking strength as Kevlar and at a combined 20,000 pounds I hope it may keep the shrapnel inside if anything bad should happen.

I found a few flywheels with that rating but no SFI rated clutch pressure plates or clutch sets for my size. I need a 8.5" clutch with 1"/23-spline shaft (i.e. '73 Ford Pinto) and performance clutches are anyway rare in that size with no mention of SFI. Given that the flywheel/clutch is spinning about 10 inches in front of my toe tips I guess I got to take that risk. I do have a roll of Kevlar fabric somewhere as well as Kevlar/Carbon hybrid. Maybe I just go and laminate a few wraps around the bell housing with epoxy. As for the old "cheap helmet for cheap heads" adage I am convinced this is mostly driven by marketing. While I would limit my choice to SFI rated helmets I would not bet that a $1500 helmet is always safer than a $400 helmet. It might but unless I see some verifiable test comparison I consider it smart marketing or cool design or just bullshit. There are many examples from other products types where the cheap ones actually outperform the fancy ones.

Hey, don't scare me guys. So far I was under the impression that for my modest road driving purpose an OEM replacement part should be enough. After all, with the litigious habits in the auto industry one could expect that a replacement clutch would be designed to survive occasional rpm excursions. I just imagine a crazy 20-year old in a souped-up car with an exploding clutch that might shred the passenger seat the way the engine is located. I am not aware that happens often. So why would that be different in a Seven? I don't doubt Croc's and Kitcat's experience but suspect it may have to do with track driving habits?

Jeez, how can that happen? Are the car parts nowadays so flimsy that they just fall apart or is that another example of "value engineering" and planned service life? The stock style clutch on my old engine held up for over 10 years and in the beginning I had the rev limiter set to 7200 rpm. Actually I could have probably kept using it another few years but want to replace it since the engine is out anyway.

I hope it will not disintegrate. I have for a while dialed the cutoff back to 6800rpm. While I still enjoy the occasional spirited drive, I gave up on the track weekends for financial and health reasons (neck arthritis). So I guess the stock clutch will have to work. I have seen some race clutches for the Pinto in the $300-400 range and that is just bit rich for me now. The intake manifold was actually the smallest issue. I re-used my Weber style manifold for the Jenvey ITBs. I did mount them provisionally and made a steel wire scribe "hook" to mark the intake outline and then ground the manifold casting with a Dremel bur for a smooth transition, since the old silvertop Zetec intake openings were quite a bit smaller. But that took only an hour or so. Otherwise, a dab of Hylomar and it bolted on right away. The biggest issue was the mounting for the windage tray. I finally decided to re-use the old engine main cap bolts (they are not torque-to-yield) with the funny stud extension so that I could mount the steel tray the way it was intended. Howeven, since the SVT crank bearing caps are much skinnier than the ones of my old Zetec (and accordingly those bolts are too long) I had to use hardened spacer bushings. But so far, so good.

What a shame that your sister has to live in such a horrible place...

I used the speed and load sites as they came with the K3 software but they had already a finer load resolution near idle than the old M3K software. After all, I had the engine running near perfectly until the valve drop. On the last trip I got to 28mpg cruising at 70+mph, great throttle response and WOT power. Really a shame. After many tweaks, that idle fluctuation was rather a kind of nuisance than a real problem so at some point I just decided to live with it. If I would not have that AFR dash gauge I might not even have noticed.

Hello John, apparently I missed this thread last year or I would have contributed a few more distracting guesses. As it happened , I had slightly similar (but not as severe) problems forever. Also Emerald and Jenveys on my old Zetec (RIP). I never found a good reason why the AFR in idle fluctuated sometimes between 12 and up to 16 but 90% of the time around 13.5. But I did find the behavior extremely sensitive to a single point injection map change in the cells around the idle area. I suspect, the injector opening time in idle (injector pulse duration minus injector dead time) is so short that the combined drift of TPS and air temperature sensor, battery voltage and the need to interpolate between the neighboring cells can add up to significant fuel dosing inaccuracy. There is a reason that people sometimes use a secondary set of smaller injectors for idle and cruising range. So, I hope that the Crank sensor was the problem in your case. Could be the reason for the jittery ignition timing. For me it did not make a difference as well as upgrading the ECU software to the K3 version did not make a difference. But with careful adjustment I had somewhat stable idle AFR between 13 and 15. Good enough for me but now I am going to swap the engine anyway and I am curious if that behavior will stay with the new SVT engine.

I have now the SVT engine that I will use. Just much simpler to convert (not to say really simple). I will also keep the Laminova since I have all the plumbing set up and nothing to gain from removing it. No, I am using lightened steel flywheel that was provided by MSI while they were still in the Birkin import business. I will go to Autozone today to check the stock Pinto clutch if it fits. I had a regular clutch before and it never slipped so I will probably forgo the rather expensive race clutch option. The engine is not that radical.

