Zetec performance rebuild option

[JohnCh]

I've seen various threads here over the years on the lack of performance shops that still rebuild/modify Zetecs. Esslinger Engineering, who has done Duratecs for a few of us, recently posted a photo on FB of a Zetec they are redoing.  I pinged them to find out if this is a one-off or if Zetecs are in their wheelhouse, and was told they don't do many simply because of low demand, but they are happy to do more.  Something to keep in mind, particularly for those in the Western US.

 

https://esslingeracing.com/

 

-John

[dallasdude]

Nothing wrong with Esslinger at all.  I think at one time USAC midgets were headed toward Zetecs.  Ford actually had Robert Yates build some engines (yes Nascar Robert Yates).  My guess is the Midget and sand rail engine business Esslinger does went a different way, so they moved on.  If they are willing to do an engine, then I am sure they would do a very good job.  

We have a pretty good formula for a dependable engine.  With the single early Focus throttle body and manifold, about 180 Hp at the rear wheels and 155 foot pounds of torque.  (Dynojet).  With ITB's a little more Hp and a little less torque.  You can add about 15% for at the flywheel in either case.   We run race fuel, but with just a little additive for safety that engine can run on pump gas.  Getting the proper quench allows for more compression with lower octane.

Quicksilver does a lot of our basic machine work, they have done hundred of Zetecs.  They got away from doing custom performance Zetec engines, but things have changed a little and their spec FF2000 engine bottom end, makes a very good starting point for most any Zetec performance engine up to maybe 11-1 compression.  The availably of the Boundary oil pump now , makes doing a wet sump Zetec hot rod build a lot more practical also.  They just did a short block for me that will wind up on one of our race cars or my Elan.

 

I don't want to get into the engine building business, but I am willing to help anyone.

[Vovchandr]

5 hours ago, dallasdude said:

Nothing wrong with Esslinger at all.  I think at one time USAC midgets were headed toward Zetecs.  Ford actually had Robert Yates build some engines (yes Nascar Robert Yates).  My guess is the Midget and sand rail engine business Esslinger does went a different way, so they moved on.  If they are willing to do an engine, then I am sure they would do a very good job.  

We have a pretty good formula for a dependable engine.  With the single early Focus throttle body and manifold, about 180 Hp at the rear wheels and 155 foot pounds of torque.  (Dynojet).  With ITB's a little more Hp and a little less torque.  You can add about 15% for at the flywheel in either case.   We run race fuel, but with just a little additive for safety that engine can run on pump gas.  Getting the proper quench allows for more compression with lower octane.

Quicksilver does a lot of our basic machine work, they have done hundred of Zetecs.  They got away from doing custom performance Zetec engines, but things have changed a little and their spec FF2000 engine bottom end, makes a very good starting point for most any Zetec performance engine up to maybe 11-1 compression.  The availably of the Boundary oil pump now , makes doing a wet sump Zetec hot rod build a lot more practical also.  They just did a short block for me that will wind up on one of our race cars or my Elan.

 

I don't want to get into the engine building business, but I am willing to help anyone.

 

What would you recommend in my situation?

 

For whatever the reason I appear to have a pretty low output VCT Zetec (VCT removed) with freshly rebuilt ITBs and good compression and leak down doing 135 to the wheels 

 

I'm considering going FI (I have a Rotrex Sc already( or maybe other bolton's like cams before completely giving up on it and going Duratec and cutting a new hole on the other side of skin for exhaust (already have Duratec too on standby)

 

Tuning on Pectel unfortunately 

 

[S1Steve]

Hi Vlad, Explain again how and why your VCT was removed… 

[dallasdude]

I take it this is a Mistique/ Coutour engine with VCT on the exhaust side. This was for emissions only and could only be controlled by the original Ford ECU. Someone probably deleted it when they installed the Pectel.

 

There are three different head configurations, mostly interchangeable.  

 

The Mystique/Contour as mentioned with the exhaust cam only variable.  The problem is no one makes aftermarket cams for these.  You could have some ground, but that's the only choice as far as I know.  Getting cam grinders to grind custom cams is a PITA.  They are really special people.  Really.

 

The 2001-2003 Focus head with no variable cams. Camshafts are harder now to find in the US but Piper in theUK and Cat Cams in Belgium are good choices.

 Crower and Comp cams in the US had off the shelf grinds but I think they are all about gone.  As far as I know, the Focus and Mystique/Contour heads flow the same.

 

Focus SVT head with variable intake cam.  No aftermarket cams are available as far as I know, but the stock intake is a monster anyway.  Massive has the kit to bypass the variable intake.  This head flows a lot, and can be used on other engines, but it has  combustion chambers with much smaller volumes, so a big compression jump without the dished SVT pistons.  The intake ports sit higher in the head so they don't line up with other intake manifolds. but that doesn't seem to matter.

