Klasik-69 Posted May 8, 2014 Share Posted May 8, 2014 I'm not sure if anyone is interested but I just got an email from William at C-F-M in Orlando that he has finally received the billet oil pumps for the Zetec engines, specifically for those wanting to run over the 7400 rpm limit. They're not cheap at almost $400. There was a lot of talk in the past as to whether or not it was true that the stock Ford oil pump would grenade above 7400 rpm. Some said it would, some said it never happened. I played it safe by setting my soft limit at 7200 rpm and hard limit at 7400 rpm. I don't really know how much more power is available above that anyway, depending on how the head is ported and what the cam profiles are. I'm a chicken anyway when it comes to destroying motors............play it safe and drive it another day.:party: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelD Posted May 8, 2014 Share Posted May 8, 2014 My concern is keeping the oil pressure up. Why would a billet pump be better thab a stock pump? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xcarguy Posted May 8, 2014 Share Posted May 8, 2014 MichaelD, The concern is with the stock pump coming apart above 7400 rpm vs. the billet pump which will survive the high rpm environment. No pump, no oil pressure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitcat Posted May 8, 2014 Share Posted May 8, 2014 MichaelD: Yr se7ens partner in Zetec-engined crime, Folis Jones, had an oil pump go at high rpm (7400+ rpm) and it cost him his (v expensive) engine. My Zetec maxes out at 7000 rpms, which is considered a safe # for the stock oil pump. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S1Steve Posted May 8, 2014 Share Posted May 8, 2014 (edited) From what I have read over the years, the stock Zetec oil pump is cast. Castings get fatigued over time and crack. So once the crack grows it gives the oil pump shaft room to move around and its self-destruction takes place. We have huge cast pumps at work, that are spun by 500hp electric motors. If they let loose , its at start up at a much lower rpm. I'm trying to find where I read max rpm for a Zetec oil pump is 6400. The pump is the Big weak link in the very well built Zetec engine... Hope this helps... Steve Edited May 8, 2014 by S1Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klasik-69 Posted May 9, 2014 Author Share Posted May 9, 2014 I wondered about this a few years ago so I did some research. I checked on the British car forums and the Focus forum here in the US. It was impossible to really draw a hard conclusion as to whether or not the stock cast oil pump fails and at what rpm it does, if it does. Jon at Caterham USA in Denver told me that of all the engines he has built, he's only seen a couple fail with an oil pump issue. He told me my motor (he built it) was good for 8000 rpm without any concerns, and yes it has the stock oil pump. But then you read about this guy or that guy who had their engine grenade from the oil pump failing at upper rpm's. For one thing, we didn't have a choice in the matter since there weren't any billet oil pumps available until just now. William at C-F-M in Orlando has listed the pump but it has been out of stock until just recently. $349 to keep your motor running is cheaper than getting a new motor, IF IT IS NEEDED. That is the big question. I did what Kitcat did, set my rev limiter to below the threshold of destruction. Again, I'm not sure if the 7400 rpm number is accurate, perhaps 6400 rpm is a safer number. Another way of adding safety is with an oil accumulator to prevent oil starvation but there would be a need to shut down the motor pretty quickly after the oil pump failure, and an accumulator will artificially maintain oil pressure for a short time with the eventual loss or drop still coming if the pump failed. Having a ignition cut-off switch tied to the oil pressure could cause more problems than solve since it would need a certain amount of time delay to run but no time delay to prevent catastrophic failure. Accusump ?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
11Budlite Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 I wonder if anybody has documented the number of oil pump failures regarding the use of the stock crank pulley/harmonic balancer, or with an under-drive pulley. I just compared the stock pulley that I removed from my '96 Zetec, which is 3.22# and has rubber section between the inner and outer parts of the pulley to my Esslinger UDP which was supposed to weigh about .5# and is a single piece of aluminum. It seems like a lot of us who run the Zetec have installed an UDP to reduce the rpm of the alt/wp when we spin our engines up to 6-7k and beyond. Due to the location of oil pump on the Zetec, could the use of an UDP w/o a harmonic balancer be contributing to a vibration issue that could be damaging the stock O/P gears? I do think that $349 for the improved gears is a small price to pay for insurance on an engine that regularly sees extended rpm usage. I'd be interested in getting some input from any of you engineering-types. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dallasdude Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 (edited) This is from a previous post.....I'm not an engineering type but I stand by what I said. I never had one break but when I was racing a Miata, but I saw some oil pump failures when using an aluminum underdrive front pulley. The vibration without the balancer would even sometimes break the Miata throttle shaft, leading to catastropic engine failure. I have never had anyone in the Focus community admit it, but I do think the the aluminum crank underdrive pulleys a lot of them use make the potential for oil pump disaster much worse. Inline fours have some harmonics that no matter how well the engines are balanced, you can't tune out. I have read the crank can flex a degree or two every time a cylinder fires. The stock crank damper or harmonic balancer absorbs some of this...it has a certain amount of mass and a rubber isolator between inner and outer sections. On Zetecs (and Miata engines) the oil pump surrounds and drives directly off the crankshaft nose, so it is where a lot of these hammer blow type forces wind up....although it goes throughout the engine. Bottom line is if I was building an 8000 Zetec rpm engine from scratch, I'd probably use the billet gears if it was going to spend much time at close to those speeds....but in any case I would not be tempted to install the aluminum pulley on a wet sump engine......dry sump you normally