Which engine?

[Golf Juliet Tango]

Quoting Mort: 

Forgiven my lack of knowledge, but aren't the Sigma and the Duratec developments of the same engine? If not (or if so) what are the main differences? I tried Wikipedia for an answer, but am still confused.

I am not in the least suprised. Ford have an obscurantist approach to their engines. Now all their petrol engines are labelled Duratec. so it becomes a useless term (in general) Zetec has become a trim level. However, they are all distinct designs (as we know).

Not withstanding those comments, DocSlot is correct regarding those engines Caterham Cars and we use and refer to as "Duratec" and "Sigma".

[combine]

Quoting Dr Slotter: 

They're completely different. Ford co-designed the engine that Caterham call the 'Sigma' with Yamaha and the engine tyhat Caterham call the 'Duratec' is really a Mazda MZR engine, although obviously designed by Mazda when it was 33% owned by Ford.

 

The confusion arises because Ford badge all of their gasoline engines as 'Duratec'.

 

 

Interesting stuff , didn't know the mazda connection , just shows that badges can hide all sorts of things !

[Z3MCJez]

The sigma is "newer" but far from new. I believe that production of the standard sigma is about done (if not done), although there will (then) be a few years of one with some sort of variable timing (or something - I forget). However, I don't think Ford have put this engine in any new ford for a good few years.

 

Notwithstanding the above, my experience of the racing engines is that the Sigma tolerances are much tighter than our friends in Longbridge ever got. 3 years is far from unreasonable for a race engine - the most competitive K's had a head refresh every year and a full rebuild every 2. That simply isn't needed for a Sigma. I would expect this to translate to better longevity in a road car, although given the mileage of an average Caterham, that may not be that significant!

 

Jez

[Dr Slotter]

Interesting stuff , didn't know the mazda connection , just shows that badges can hide all sorts of things !

Indeed. When people say things like "the Duratec is great because its so widely used for racing" it's as much down to the fact that there are a lot of MX5s about rather than nominally Ford-based cars like our silly little things.

 

Edited by - Dr Slotter on 20 Mar 2013 11:38:31

[Dr Slotter]

Quoting Golf Juliet Tango: 

Quoting Mort: 

Forgiven my lack of knowledge, but aren't the Sigma and the Duratec developments of the same engine? If not (or if so) what are the main differences? I tried Wikipedia for an answer, but am still confused.

I am not in the least suprised. Ford have an obscurantist approach to their engines. Now all their petrol engines are labelled Duratec. so it becomes a useless term (in general) Zetec has become a trim level. However, they are all distinct designs (as we know).

Not withstanding those comments, DocSlot is correct regarding those engines Caterham Cars and we use and refer to as "Duratec" and "Sigma".

 

To confuse matters further, the 'Sigma' was orginally part of the Zetec-SE family and bears no relation to what we Caterham folk refer to as a 'Zetec' (which is really a Zetec-E), hence why the engine is the opposite way round.

[Martin J]

re the new Ford engines....I was reading that they plan to fit the new 1 litre three cylinder ecoboost engine in the mondeo. 123hp but *smile*not a huge amount of torque, I think it would feel rather breathless.

We pull a 5m caravan with our mondeo with the TDCI 140 lump & it just lopes along.

The little triple would find it a struggle.

[Dr Slotter]

Quoting Z3MCJez: 

The sigma is "newer" but far from new. I believe that production of the standard sigma is about done (if not done), although there will (then) be a few years of one with some sort of variable timing (or something - I forget). However, I don't think Ford have put this engine in any new ford for a good few years.

The new version (badged as Duratec-Ti-VCT) will be about for a good while yet, although will obviously be eventually be replaced by the Ecoboost engines. This is the engine that Caterham use for the overseas EU4 cars.

[Golf Juliet Tango]

Tom

Your comment that a "Sigma" was previously refered to by Ford as "Zetec SE" is something I knew, but reinforces my comment about Ford's careless/deliberate public confusion between clearly different engines.

I bet their internal designations are quite distinct.

 

Edited by - Golf Juliet Tango on 20 Mar 2013 18:36:25

[Dr Slotter]

It's pretty clear internally AFAIK, the Sigma was always called the Sigma but when it first came out it overlapped with the 'Zeta' engines so marketing needed a term to cover both, hence continuation of 'Zetec'. See also the Kent engines that are still built in Brazil under the name ROCAM-Zetec.

