fiestaturbo.com

[Codey]

Hi guys,

Does anyone here have performance cams fitted on there n/a engines?.

I'd like to here your opinions of it. Basically i've got a Zetec-S (1.6 16v Zetec-SE Engine that pushes 102bhp as standard). I've currently got Magnext cat-back full exhaust, pipercross induction kit and superchip and have had it on the rolling road giving 115bhp with 123lb.ft torque.

I've got my car booked in at Sanspeed in Bexleyheath for piper fast road cams and they are also going to play around with my superchip to help me get the best from my mods. I'm expecting 125 - 130bhp which i think is not unreasonable considering a know someone with the same mods on a zetec-s who has 137bhp!.

Anyway's, what i'd like to know is what it really feels like with fast road cams in. So i'd like to here from guys who have done this to any of there n/a engined cars. I'd like to know what differences you felt and was it really that noticable. I understand that i'm going to lose some low end torque but also wonder at what revs the cams really kick in.

Any advice on this would be great, but i will of course let you all know what i think when i've had it done.

Cheers,

[Project]

My personal opinion is that, despite resembling a shish kebob in outline, they taste a bit funny, and hurt if you hit yourself over the head with them.

[Brycey]

My personal opinion is that, despite resembling a shish kebob in outline, they taste a bit funny, and hurt if you hit yourself over the head with them.

! A comedian if ever i saw one.

[Project]

As a sidenote, without meaning to be rude or argumentative, the power figures you quoted, from the modifications you quoted, seem unlikely to me.

But then, who the hell am I to comment?

[Codey]

As a sidenote, without meaning to be rude or argumentative, the power figures you quoted, from the modifications you quoted, seem unlikely to me.

But then, who the hell am I to comment?

Mine does have 115bhp at the mo, i have the RR graph to prove it. I mate who has the same mods had his on the RR after the chip and has 121. Cams if lucky add 8 - 10bhp so that would put him at around the 130ish bhp mark. This is why i think its reachable and has been done by some already.

Also, the standard zetec-s engine tends to put out more than standard figures, upwards of 110bhp. This has also been somewat proven, its comming opinion among zetec-s owners and the results of a zetec-s rr day showed all produce close to 110bhp with only minor mods (air filter). This is shown on the vanaaken website under the rolling road section. Bear in mind that the Zetec-S 1.6 engine is not the same as the Fiesta Si 1.6 engine. That one was an economy engine, and not the same as the Zetec-SE which can benfit better from tuning.

Anyway's, i'll find out seen enough and will let you know. I could be wrong but either way i'll share the info with you

[Project]

Codey,

With my own eyes I have seen what a standard Zetec-S produces (this particular one sat happily at 101bhp iirc), and the difference a free-flowing air filter makes (nothing).

I have also been told by a trusted source how much difference to peak bhp a stainless cat-back exhaust made on this car as well (again, nothing to speak of).

Each car is different and these modifications will normally make mid-range power increase to a certain extent, but I suspect I will take my reservations about your power claims to the grave with me.

Bear in mind that the Zetec-S 1.6 engine is not the same as the Fiesta Si 1.6 engine. That one was an economy engine, and not the same as the Zetec-SE which can benfit better from tuning.

Thanks for the info

[Codey]

I appriciate your input, but i have to disagree.

Have a look here. http://www.vanaaken.com/index1.html

Click on 'Vad Profile' at the top and then 'Rolling Road' on the left and then 'Fiesta Zetec-S day' and then 'Dyno Results'

There are 12 different Zetec-S Fiesta's some with just Filter, others with Filter and exhaust, all showing close to 110bhp, some are just below it, some are just over it.

I'm not trying to start an argument, just showing you some proof that power can be had from these engines. The RR road cant be wrong for all 12 cars!. Lol.

Each to there own i guess, but i'm going ahead with the cams and am having before and after runs on the RR, i'll post both results up here even if they are dispointing .

