MBEARDEN Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 (edited) After looking for a Caterham or Birkin for months a member of California Caterham club pointed me at a Birkin in north California...the deal was done..and a member here handled the transportation. I drove it to my office Sunday morning and 5 people took my picture! The car is an 03 assembled by Dennis Tobin in 05...Zetec with Raceline ITBs and water rail..and I believe cams...Emerald ECU...5400 miles A couple of questions: The ECU was mapped in 05 when it was assembled and I have the printouts...along with a patch cord and disc. Is this process something that needs to be done again...altitude here is about 500 ft vs about 4000 were the car lived...or just redone to keep in tune. Does it have to be done on a chassis dyno to be effective, since I have not been able to locate one in Arkansas...there was one shop and it closed. How can I tell which Zetec I have? Birkin manual says there is a 17 character vin stamped on the "left hand diagonal" I can't see one. Spark plug preferences? Any things that I need to watch for? This forum has been very helpful in my search. Edited October 13, 2011 by MBEARDEN corrected spelling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MHKflyer52 Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 Well congrats on the new to you Birkin. Their are a number of folks on the forum that have the knowledge and information you are looking for and they will post answers for you. One that I would try to talk to is Slomove as he has done a lot of mapping of ECU's to my knowledge. Have fun and enjoy your 7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slomove Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 Well, I have done a lot of mapping but it was mostly on my own Emerald ECU. If this is an older Emerald it may or may not have the external sensor for barometric compensation. A vist to a (qualified) dyno shop will pay for sure if you can find one. If not you can buy a wideband probe/instrument (I got this one for 200 bucks) and watch it while driving or even better connect the output to the Emerald and log the behavior with a laptop. But the latter gets a bit more involved with soldering etc. You can do some iterative tweaking with this information or if it is too bad go to a dyno shop anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOTTTCAR Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 Here is the Berkin specific site that should help you out. http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/birkinowners/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
11Budlite Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 How can I tell which Zetec I have? Congrats on your purchase! Here's a thread to help you ID which Zetec you have: [/url]http://usa7s.com/vb/showthread.php?t=5096&highlight=zetec Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
11Budlite Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 Birkin manual says there is a 17 character vin stamped on the "left hand diagonal" I can't see one. Here's a photo of the ID on my left (driver's side) diagonal. The ID is BIY1899 on my car. I don't know if I've ever seen the 17 character VIN. I also have BIY1899 stamped into the frame below the rollbar mount. I think it's on the right side mount but I'm not going to remove the rollbar to verify! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
11Budlite Posted October 15, 2011 Share Posted October 15, 2011 Spark plug preferences? . I would check to see what your engine is running first. A lot of people were recommending Denso Iridium plugs when I was putting my car together. The stock plug for a 2.0 Zetec was ITV16 for years 97-04 according to the Denso site. For some reason they recommended ITV20 for '95-96. The Zetec SVT used the ITV24. I think Woody Harris used to recommend the ITV22 for a modified motor with a compression increase and stage 2 cams. I'm sure there are other spark plugs, including the stock Motorcraft plugs, that would work just fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBEARDEN Posted October 15, 2011 Author Share Posted October 15, 2011 I pulled a plug this morning Denso ITV20...very black and sooty..too rich...Autozone came up with an AutoliteXP5364 but it looks longer. Pretty sure I have a ZX3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
11Budlite Posted October 15, 2011 Share Posted October 15, 2011 I pulled a plug this morning Denso ITV20...very black and sooty..too rich...Autozone came up with an AutoliteXP5364 but it looks longer. Pretty sure I have a ZX3. The ITV20's should be fine for your car for now. You probably have a rich condition somewhere in your map that will require adjustment to correct. You should probably read up a little on the Emerald ECU and make a determination on how you want to correct it. You can fix a lot of the conditions with a wideband O2 sensor and a laptop, but in order to optimize power, driveability, and fuel economy you really need to put it on a dyno with a knowledgeable operator. Here's a few links that should give you some decent info. [/url]http://www.emeraldm3d.com/ http://www.biggles.net/emerald.html http://www.our-nest.co.uk/Caterham/html_files/2006_emerald-k3.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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