Oil cooler for a zetec Caterham?

[Alfonse]

I've been told that billet oil pump gears are important for Zetecs that are used at high rpm. Mine has them and seems to hold oil pressure well.

[rzempel]

Randall: Where did you get your oil pump and was it for a Zetec SVT? Parts for it seem can be hard to source.

 

It was several years ago, when Zetec parts were more easily sourced. It was/is a "Ford Racing" part that I sourced from Ford Performance.

 

Randall

[oilteq]

Kit at, sorry about the slow response. 30 to 40 miles is probably not enough to get a meaningful reading from a used oil analysis.

[oilteq]

Kitcat. Darned spell checker.

[dallasdude]

I've been told that billet oil pump gears are important for Zetecs that are used at high rpm. Mine has them and seems to hold oil pressure well.

 

The main reason for the billet gears is that the stock gears are made of powdered metal and can shatter. The oil pump on a Zetec (wet sump) is around the nose of the crankshaft and subjected to second order vibrations from the four cylinder. This is especially a problem if a the crank balancer (pulley) is replaced with a lightweight aluminum pulley. The front pulley on a Zetec a fairly crude harmonic balancer, but it does absorb some of the vibration that might transfer to the oil pump gears and cause a catastrophic failure.

 

Interestingly enough...NA and NB Miatas can suffer the same problem....if the engines are run in the upper 7000 rpm range and up and the pulley is replaced.

 

The comment about the oil pressure relief valve bears attention also. As with a lot of engines, it is a steel piston running up and down in an aluminum housing (part of the oil pump in a Zetec). The the piston sticks halfway, it can cause oil pressure to be higher than normal with cold because it doesn't release excess pressure, and lower when hot because it acts like an internal oil leak. It doesn't take much trash or gaulliing of the aluminum to cause the piston not to move up and down as it should.

[1turbofocus]

Zetec under race conditions have high oil temps in comparison to previous year engine and oil temps were use to , Cooling your oil for more oil psi isnt the solution and I doubt it would add and higher oil psi , The engines I build the Customers tape off the oil temp gauge because it scares them to death but the engines run for 2-3 years before a refresh

 

As a rule of thumb you want 10psi for every 1000 rpm , I recommend Mobile 20-50 full Syn

 

Tom

[Kitcat]

Thx Tom. I called you 2-3 weeks ago abt a rebuild. That is still my plan. First my mechanic has to get caught up and find time to fix my snapped axle, then we will ship the engine to you to do whatever you deem appropriate. I will call in the next few weeks to make arrangements.

Mike M.