Rob Walker

I have several brand new EGR valves off new 2L and 2.3L ford duratecs if they are the same as the focus happy to sell you one for a lot less than £175 Rob

I am told you need 17" wheels to clear the larger brakes on the 330d

If you are seeing 97c then the stat should be well open and water should be circulating around the rad. If it is not then the system could be airlocked or the stat is faulty and the emerald is sensing circulated coolant in the bye pass loop only. Rob Edited by - Rob Walker on 4 Mar 2013 10:25:18

Hi I am in need of a decent tidy pair of doors and mirrors for my imperial s3, anybody gone aero and want to sell? Thanks Rob

Its easy stuff to use as you simply float it into place having sprayed the area with a film of water with a bit of baby shampoo mixed in. Have a ago yourself.

Cosworth or try Xpower Engines Ltd 0044 780 106 1946 Piero will help you out Rob

5 L tin of brake cleaner ( carbon tetrochoride ) in a manual garden spray. Will not damage paint and cleans off oil grim a treat, plus it dries at low temps. Rob

As posted 200bhp is the cut off point for easy tuning of the Zetec FOCUS BLACK TOP, to tune to this level its cams,throttle bodies and if your keen a bit of a head tidy up and have the stock flywheel lightened. To take things further you run into valve piston clearance problems that prevent you from running hotter cams, it is possible to have the pistons pocketed run hotter cams and get 220 bhp with some head work but probably not an economic route over fitting forged pistons as the stock compression ratio is too low for power. The next stage to get up to 250 bhp requires some extensive porting of the head,machining of the head to fit larger cam followers,increased valve sizes, steel con rods,forged pistons, hotter cams,comp valve springs& steel retainers, full engine balance, etc etc in short a full competition engine. On the positive side the engine does not need drysumping the Raceline wet sump copes well on track even in race conditions using slicks. It is unfortunate that the Zetec has never been really developed by the tuners, Possibly the engines lack of potential to compete on power terms with the VX redtop on ultimate power terms and the difficulties faced to tune past 200bhp have seen it past by which I think is a shame as its a good strong engine. I would look into supercharging the engine and consider forced induction through the throttle bodies having first passed through the biggest charge cooler I could fit into the car, stick with the wet sump. A budget of 5K should acheive some usefull grunt. Rob Edited by - Rob Walker on 19 Jan 2013 18:49:38

I think it all depends on what you want from the engine and how you percieve value for money whats best. If your aspirations are for a reliable N/A 200bhp on the minamum budget then the zetec can acheive this cheaper than the Duratec. Once you start to look for more power the duratec is the cost effective way to go due to its advanced head design and greater valve area and aluminium block. Now if we look at the zetec installation in your CSR my view would be that it makes no economic sense to replace this engine with a N/A duratec. Anthing that is going to make the 600Kg car go is going to cost £9K+ then you have to get an exhaust, reskin the NS + all the other plumbing and logicistical/setup costs. The way ahead must be to use the inherent strength of the zetec and supercharge. Omex retail a kit for the engine together with some mild cams, low compression pistons, steel con rods should get you the right side of 300bhp 200lb ft torque , enough to make things interesting. The only snag/consideration is what gearbox will cope with such grunt but you would face the same problem if you go the N/A 2.3 route with 300Bhp. Rob

It would make an interesting tech article for Low Flying

The bearing in the turbo will be a plain metal shell bearing , the impellor shaft runs in a film of pressurized oil ( hydrodynamic wedge) these can last a very long time if the lubrication is good and oil kept clean. If its pushing out loads of black smoke this is unburnt diesel fuel and this will coke up the turbo impellor and shorten its life. Have a look at the airfilter , and try adding a 200:1 mix of 2 stroke oil to the diesel for a few hundred miles and see if the smoke reduces. When the turbo is about to fail it can become abnormally noisy and is usually accompanied by blue smoke in the exhaust, failure is usually very quick at this stage. Mileage is no indication, some turbos fail at less than 30k some can last 500k. If you know that it has become abnormally noisy I would change it soonest before it fails or sell .