[Dr Slotter]

To clarify:

 

Zetec = what we would refer to as a 'silvertop'

Zetec-E = same as above but slightly changed top end (black plastic top)

Zetec-R = changed again (different tappets, conrods and a two-piece crank case). Helpfully badged Duratec when it was used in the mk.1 Focus RS (turbo'd) and ST170 (VVT'd).

Zetec-SE = Sigma (branded Duratec or Duratec-Ti-VCT)

ROCAM-Zetec = Kent (branded Duratec 8v)

 

Edited by - Dr Slotter on 20 Mar 2013 12:07:02

[Mort]

Interesting stuff. Thanks for the feedback. So, how do the Sigma and the Duratec match up? What are the advantages / disadvantages of each.

[weeman]

I'm certainly no expert but I would imagine that:

the Duratec will deliver more power, cost more and weigh more. It's been widely used in motor-sport and has a reputation for being robust. Not that the Sigma isn't robust.

I've been lucky enough to have had Sigma and Duratec powered sevens and I've a high regard for both engines, mind you I must stress that I'm no racing driver, neither am I an engineer.

I agree with Paul Jacobs, it would be an easier question to answer if we knew the reasons behind the O/P

[Garry7]

I have just picked up a temporary co car, a 1.6 Ecoboost Mondeo - v impressed with the power/delivery with such a big car. Country road overtaking is a doddle.

 

My 7 has a stock 175 Duratec, I love the sound and the tracktability of it (5 speed box), you can be lazy and drive on the torque or you can rag it to the red line, works just fine either way. On the road, not great deal of difference between that and a well driven sigma, so back to good old personal preference then.............. 😬

[huwp]

Quoting K T Scott: 

I'm good friends with Stuart at Premier Power. He has developed three performance upgrades for the 1.6 Sigma engine. Premier Power has a lot of experience with these engines having run them in European Formula Ford with a lot of success. Stuart's previous experience is building championship winning engines for Nissan and Ford in the BTCC in the late 90's and 2000. In fact he still builds the 2000 spec Rapid Fit Ford Mondeo engines at Premier Power.

 

The three performance upgrades are 155 horsepower, 175 horsepower and 200 horsepower. I've driven the 155 and 200 horsepower and have been very impressed. I myself drive a Caterham 150 Sigma and even the 155 Premier Sigma is a big improvement over this in terms of throttle response, driveability and performance. The 200 horsepower Sigma is great fun and Premier Power have spent a long time developing this engine to give this level of performance with good driveability and reliability. This engine has been the culmination of a lot of dyno work, rolling road testing, road driving and track testing to optimise the set up for the engine. They even have their own Caterham development car which is fitted with some impressive data logging equipment to help carry out development work.

 

Premier Power is achieving this level of performance with the engine only revving to 8000rpm and with running 95 octane fuel. One question that Stuart often gets asked is how reliable is it. His answer is "we haven't had any issues, we often strip the engine during the development process to inspect various components and everything looks very good". "This is not a standard engine, but one that has been heavily engineered to last". Stuart's response to this question is that no one asks this question about an R500 which is revving to 8500rpm. Does the fact that it's got a Caterham badge or a Cosworth badge on it mean its immune to engine failures?.

 

Another thing that's worth mentioning regarding the Premier Power Sigma upgrades is the weight of their engines. The Premier Power Sigma weighs up to 22kgs lighter than a Duratec engine. They have engineered the engine to be up to 8kgs lighter than the standard Sigma engine. Surely this reduction in weight puts their F175 Sigma upgrade in the performance bracket of an R300 or new Supersport R?

 

I understand that Low Flying will be running an article on the F200 shortly as they are sending some guys down to do a track day with Premier Power later this week, so watch this space.

 

Any idea on the cost of the F155 upgrade? I've emailed PP but am yet to get a response.

 

Happy to receive a BM if that's more politic.

 

Huw

 

 

[Garth]

Huw - try calling Stuart on 01295 788445 or 07712 530858 - he may not have received your mail as he was always pretty quick to respond to my e-mails and we exchanged quite a few! Garth

 

[Baz Hemsley]

I'd have a word with Klunk. You can't beat a good well balanced xflo.