Hello Tom, I wish I had known that. When I bought the Kent cams in 2004 it came with a list of required parts like upgraded springs, new tappets and these aluminum retainers. One would think Kent Cams or Burton Power know what they are recommending and actually the engine made some 50,000 miles that way. They did not warn of limited service life or fatigue. In the meantime I bought the SVT engine and will leave the valve springs and retainers alone, just remove the VCT (you gave me some related advice yesterday on the FocusFanatics forum). Of course nothing is easy with these cars, but at least I found that I need the 8.5" clutch from a Pinto and the release bearing from a European Escort version.

Not crazy and definitely an epic trip but (in my experience) a bit optimistic. If this was the Porsche club you would likely get a number of people to do that. But with the very limited number of Seven owners There are not that many who can or want to take more than a week off. The best I have seen was for the USA2005 tour (3 weeks) with 12 participants from the US but there was the draw of a large number (37) cars coming over from the UK. The Grizzly Bear Blat 2013 had maybe 10 cars with a handful from the UK. I tried to pull off something similar with the PNW2007 tour which had at some point a list of 45 people interested but at the end it was 8 cars who did all or part of the 2-week tour. Actually, I like such a smaller group for a tour better. A larger crowd breaks up into smaller groups anyway. Other tours that I organized had 2 cars (Rocky Mountains 2009), 6-8 cars (Black Hills 2011) and 3 cars (BigSky2015). I would guess for a national meet with a goal of most participants you must make it easy to attend and not do a long tour. But if you should ever organize one, let me know!:hurray:

I am a bit pessimistic about a real "national" meet. As long as I am not retired, anything much east of the Rocky Mountains is really out of reach and there are few other West Cost Seven owners who are into touring anyway. GB

I don't know, they sell this kit as "Fast Road Cam" which led me to believe some regular use capability. For that matter, the engine ran very well under cruising conditions as well as track and other than that broken retainer there is nothing wrong with the parts. I will probably sell the cams separately once I get a new engine. As far as I can see (have not looked into that in detail) it would be: - new exhaust headers, new can (or re-weld the hanger on my old can) - New engine mounts. Since I have an older Birkin I suppose they must be fabricated. - cut new holes for intake and exhaust and bead the edges. Cover/close the old holes on the other side. - Re-route the cooling hose connections - re-route the entire engine wiring harness (aargh!) - modify the fuel supply and return - modify or eliminate my Laminova oil cooler and remote filter system - not sure what else, like bell housing and starter configuration So, this looks like a real project to me and I am not keen on doing that. My old engine, the SVT Zetec and the stock Duratec actually have similar performance characteristics with the ITB and I guess the ECU maps will need only minor tweaks in any case. Actually, having the exhaust on the passenger side is not that desirable for me because I drive with my wife as passenger all the time (or sometimes she is driving with me as passenger). I got used to stepping over the muffler and with good earplugs the noise does not bother me.

Yes it is, no scoring as far as I can see.

No, they are not stock. They were recommended by Burton Power in the UK who sold me the entire kit from Kent Cams, which was FZ2002 stage 2 cams, stronger springs, these retainers and the tappets. Now, googling "retainer failure" I find that aluminum retainers are apparently known to have limited life and some recommend them only for racing and replacement after 7000 miles. Something like that was not mentioned in the Kent Cam information and my engine has about 50k miles on the clock. So, maybe it was not the engine builders' fault but increasing the spring pre-load surely did not help.

more pics....for what it is worth, the cylinder walls look un-damaged, no scratches.

You may have seen what happened to my engine in the "Big Sky 2015 Tour" thread. All was going well until I lost power while passing (maybe 5000-6000 rpm) and the engine (old silvertop/ZX1 Zetec) emitted some really ugly noise. I coasted to a stop, found no external problem but a valve stem was visible inside cyl #2 plug hole. So, we made the trip back to our trailer in Idaho Falls with the help of AAA and Uhaul. Today I took the cylinder head off and took a few pics of the damage (see below and next post). Apparently the valve retainer disintegrated. I believe the following has happened: Last year I had new valves installed. The old valves had additional higher keeper grooves ground in to accommodate the high lift cams and avoid binding of the stronger springs. However, the engine builder who did the change swore up and down that this was not necessary according to his calculations and measurements. Being an experienced guy with all kinds of exotic and expensive engines in his shop I believed him (I guess that was a mistake). The engine did probably over 5000 miles since but I guess the aluminum retainer fatigued and fell apart. I would not think that should happen as a matter of regular use? I do have a complete spare stock engine disassembled to parts. Now my options are (assuming the head is beyond salvage): 1. Check if the piston damage is not too bad and install my spare stock head, live with the minor power loss. I don't go the track anymore and for the road it is still ample power. 2. If the piston is toast, I could put the complete spare engine back together and use that as-is. Cheapest solution but then I would still have a used engine with 60k miles and hard-to-get internal spare parts. 3. I can get a brand new Zetec SVT engine locally and install that with some modifications. I will have a look on Saturday. It would require some changes to the alternator mount and belt configuration and I would have to use my old main bearing bolts for the crank on the SVT machine because they have stud extensions for the windage tray (not in my Raceline sump like for the ZX3 model). Otherwise I believe it should be a drop-in and I guess the ECU maps should pretty much work since the engine power is similar to my old engine. 4. I could buy a used Duratec. While a used engine is quite inexpensive and spares are easy to find, I would need new exhaust headers and probably a bunch of other adaptations. Cut holes in the skin and plug others. Probably cut/move a chassis tube, re-route most of the engine wiring harness and modify the exhaust can or get a new one. That sounds like a serious and more expensive project. So, I will make up my mind over the next few days. Any input is welcome.

