Duratec Engine Rebuild Hours

[Ross_328i_sport]

Good evening,

I am currently running a Caterham R400 Duratec as a track car and in this spec have had 2 engines let go the first was due to oil surge as a result of oil running at too high a temperature which made the oil thinner and surged as a consequence with the wet sump and slicks I was running.

The second engine was built to last with forged rods and pistons, dry sump competition bearings, ARP bolts hi-flow head ported and polished, keyed and balanced crank.

After approximately 17 hours on track this engine let go (most likely spun a shell, engine is being stripped so a diagnosis is not complete)

My question is in relation to how often people have their Duratec rebuilt and in what specification i.e

R300
R400
R500

I'm currently looking at ways to proceed with the car and thoughts would be appreciated currently i have had thoughts on going the super charged route which does not rev the engine or the other option is to utilise a fairly standard duratec i.e the one used in the R300's.

I'm interested to know how often the R300 engines are rebuilt in the R300 championship and the R400 engines in the euro cup which no longer runs.

Thanks

Ross

[k20erham]

Hi, duratecs were used from Ford as they are cheap, boxed new and are peanuts new, they grenade when pushed not much better than the k rovers, shame when light years ahead engines are available but political red tape prevents. You pays your money and takes you're chance really. Call ford and get a price for a boxed new motor may surprise you,
I am

[k20erham]

Hi, duratecs were used from Ford as they are cheap, boxed new and are peanuts new, they grenade when pushed not much better than the k rovers, shame when light years ahead engines are available but political red tape prevents. You pays your money and takes you're chance really. Call ford and get a price for a boxed new motor may surprise you,
I am

[coppice]

So what is the political red tape of which you speak and what is the mystery engine you prefer?

[DCL]

I've been running Duratecs on track for about six years now and, if you look after the T&P's, they are very reliable. The big selling point with the early Duratec Caterhams was that they didn't need a dry sump, but my early CPT engine was rebuilt quite quickly after concerns about oil surge [edit: with a dry sump].

Having rebuilt mine several times now, I've never seen any serious problems. IMHO a seasonal overhaul is always a good idea but I would retain the original main bearings shells as tolerances are very tight and it is difficult to match them with replacement items.

For track cars (not used in serious competition) an overhaul maybe every 3 years, or 10K miles, would keep them in top class condition. A Duratec in a road car would be fine for life if you regularly changed the oil.

Edited by DCL on Monday 4th August 08:10

[k20erham]

I'm no expert with duratecs like most engines they have their limits, and exceed at your peril, oil issues usually come from installation issues,if you encounter bottom end issues throw it away and start with new, I build K20 Hondas, out of the box 205 hp,do rods pistons cams run at 9000rpm all day if you want at 250hp but you have to dry sump if you track them,go away from standard and it all gets very expensive. Just watch the 620r owners if they track them seriously the motors will go pop big time, watch the videos of them see how the are fueling!! Very very rich!!! Read safe, the Rotrex don't like heat either, the traction oil needs very carefulmonitoring or else they go off.You have spent a lot of cash to make your motor safe it's strange to have bottom end issues if the lube system is right

[k20erham]

I'm no expert with duratecs like most engines they have their limits, and exceed at your peril, oil issues usually come from installation issues,if you encounter bottom end issues throw it away and start with new, I build K20 Hondas, out of the box 205 hp,do rods pistons cams run at 9000rpm all day if you want at 250hp but you have to dry sump if you track them,go away from standard and it all gets very expensive. Just watch the 620r owners if they track them seriously the motors will go pop big time, watch the videos of them see how the are fueling!! Very very rich!!! Read safe, the Rotrex don't like heat either, the traction oil needs very carefulmonitoring or else they go off.

[bdev]

Very interested in this thread also... I had heard that the Duratec's were extremely reliable - for example the BookaTrack R300's have had great engine reliability according to Jonny... have you perhaps just been unlucky with the builder ??