[Vovchandr]

1 hour ago, S1Steve said:

Hi Vlad, Explain again how and why your VCT was removed… 

 

See above. @dallasdude knows his stuff! Emissions only and was defeated before my ownership. Since then I've swapped to adjustable cam gears further making it useless. 

 

I didn't know my cam options were limited in this head. It is a mystique/contour motor. 

 

Is a Ford racing head worth the gains? My understand is that those are worth a couple of thousand on the regular. 

 

SVT motor is always an option in the back of my mind but from what I've seen between ITBs and new header most of the gains on the stock SVT are neutralized by letting regular Zetec breathe better so it might not be too much of an improvement in the end. 

[dallasdude]

Getting back to the orginal question, underpreforming Zetecs.......

If you look at it, these engines were rated from the factory at about 130 Hp and 130 foot pounds.  In a lot of cases the only modification is to bolt on a set of ITBs.  No other mods except ECU.  With the stock cams and head flow, they simply don't work at the RPM's the ITB's are designed to work at.  It is a function of intake runner length.  The stock Ford intake is about 17 inches, much longer the  SVT (although it is variable), and way, way longer than the ITB.  At low to moderate RPMs, you get a significant ram effect from the long stock runners....with a sizable plenum.  If you run simulations on a computer, the stock throttle body is more than big enough.  After all is said and done, those sexy ITBs are a setback to the stock power with no other mods.

So no wants to go back to the stock intake (although you can make lots of torque) So you want to move the power curve up to where the ITB lack of ram is not a problem.  The long runner turns into a liability the other way....past 6500 rpms or so.  Even without the variable part, the SVT intake is the best of both with a runner length between the two.

Probably the simplest real  thing is go get a set of moderate cams a put them in a Focus head.  Do a good valve job with Supertech valves, (stock or oversized), and with a thinner head gasket and or a cut to the head increase compression a little.  You do want variable cam gears, as we find big gains on the dyno with adjustment of the cams. I would think with this you could pick up maybe 20 hp or so at the rear wheels with this, with some increase in torque.  

 

You could dyno tune it with just adjustable gears and gain a little (you are moving the cam lobe centers to raise the optimum RPM range up to closer match your intake).  There may be a few HP to be gained there without opening everything up.  An increase in compression by cutting the head would help too....increased compression helps everywhere.  Low RPMs, high everwhere.  To run very high compression on pump gas, the quench has to be optimized but that's another story.

[S1Steve]

Excellent explanation, thanks for taking the time to explain.

[dallasdude]

 

Couple more things to add.....

 

If you are gong to add much power you also need bigger (and better) injectors.  The ITBs on my Elan are only 18 pounds or which is good for less that 150 HP.  Bigger injectors or more fuel pressure is recommended. The ones on my Elan have a terrible spray pattern also.  An EV-1 style injector that flows 30 pounds or more is recommended, along with some more pressure.  We use the stock SVT injectors at 50 PSI.  You can buy them off E-bay, but always have the cleaned and tested if your are buying used.  Maybe new for that matter.  We also use stock SVT spark plugs, copper core no reason to use anything crazy.  They are 2 or 3 bucks apiece from auto-parts stores or Summit.  

 

If the engine is going to spend much time above 7000 rpms or so...you need to change the oil pump.  It is part of the design, which a lot of the engines of that era use, including 1.6 and 1.8 Miata engines.  The oil pump sits around the nose of the crank so the secondary vibrations inherit in a 4 cylinder engine get transferred to the inner workings of the pump, potential causing a catastrophic failure.  At one time we used billet gears in the stock pump, but now Boundary makes a complete updated pump for Zetecs (Miata engines too).   The alternative is a dry sump, which relocates the pressure and scavenge pumps to an eternal belt driven pump.   Duartecs solve this problem with an internal chain driven pump.  Massive keeps the Zetec pumps in stock.  If you are doing a moderate performance engine, you can use the stock pump,  but with the range the ITBs are optimized for, safety requires something else.  I can't remember what the stock SVT redline is, but I wouldn't go past that.  Which I think is 7200 RPMs.

