linenoise Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 My brother failed to notice a drop in oil pressure (dry sump pump belt broke) while he was tracking my Caterham...so now my engine is toast, or at least in need of a rebuild. Does anyone have any recommendations for a shop in the US (preferrably in Texas) that excels at rebuilding Zetecs? Thanks, Colin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnCh Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 Hopefully you can find a good shop closer to home, but if you need to ship it, Quicksilver in MD has a very good reputation. -John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Croc Posted June 21, 2022 Share Posted June 21, 2022 If you want a Texas option, Jeff Sloan at British Auto Specialists in Dallas is an ex-Caterham dealer. He is very familiar with Caterhams and the zetec installation and could probably arrange for a rebuild. British Auto Specialists | (britauto.com) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linenoise Posted June 21, 2022 Author Share Posted June 21, 2022 Thanks for the recommendation Croc, that path paid off! I spoke with Jeff Sloan and he recommended the shop machine across the street from British Auto Specialists called HNH Automotive Machining. Dropping the engine off Thursday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dallasdude Posted July 9, 2022 Share Posted July 9, 2022 Jeff is a great guy and about as straight as they come. One problem an independent machine shop will have with your Zetec is getting the valve lash correct. This is normally done with different thickness cam followers, although the valve stems can be cut. Its pretty tedious to get it just right. I have a pretty good selection of followers. Older engines use shims that sit on top of a follower, but if your engine came that way it was probably converted...the shims add about 3 grams to the weight of the valvetrain. I will be glad to help with followers. I have at least 50 . Otherwise you could do worse than sending the head to Eric at Quicksilver. They can cut all three valve angles at the same time. Anything to do with the dry sump setup they are experts on also. They have built hundreds of these with dry sump for FF2000. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linenoise Posted January 31, 2023 Author Share Posted January 31, 2023 (edited) Just to update the group on my ongoing saga just in case anyone needs some schadenfreude -- I'm now on a path that will ensure my Caterham becomes a family heirloom that I'll never sell ... because I've sunk too much money into it and I'd undoubtedly be selling it at a massive loss If I ever got rid of it. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I am collecting quite a fleet of such heirlooms. Sharing here in case someone else can learn from my many misadventures. HNH quoted $1500 + parts. I dropped off the engine with HNH with the hope that I would be able to replace any damaged parts with identical replacements so I wouldn't have to mess with the tune on my ancient Pectel T2. It became apparent that many of the exact replacement components were no longer available and the car would need to be retuned if I deviated from its original config. Frankly HNH wasn't terribly familiar with Zetecs so I decided to retrieve the engine and find a different rebuilder. Cost: ~$275 Based on my research and the recommendation above, I contacted Eric at Quicksilver and he seemed like the perfect choice. Although his quoted rebuild price ($3500 + parts) was over double what HNH quoted, he sounded confident about Zetecs and said that he not only very familiar with Pectel T2 ECUs but he would tune and dyno the engine after it was rebuilt. I proceeded to ship the engine to him based on that quoted rebuild price and waited several months for him to get around to looking at the engine. After he was finally able to dig in, he sent me a quote for almost triple the original quote ($9500). Given that Raceline was listing new 200 bhp zetec engines on their website for less than what Quicksilver was now quoting me for a rebuild, I opted to decline the rebuild and had Eric ship the engine back to me. This part of the adventure cost me $1390 (500 for "cleaning" and the rest for shipping). I'll be listing the TWM ITBs, Raceline Dry Sump system, and perhaps some other goodies in the classified section soon if anyone is interested. I proceeded to contact Raceline to purchase their 200bhp config and was told that the listed price was from 2021 and the price would need to come up "slightly"! due to rising costs (covid?). Apparently slightly = 2000 GBP :/ After a stiff drink, I decided that I'd rather spend ~11.5k on a brand new engine (shipped, including new ECU) than 9.5k on a rebuild. Deposit paid and now we wait a couple more months So that's where we stand. Wish me luck! Edited January 31, 2023 by linenoise 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vovchandr Posted January 31, 2023 Share Posted January 31, 2023 (edited) Good luck for sure! Thank you for the update and doing all the legwork. I hope it gives you satisfaction knowing you've helped others out in your ventures as I'm borderline at the same situation as you are. My Zetec oil pressure has been... erm... finicky at best recently and my battle to squeeze any HP out of the Zetec with TWM's and the Pectel so far has been not very fruitful. If it makes you feel any better I think just the TWM ITB rebuilt ran me about $2k. What ECU is Raceline going to provide? That price includes a tune from them? Will it mate with your existing Pectel harness? That's one of the problems I've ran into when looking into alternate ECU options. 