[AdamB]

just to back codey up, his car is RR'd to prove this...

i've seen plenty of zetec's producing this power too, and codey's car is rapid

[Nick 2i]

Wasnt AdrianFRST's zetec s in performance ford a while back?

he had an air filter and a full system and got 2 bhp

[DaveZetec]

The RR road cant be wrong for all 12 cars!.

The figures quoted by ford are actual measurements taken with the engine out of a car at the flywheel. The power figures recorded by VanAaken are only guesstimates of the flywheel BHP calculated from the BHP at the wheels and then a very unreliable method of nocking the car into neutral and seeing how much power the transmission + tyre/roller contact loses in neutral.

Obviously the losses will be lower for a gearbox with no torque being put on any of the gears and no great shear forces on the bearings, therefore the RR operator or computer will adjust this figure by a certain percentage to give a reasonably accurate estimation of the flywheel BHP.
Also, ford figures may have been recorded on a hot day with inlet air temps in the 20s, whereas the RR figures could have been done in mid january with air temps approaching freezing - The "flywheel" BHP figures given by rolling roads are to be taken with several pinches of sodium chloride.


To put it bluntly, Those cars could be producing only 102 bhp at the flywheel, Just like uncle henry says! on the other hand they could be producing 120bhp at the flywheel.

[James_16v]

remember some rr places have generous figures

[Codey]

Lol ok we can sit here and argue RR figures all day, so cheers for the input, some interesting points raised .

But this post wasnt really about my bhp figures and what i think i'll get, so below is the last paragraph of my original post, and advice on this would be great.

*************************************************************
Anyway's, what i'd like to know is what it really feels like with fast road cams in. So i'd like to hear from guys who have done this to any of there n/a engined cars. I'd like to know what differences you felt compared with before and after the cams were fitted and was it really that noticable. I understand that i'm going to lose some low end torque but also wonder at what revs the cams really kick in.
*************************************************************

Just so that you know, the Cams in question are Piper 'fast Road' cams. 270 duration.

Cheers guys,

[James_16v]

i wasnt meaning u in prtcular, just saying that if u go to a few different rr u get a better idea of bhp accurately!

i have a janspeed cam in my xr2i and will be having it rr set-up on wednesday, at the moment it overfeuls a fair bit and idles fairly rough.

i'll let u know how i get on

[Codey]

Its ok i know you werent, i appreciate all the different opinions.

Let us know how that goes, and Wednesday is the day that i'm getting my cams done too so i guess i'll know by then as well! Lol

[Project]

I'm running a 130ps RS1800 Zetec in mine at the moment - the cams are considered quite high lift and really come into life at 4,000rpm - it's a noticeable kick up the arse and very different to the 1600 CVH 2i engine the car had before.

Yes, high lift cams will make a difference and I guess at the end of the day, if the car feels quicker, then the grin-factor is increased regardless of how many more horses the engine produces, so go for it.

I *would* recommend looking into the cost of fitting the 1700 Puma engine (especially the Puma Racing engine - 155bhp vs 127bhp iirc) as it can work out cheaper than tuning the Zetec-SE engine

Al

[Codey]

Thanks for that, its exactly what i needed to know!. By the way, my last car was an XR2i (1.6 CVH), and i had an RS1800 engine fitted and it did seriously go!! . I would of kept it but i wanted a newer car to work on.

Yeah i did look into the puma engine, pumaspeed to those kinds of conversions, they charge £1000 for supply and fit the standard 1.7 and £2000 for full racing spec. Just a wee bit out of my price range, but i'm happy with how well my 1.6 performs at the mo, just want to get a bit more Ooomph out of it which i think the cams should achieve. Plus as well as the cams i'm having a piper viper fitted on the same day to replace my normal pipercross induction kit. After that i would have then gone though all the usual engine mods - exhaust, filter, chip and cams so i think i'll then leave it at that and get back to more body styling.

Will let you know of my results.