 

I spoke with Erik at Quicksilver and they are willing to do Zetecs to any spec.  For several years, they were out of the billet gears and the Massive pumps weren't being made yet, but now with them readily available, it means they can build a complete high performance engine without having to go to a dry sump.  They have a tremendous  amount of experience with dry sumps, that's what the FF2000's use and others they build, but of course they add expense and packaging problems with a 7.  The also know the Pectel T2 ECU very well, although they have and adapter to go from he T2 harness to the Performance Electronics ECU, as well as base maps.  I am doing a conversion for some PE ECUs to Zetecs which replace the full harness and I might be willing to build some extras.  The PE ECUs are a good modern update, made in the US (Ohio I think).  SCCA uses them in the Sigma engines in the Spec Racer Fords, and that's hundreds of ECUs on small Ford engines right there.  I think they are about 1200 bucks without a harness.

[mrmustang]

5 hours ago, dallasdude said:

 The also know the Pectel T2 ECU very well, although they have and adapter to go from he T2 harness to the Performance Electronics ECU, as well as base maps.  I am doing a conversion for some PE ECUs to Zetecs which replace the full harness and I might be willing to build some extras.  The PE ECUs are a good modern update, made in the US (Ohio I think).  SCCA uses them in the Sigma engines in the Spec Racer Fords, and that's hundreds of ECUs on small Ford engines right there.  I think they are about 1200 bucks without a harness.

I volunteer my 7 if they want something to work on for a turn key Pectel 2 on a Zetec conversion package. I hate wiring, so if they want a car to work up a new harness to sell as a DYI to others, I'm your man.

 

Bill

[CarlB]

Here is a copy of a Quick Silver dyno sheet for a Zetec with ITBs, cams and 10 to 1 static compression. It also had different rods for reliability. Longer intake runners will add torque and power lower in the power curve, but they will not make as much on the high end. Vouchandr, I would recommend you be concerned with the cranking compression ratio when you consider camshaft choices. When the intake valve closes makes a big difference in the compression. There are places on the web that will calculate the cranking compression and give you what the compression gauge pressure should be. 135 LBS sounds low to me. The Zetec engine with the variable exhaust cam timing is a different engine than the Focus engine. It had hydraulic lifters and the ports are different. Erik at QS tells me you can use the Focus cams, and I suspect that is what has been done to your engine. QS has built an engine like yours. It was similar in specification to of the one in the dyno sheet with the exception of a ported head.        

 

 

Edited March 11 by JohnCh
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[dallasdude]

This doesn't exactly match my experience, but you may be talking about the early (pre 98) Mystique/Contour engine.  The 98, 99, 2000 version had mechanical lifers.  The adjustment was by a little puck or disc that sat on top of the cam follower.  I used that series head at one time, but we used the later cam followers (Focus) which weighed 3 or 4 grams each less, and which didn't use the puck.  I believe the head flowed the same.  The engine did use an extra idler pulley for the Timing belt which was omitted on the Focus engines.

I believe the problem with using Focus cams on the 98,99,2000 engines, is the front exhaust cam journal is much larger because VVT mechanism.  It feeds oil pressure to the mechanism that adjusts the cam.  Most the cams are coming from UK and EU now, and of course their emission standards are different, so I think they never used VVT on the exhaust (Mistique Contour) or intake (Focus SVT).  The home trigger on the back of the intake cam is different also, but with the Pectel ECU, it doesn't matter. There was never much made in the way of performance parts for the early cars here because there was a V6 option for the Mystique/Contour.

Your point on keeping cam timing moderate on low compression engines is well taken.  I have dealt with 10-1 compression spec engines for years, back to 1.6 Miatas.  You want to be sure the cam does't have too much duration, but setting the cam timing on a dyno is very very important. You can get the intake valve closed and start building cylinder pressure.  In our case from straight up to the manufactures specs to where we run, about 15HP.  

If the quench is correct, I believe you can run  10.5 to one on pump gas...maybe even  more.  

[CarlB]

Dallasdude, I am not trying to disagree with what you are saying. I assumed Vovchandr has an early engine with hydraulic lifters. The dyno curve is for a Contour engine. I was trying to point out that changing the cams required consideration of the compression ratio among other things. You are correct that adding an individual throttle intake will only add top end power. I have no experience with the stock manifolds to know how well they work, but longer runners make more power at lower speeds and tend to reduce the top end power. The length of the runner changes when peak torque happens. One thing the individual throttle manifolds do is make the engine very responsive. It has a similar effect to a light flywheel. My car has the same manifold Vovchandr is using and if you measure the runner length it is tuned for 7,000 RPM. If you add one inch it would get it down to 6,000 RPM. I shift at 7200 and have a limit of 7500 RPM.

[Vovchandr]

At this time. Even after all the discussion I'm not anywhere closer to figuring out what the plan is for the Zetec to get in more peppy. 

 

Supercharger is still the likely option. 

 

At this time luckily I'm happy with engine regardless and glad I'm sorting out the tune and will keep messing with it as time allows.