200hp is presumed crank right? I'll be very curious to see how it comes out on a roller dyno. Edited January 31, 2023 by Vovchandr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linenoise Posted January 31, 2023 Author Share Posted January 31, 2023 "If it makes you feel any better I think just the TWM ITB rebuilt ran me about $2k. " 2K for a ITB rebuild? Wow, what does that entail? I know that Borla (who apparently bought TWM) sells the ITB kit without injectors for $1875. "What ECU is Raceline going to provide? That price includes a tune from them? Will it mate with your existing Pectel harness? That's one of the problems I've ran into when looking into alternate ECU options. " It comes with an OMEX ECU and will be loaded with their map for the 200bhp build. I'm assuming (perhaps naively) that it will come with a new harness. "200hp is presumed crank right? I'll be very curious to see how it comes out on a roller dyno." 200bhp is crank HP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vovchandr Posted January 31, 2023 Share Posted January 31, 2023 15 minutes ago, linenoise said: "If it makes you feel any better I think just the TWM ITB rebuilt ran me about $2k. " 2K for a ITB rebuild? Wow, what does that entail? I know that Borla (who apparently bought TWM) sells the ITB kit without injectors for $1875. "What ECU is Raceline going to provide? That price includes a tune from them? Will it mate with your existing Pectel harness? That's one of the problems I've ran into when looking into alternate ECU options. " It comes with an OMEX ECU and will be loaded with their map for the 200bhp build. I'm assuming (perhaps naively) that it will come with a new harness. "200hp is presumed crank right? I'll be very curious to see how it comes out on a roller dyno." 200bhp is crank HP. They replaced pretty much every component and I had to order new century stacks after which aren't part of regular quote on ITBs I don't believe. I did exaggerate, I double checked and I'm closer to $1500 for them. I'm now double interested in your progress as I own an omex 600 ecu that came with the Rotrex supercharger which is my solution to potential 200hp. We won't talk about it's price... If there is a relatively easy wiring solution to swap to Omex I'm all for it. I haven't seen one yet. Maybe a repin of sorts? What's funny is that an ITB Zetec was typically sold as a "200hp package" to start yet in my case I'm nowhere near that at the moment. Last dyno yielded my around 135whp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John B Posted January 31, 2023 Share Posted January 31, 2023 You're still getting off easy in my book. I've spent over 3X 16 hours ago, linenoise said: I'd rather spend ~11.5k on a brand new engine (shipped, including new ECU) than 9.5k on a rebuild. Good call, and I still think you're getting off relatively easy. I have over 3x that in my engine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vovchandr Posted February 1, 2023 Share Posted February 1, 2023 I should add. The rebuild is marketed as a few hundred dollar service on their website and that was the expectation on which I sent everything in as it all worked at the time of taking off. I figured it could use a tuneup as I was troubleshooting issues such as backfire. Once they got it, they didn't think things were upto snuff and parts added up quick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MV8 Posted February 1, 2023 Share Posted February 1, 2023 (edited) Unfortunately, the customer is at the mercy of the rebuilder/mechanic. I would require any parts replaced to be returned, even if I didn't know a crank from a cam. The parts can be disposed of at a local recycler. Doesn't work too well if you are not there in person but can offset selling replacement speed parts that either are not replaced or they keep the new or old ones. An engine is just an air pump. I've rebuilt a few different engines over the years for myself and have local shops machine as needed. I would expect about $800 in machining and cleaning and a similar amount in aftermarket/non-oem parts that I source. I avoid buying anything from the oem which makes a big difference in cost but not so much in quality. It depends on the part. Rebuilding an ITB should be no more than replacing shaft bushings for a couple hundred if they have to be fabricated from bush stock (mcmaster) and reamed. There may be an o ring groove if designed for boost. Otherwise each one leaks a little by design and it gets worse with the miles but I could not imagine any limited use cat ever really needing a rebuild. The leakage has the greatest affect at idle and they can be extremely worn without causing any issue with idle speed being higher due to the leak. Attached is a link to an average shop labor cost document for the zetec from engine rebuilders magazine. These are 2008 prices so you might add 30-50%. https://www.enginebuildermag.com/wp-content/uploads/Articles/05_01_2008/5220Ford20Lpdf_00000007265.pdf I'll add that it may not be apparent to some that a person would never need every process listed on the attachment for one engine. The general essentials are bore and hone, cleaning, valve guides, replace pistons on the rods if they don't float, surface head and block, machine valves and seats and maybe opt for a line bore, balancing, head assembly, freeze plug installation, and mag particle crack checking if a known problem with the parts. Edited February 1, 2023 by MV8 elaborate on attachment Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bartman