use an external oil pump so vibration is not so much an issue. I would imagine the power on the Supersport engines drops off past 7500, especially with a stock muffler, so no reason to run past that anyway. Dyno will tell the real tale. Edited May 9, 2014 by dallasdude Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnCh Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 Does the SVT engine use a different oil pump? I seem to recall the redline on that is about 7300, not sure where the actual limiter is set though. -John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dallasdude Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 SVT pump is exactly the same.... but I'm sure the factory design expects the stock balancer to always be on the engine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelD Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 My motor is a Formula Atlantic motor built by QuickSilver Raceingines in Frederick, MD. The redline is set for 7,200 and the cams were kept somewhat mild so I can keep it on pump gas. That seems high enough for me and changing the oil after track events seems to be working for me. I would just like to see higher HOT Temp pressure. Any suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klasik-69 Posted May 13, 2014 Author Share Posted May 13, 2014 My motor is a Formula Atlantic motor built by QuickSilver Raceingines in Frederick, MD. The redline is set for 7,200 and the cams were kept somewhat mild so I can keep it on pump gas. That seems high enough for me and changing the oil after track events seems to be working for me. I would just like to see higher HOT Temp pressure. Any suggestions? Not sure what pressure you're getting and at what rpm. My seems to run at 4 bar cold at slightly higher than idle or around 1200-1400 rpm. Once hot, the pressure will drop to around 2 bar (28-30 psi) at idle and will return to around 4 atmospheres at higher rpm's. Engine temp never seems to get higher than 80 deg C, no matter what I do or when I do it. My pump is the stock Zetec Ford oil pump and I run Mobil 1 0W-40 synthetic oil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelD Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 Klasik, That is about the same as mine. I run 5W-50 Mobile One and 93 pump gas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klasik-69 Posted May 21, 2014 Author Share Posted May 21, 2014 I've been running 0W-40 Mobil 1 race oil which is a little different than regular Mobil 1. The "0" rating is ideal for cold start up which is when you encounter the most wear and tear. I spoke with Neil Harvey of Formula 1 legend (he built my 800 hp Porsche 962 race engine) on oil & he told me the greatest wear point is in the valve train upon start up. He said use a low W oil for that reason, reduces wear & increases engine life. He also advises cranking the engine w/o ignition first to build up oil pressure, the flipping on the ignition & fuel ignition. My Porsche is set up that way from his setup so I made the Caterham do likewise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1turbofocus Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 I know of about 10 oil pumps that the gears have broke , The max I tune rev limiter for on the Zetec or SVT is 7350RPM with stock gears and 7650 with billet gears I know of one set of the C-F-M billet gears that broke on a boosted engine and he turns it to 7800+ and is making over 500HP to the wheels I like mobile one synthetic oil and I still use it , you are correct in the most bearing ware comes from the first 10-30 sec of the engine running , spinning the engine over till you see oil psi before starting helps a little but it wont help as much as a accusump will Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1turbofocus Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 I also feel the stock Harmonic Balancer should always be used on any Zetec thats used for performance use , I feel the rubber there takes some of the harmonics out of the rotating mass Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
athens7 Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 I would be very careful about installing a C-F-M billet oil pump on an SVT zetec engine. I have run both stock and billet pumps, and done extensive tuning on both. The billet pump generates higher oil pressures than the stock pump (for reasons I don't understand, but C-F-M has confirmed this is true), which causes problems with the variable cam timing on the SVT motor (VCT is controlled by oil pressure). Attached is a comparison of the dyno pulls with and without the billet pump. As you can see, the torque and horsepower curves are flat in the rpm range affected by VCT on one pull. This pull was done with the billet pump installed. The other pull was with the stock pump. Further research with Ford indicated that VCT operated within a range of oil pressures, and the higher pressure in the billet pump wouldn't allow the VCT solenoid to actuate properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1turbofocus Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 Odd , your saying those 2 dyno pulls are 100% the same with no changes other then the oil pump gears I have built about 10 SVT engines with the billet gears and I have my own inhouse dynojet dyno and I have never seen any difference and I plug the oil squirters in the SVT engine so I should have more oil psi then you have unless your doing your clearances tighter I would like to see the datalogs of those 2 runs , I think there is more going on other then what the dyno is showing , what tuning software are you using ? Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
athens7 Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 These pulls are from several years ago. The software was a Diablosport Predator (that you sold me, Tom), and the only difference between the two pulls was the oil pump. Once the pump was removed, ALL subsequent pulls reflected the higher curves, regardless of other variables introduced later. I do not claim to be an expert; I am simply sharing my experiences with the board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1turbofocus Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 Please understand I wasnt implying anything , I just had never seen that to be an issue with the billet gears and there is 20+ dyno runs between the 2 posted dynos I am always open to learning new things so I ask questions Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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