[FezzR]

i would be inclined to remove the cat if i was fitting a performance cam and chip; tis mainly a personally opinon may get minimal power increase, gives u more freedom when setting up the fuelling though

[DorsetZS]

Unfortunately the cat is part of the downpipe in the zetec-s, but what about 4-2-1 manifold with a sports (freeer flowing) cat further down ? and also there are loads of sensors before and after the cat, so its difficult, but defo worth looking into.

Dan

[Phil Si]

no problem.. replace cat with decat pipe and there is the hole for the lambda.... thats the only sensor on mine on the exhaust...

apart from the spark plug sensor if any cops ask in my tailpipe lol

[FezzR]

can only see there being 2 sensors max,
and just cos its built into the downpipe dont make any more difficult, just more expensive

[James_16v]

well i went down power engineering this morning and my results were pretty bad...


my converted engine has a bodged loom and several sensors are playing up with the feuling (at idle it pumps in enough feul to do 3k ) then as i go up the rev range the feul backs off and after 4.5k its too lean to drive safely.

below 4.5k revs i did make 70bhp at the wheels tho, with quite good torque but the run was aborted due to feuling.

the guy reported that the engine is infact a powerful bugga and the janspeed cam in it has a large profile for road lol but he said they cant get the feuling set up with it how it is , so its off to an auto electrician tomoz to rewire various parts of the loom and get sensors right so hopefully it will be back on the rr this weekend


i'll keep u updated on the progress

[FezzR]

autoelectrician! bye bye pocket money

[James_16v]

unfortunately yes, but lukily at an affordable mates rates.

[FezzR]

are wetalking about si`s old beast/ cos i thought he ad i rebuilt properly

[James_16v]

there is nothing wrong with the engine itself (operators at dyno were impressed with it for just a cam), just the wiring isnt correct. I dunno if maybe sy bodged a few things bcas he is a sparky or something but after 3 of them spent 2 hours on it they decided it needed a proffesional.

its not majorly wrong, just a couple of things that are causing the idle mixture and throttle mixture to be inconsistent and cant be set up properly i trust their opinions as they spent ages trying it and didnt wanna admit defeat lol

[FezzR]

hope u get it sorted

[Codey]

Right then, i'm back i have my cams and my results so thought i'd share them with you.

My before run on the RR showed 103bhp@fly, although as previously mentioned on here the @fly are guestimates. so best to look at the @wheels figures to see the gain i've got.

i got 88bhp@wheels on the before run. Got 92bhp@wheels on my rr run on the other rolling road a few months ago, so that i take to be normal and due to the differences in the RR's 88/92, not much difference there. So moving on, did another power run after just the cams and running them in, got an increase of 15bhp@wheels with just the cams which he said was impressive and more than expected. Then he tried a few different superchip maps, settled on the 3rd one with a total of 19bhp@wheels gained. Its gone from 88bhp@wheels to 107bhp@wheels which he has calculated at 121bhp@fly.

Heres the graph. Its not as detailed as some. Doesnt show torque. The red line at the bottom is my first run as it was, for the sake of confusion, ignore the bhp figures, they are the calculated ones @fly. The middle black line that says 'cams' is the run with just the cams and no tweak to the superchip, and the other black lines are for the 2 different maps he tried, and then the last red line at the top is the end result. So comparing the top red line with the bottom red line is the difference i've appearantly gained. Still need to put more miles on it, but even now i'm now very pleased with it!. It sounds a lot meatier!, it flys through the revs and picks up nicely from 2000revs right upto when i change gear. The results on the graph were upto 6800revs.



--
Bill

[chumkila]

Codey.

Poo Jim, let us know how u get on.

My RS1800 kicks in at 3500rpm.

[James_16v]

ive cancelled the loom being fixed, hopefully this engine will survive until i have saved enough money for a frst engine conversion, al helped me realise theres no point throwing money at an xr2i its only eva gunna make 125bhp max.

and al if its ok, i will be calling upon ur loom skills bcas to be honest it makes no sense to me despite reading just about everything i could

other than that i just hope the xr lasts a couple of months so that i can source an engine etc.

least the car will have some power to match the mean looks, and i guess its what sy woulda wanted to do with it.