Posted February 1, 2023 Share Posted February 1, 2023 (edited) Hi there, I followed a similar route as you and ended up with a New Raceline Zetec, I went for the 250 HP option which when run on the dyno actually topped out at 261 at the crank, attached are the dyno results. I decided not to use the Omex ECU as I wanted to use paddle shifters and the choices were Omex ECU with a geartronics GCU piggybacking on it or using an ECU that had the facility for real timed and monitored closed loop flat shifting, I finally went for the MBE9A9 ECU with a pneumatic shift as I hope that a single unit rather that two separate (ECU & GCU) will be more reliable with one less point of failure, the whole thing is a little complex but not so hard to figure once you get into it and the software they (SBD) use to map is pretty easy to understand. I cant speak to the harness needs of the Omex, but for the MBE I had to make an entire new harness, which was, errr.... time consuming and expensive ! I leaned heavily on Andy Jupp at PGM motorsports in the UK for that he was really good and very attentive to the details, I attached the as built version of the harness below if you're interested. Overall I am really happy with Raceline, they can be a little slow to respond to emails so I always called Chris or Peter if I had questions and they were super helpful. In the end I have what I wanted. I expect to finally have the whole ensemble on track in March so then I will really know if I chose wisely or not. Either way I am in the same boat as you, I will never get my money back if I sold it, but I did not build it for that, I plan to track the tires off it for years to come. Good luck with the re-build. Bart RLZ250JD RaceLine Exhaust D.pdf Zetec_Sadev_Harness_V4.pdf Edited February 1, 2023 by Bartman 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fastg Posted February 1, 2023 Share Posted February 1, 2023 Good dyno information, I still own a DYNOmite system. Your engine would be about 250 bhp in real world. The dyno run was done with 170 degree coolant and oil temp on a 66 degree day. Just about all chassis dynos give a higher number than when the engine was installed in the car. The major manufactures got into trouble doing this, many of there cars were downgraded in HP number because they were quoting chassis dyno number. I remember having to replace all the window stickers at a Toyota dealership because of optimistic hp numbers. Still a very stout Ford. Graham 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bartman Posted February 1, 2023 Share Posted February 1, 2023 250 Was their promise/claim so bang on the money then. There is no doubt in my mind it's more than enough ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fastg Posted February 1, 2023 Share Posted February 1, 2023 Enough, is never enough. Graham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bartman Posted February 1, 2023 Share Posted February 1, 2023 Daytona 2023 from the bus stop chicane. The new GTP hybrid was FAST.... IMG_3282.MOV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1turbofocus Posted February 2, 2023 Share Posted February 2, 2023 10 hours ago, Bartman said: Hi there, I followed a similar route as you and ended up with a New Raceline Zetec, I went for the 250 HP option which when run on the dyno actually topped out at 261 at the crank, attached are the dyno results. I decided not to use the Omex ECU as I wanted to use paddle shifters and the choices were Omex ECU with a geartronics GCU piggybacking on it or using an ECU that had the facility for real timed and monitored closed loop flat shifting, I finally went for the MBE9A9 ECU with a pneumatic shift as I hope that a single unit rather that two separate (ECU & GCU) will be more reliable with one less point of failure, the whole thing is a little complex but not so hard to figure once you get into it and the software they (SBD) use to map is pretty easy to understand. I cant speak to the harness needs of the Omex, but for the MBE I had to make an entire new harness, which was, errr.... time consuming and expensive ! I leaned heavily on Andy Jupp at PGM motorsports in the UK for that he was really good and very attentive to the details, I attached the as built version of the harness below if you're interested. Overall I am really happy with Raceline, they can be a little slow to respond to emails so I always called Chris or Peter if I had questions and they were super helpful. In the end I have what I wanted. I expect to finally have the whole ensemble on track in March so then I will really know if I chose wisely or not. Either way I am in the same boat as you, I will never get my money back if I sold it, but I did not build it for that, I plan to track the tires off it for years to come. Good luck with the re-build. Bart RLZ250JD RaceLine Exhaust D.pdf 316.03 kB · 6 downloads Zetec_Sadev_Harness_V4.pdf 131.33 kB · 5 downloads Where did you get the Valve Cover ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1turbofocus Posted February 2, 2023 Share Posted February 2, 2023 I am months behind but I sell a Complete built Zetec for 3500.00 + a rebuildable exchange Focus-Power.com 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vovchandr Posted February 2, 2023 Share Posted February 2, 2023 28 minutes ago, 1turbofocus said: I am months behind but I sell a Complete built Zetec for 3500.00 + a rebuildable exchange Focus-Power.com The man, the myth, the legend! Do you take 135hp cores? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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