Hey Dave, it was good meeting you and talking cars and bicycles (for me, learning about bicycles)! Thanks all for the commiseration...could have been worse indeed with bear encounters or going off the cliff on Beartooth Highway. That vertical impact would have made Xcarguy envious. Actually I was very lucky in a way. The incident happened in the middle of nowhere some 30 miles east of Bonners Ferry, Idaho without cell phone access. But when I came to a stop there was a driveway leading to a house with tree shade, a very nice old woman who let us use her landline phone and gave us water and ice cream. 2 hours later we had the AAA tow truck, another 3 hours later we just came in time to the Uhaul station to pick up the car hauler and we even found a hotel in spite of the Ironman weekend. Today we trailered the 480 miles with the Uhaul back to Idaho Falls where our own trailer was stored. So I guess all lined up so far. Two more trailer days and we should be home. I will probably not try to repair my engine or even put the spare Silvertop Zetec engine in that I have. I have a lead to a new Zetec SVT engine and will see to adapt that. Does anybody need a) a broken silvertop Zetec (sometimes called ZX1) with Kent Stage 2 cams, ported/shaved head, bored and slightly oversized pistons? Exact damage to head or piston still to be assessed. RWHP was 170 with Jenvey TBs which I would keep. or b) a very good condition used stock engine of same vintage (1996 Ford Contour), completely disassembled, bagged, tagged and wax preserved? Please PM if interested.

Our trip found a sudden end today. So far it was going very well, small group with only three cars. Nice roads, interesting scenery going from Idaho Falls through Yellowstone (busy!) , Beartooth Highway (fabulous and nobody there), the Montana backcountry (Crazy Mountains, Lewis and Clark NF), Bozeman, through Glacier NP and to Whitefish. Only problem is the record heat wave (since 1939) over 100 deg but hey, we are from California. However, on our way to Nelson, BC while passing another car, my engine suddenly lost power and while coasting to a stop made some really ugly noise. A quick check showed no external problems but removing the spark plugs we found one that was a bit smashed and very oily. Further investigation with a flashlight showed a valve stem across the piston surface. Not sure what happened but maybe the guide fell out or the spring broke, losing the retainers. The valves were rather new and better quality ones. Although in the middle of nowhere we found a AAA flatbe that took us to Coer d'Alene and fortunately got a Uhaul with car trailer that will get us back to Idaho Falls tomorrow. Oh, well. Could have been worse and driving in that heat is any way not that great.

Nah....I got 36" and fit just fine. I can get out without a sucking sound.

Just tried it out on the freeway. Does not mean much at 6pm in Los Angeles traffic but so far so good. Maybe it was just a bad plug although I have my doubts. But lacking any more symptoms I have to be satisfied that the car runs.

I could test it under load if the car was running well enough. I have a few feet extension hose to the gage. But since the car ran like crap now even slightly above idle I don't believe anymore it is the pressure (to be confirmed). I did hook up the scope and the pulses look just fine, no gaps or doubling. Means the ECU and crank sensor are probably good. As a last resort I swapped the plugs. They looked just fine and the Iridium plugs should last forever, but with the (very much used) Bosch Platinum4 that I have in now, the engine idles smoothly and the erratic timing light is gone. Weird...can it be the plugs?

In the meantime I checked the injection pressure, looks good but can not test anymore at high speed because now the car barely runs at all. One thing I noticed is the timing light is very erratic and the displayed rpm flips back and forth between 2x the actual rpm (normal for the wasted spark system) to 1x actual rpm. If my ECU is not broken (aargh!) then I guess it can only be the crank position sensor. Any other ideas? I will swap the crank sensor tomorrow and if that does not help then I need to get a scope from work and try to get more into detail. The only funny thing about that is I was writing with Automoda who was wondering to come along on the tour but has almost the same symptoms disabling his car.

Thanks Skip, have not thought about the plug wires. Just to make sure the mechanics are O.K. I confirmed compression (190,200,190,200) and I blew through the injectors with pressurized brake cleaner. Of course I can not measure the flow but the spray pattern looked alright to me. Then I replaced the ignition coil since it is easy to do and I still had one laying around. When it gets cooler I will do another test drive with data logging. I replaced the pump intake filter maybe 2 years ago but I never replaced the high pressure side filter so if the problem is not gone, I will hook up a remote fuel pressure gage and check if that shows a drop when accelerating. Really annoying, 2 weeks before the big trip.

I was trying to drive out today and found after only a mile on the freeway that I have an intermittent stumble at 1/2 to full throttle. The AFR gage gets a bit erratic when that happens and after returning I found #1 plug a little black around the rim but not horribly so. Any idea what to check first? Can it be the injectors? Thanks!