It will certainly be cheaper to have it overhauled before it fails. If it fails it could take the engine and the catylst. Overhauls are around £500. Rob

I have a brand new 2.3 duratec in stock. Ranger spec + high port head. Also all the bits to build a the engine up to a high spec inc steel rods,pistons,cams,TBS,dry sump,flywheel,clutch etc., had it ear marked for my next project but may sell if the price is right. Rob Edited by - Rob Walker on 31 Dec 2012 14:00:42

The QED spacers have a machined taper through them 42 opening out to 45. It is not just a simple parallel hole which accounts for the price. Rob

If you look at the casting opposite the pinion , the hole is blanked off by an aliuminium disc about 20mm dia ,the 22% rack is identified by a pink disc

If you remove the cover off the MFRU it is possible to operate the relays manually with your fingure. By pressing each one you will be able to identify what each relay does as one should activate the starter, one the fuel pump the others are the horn and the lambda sensor. When you have identified the fuel pump you can jam this in the energised position with a match stick. Then operating the starter relay the engine should crank. The Red light on the Emerald should change from Red to Green to indicated that the Emerald has recognised the crank pattern and is revolving above 200 rpm, the engine should start. Good luck. I would be happy to come out to Grand Caneria and fix it for you. Rob

Why not contact Phil Stewart at Road and Race he probably has a diff in stock and will fit the LSD for you. If he hasn`t got one he will find one at reasonable cost.

For rods and pistons you can buy small drug dealer scales off ebay they are accurate enough for this job + - 0.1gram cost about £20. As regards removing material I took a trip up to Steve Smith (Vibration Free fame) and made carefull note of where he removed material. On the pistons he took material out of the taper on the gudeon pins with a die grinder and on the rods off the sides where the rod bolts enter with an angle grinder. Easy pezzy I was gutted when i got his bill for the full balance £250 plus vat. I now do my own static balancing . Rob money saving expert.

The Caterham C400 primaries fit. All variants of the Raceline dry sump pan leave a step at the bellhousing joint unless you fit the small flywheel and compact raceline bellhousing. The catertham triaganular dry sump tank will fit infront of the engine with either the raceline or caterham bellhousings, why would it not the raceline bellhousing moves the engine back 18mm increasing clearance obviously caterham made it to suit there bellhousing/engine position. rob

Dave , peter mcewan has just had some seats covered in alcantara for the ( speed Boat) you know what I mean. The seats look super.

Its re usable as is the cam cover gasket .

Have a look at the latest SPC semi helical box that Steve Perks is offering. I recon one of these built into an ali case could be the dogs for the torquey duratec. I have a six speed in mine and the shortened input shaft. Starting from scratch with any duratec over 250bhp I would fit the raceline short & small bellhousing, Ford Slave cylinder,raceline small flywheel, nissan starter motor and 8.5" AP clutch , raceline dry sump kit. Caterham triangular drysump tank that sits in front of the engine. For out and out track work a sequential Sadev gearbox. Oh and caterham exhaust primaries, I have had trouble with the Raceline Primaries fitting various chassis. Rob

DSL sounds like the latest radical with the ford ECO boost could be the car for you.

Pendennis, My post about not keywaying hindering timing can be misunderstood and needs explaining in that it allows the builder to follow the ford timing method which is the way you have to go if you also go without the heavy vernier cam sprockets in favour standard oe sprockets and cosworth diamond washers. The idea is to reduce the rotation mass of the valve gear and also save money. I am aware that keywaying does have its advantages but wanted to post that most current duratec engine builders no longer keyway the crank. I personally like the keyed cranks. When balancing I have found the biggest balancing issues have been with the flywheels the worst being 27grams out. In recent years AP whoes clutches I use have gone to some effort to balance both their clutch covers and friction plates, this certainly was not the case when we used their clutches back in the 90s on the K series engines. Imo balncing a crankshaft down to 0.1gram is just not necessary on Duratec that is reving less than 9000rpm. Rob

Nobody keys the cranks anymore its not necessary, and hinders the valve timing process as nobody uses the vernier cam chain sprockets. I would not bother balancing the crank as Ford seem to do a very good job. I would check the individual weights of both the rods and pistons some of the recent ones that I have bought have been as much as 1.5 grams out. By far the most important area for the attention of the balancer is the flywheel and clutch assembly. The cam chain tensioner is modded by removing the hydraulic plunger and discard the spring and ratchet pawl then tapping the hole to take a 6mm cap allen and k locknut the plunger can then be set to the fixed desired tension. Rob