[BSA]

In reality you have had only 1 engine fail , The first one was down to you thinking you would get away without fitting a dry sump the golden rule is if you run slicks you have to have a dry sump system on 7

[culminator]

I guess a lot of any unreliability is down to the way the engine is treated by the owner. If you have no mechanical sympathy and run at very high revs for sustained periods or push too hard when the engine is not fully up to temperature, then you're asking for trouble. I have a Minister built 2.3 ltr 260 bhp dry sumped Duratec in my 7 and I tend to drive gently until fully warm and short shift even though limit is set at 7200rpm. Duratecs have bags of torque, so changing up a bit early doesnt seem to have a detrimental effect on accelaration. I'm not racing, just a road car with a few track days but (touch wood) all OK so far and 7000 miles.

Really interested in this thread as I'd also like to know the consensus of opinion when it comes to engine life expectancy.

[JeffC]

BSA said:

the golden rule is if you run slicks you have to have a dry sump system on 7

I have had 3 duratec motors including my 270bhp duratec that run wet sump and I run that car for a good 2 years , when on track I was on slicks and drove it pretty hard and never had a problem with surge but I was constantly checking the oil level as I was advised from day 1 its is critical it doesnt get low and during the course of a day it would use oil so would need topping up, I personally had more issues with oil temps rising with prolonged use on a hot day and had I kept the car that would have been the reason I swapped over to dry sump.

I also know of a supercharged duratec (circa 260bhp)in a 7 running wet sump, on slicks that gets 100% track use and it gets driven hard,its had track use for the last 6 years and prior to that I tracked it hard when I owned it and prior to that it was a demonstrator car , that car is still on the original engine fitted back in 2004 and I dont think it ever been rebuilt !

tbh I am very surprised that Ross has had an issue as I know how anal he is about looking after his cars, I am tempted to say he has been plain unlucky as the spec of engine he had it was running a very low rev limiter so I would have expected it to be bomb proof and last for ever!

Edited by JeffC on Monday 4th August 13:56

[culminator]

Just out of interest Jeff, what do you consider to a "low" rev limit?

[k20erham]

Hi, duratecs were used from Ford as they are cheap, boxed new and are peanuts new, they grenade when pushed not much better than the k rovers, shame when light years ahead engines are available but political red tape prevents. You pays your money and takes you're chance really. Call ford and get a price for a boxed new motor may surprise you,
I am

[k20erham]

Hi, duratecs were used from Ford as they are cheap, boxed new and are peanuts new, they grenade when pushed not much better than the k rovers, shame when light years ahead engines are available but political red tape prevents. You pays your money and takes you're chance really. Call ford and get a price for a boxed new motor may surprise you,
I am

[subirg]

I got my R400 Duratec precisely because it was expected to be more reliable than a K series. To date, that has been the case. I bought mine new in 2007 - it was one of the first R400 Duratecs produced and at the time had wet sump. Over the years since then, I have upgraded to dry sump, ZZR tyres, had the 220 hp roller barrel upgrade fitted and added R300 race suspension (springs / dampers).

My usage profile is mainly track days. At each track day, it probably gets between 2 - 3 hours of running on average. I'm averaging 5 track days / year. Total mileage to date has just clicked into 16,000. At the track I give it everything it's got to the red line and often the limiter. I get through a set of ZZRs every 18 months or so. I also drive it decent distances on road and it hot weather to/from tracks - it has an annual trip to Europe every year with several trips to the "Ring, Spa and Le Mans to name a few destinations.

The car gets regular oil changes and is maintained 'by the book' but has never been rebuilt or given trouble so far. I always carry a bottle of oil to top up, but I haven't even broken the seal on the bottle yet… I may be lucky, but my car just doesn't seem to use oil.

So - overall, I'm not being much help as I've never had an issue. Now, if you want to talk diffs… I could go on for hours about the issues I've had with those.

[JeffC]

culminator said:

Just out of interest Jeff, what do you consider to a "low" rev limit?

Ross will tell you better but I seem to recall his car had limiter set at 7850 as he run fairly mild cams, he had good quality steel rods so engine was capable of much higher revs, standard duratec engine runs all day at those revs which is why it really surprised me that he has had a problem. my car had limiter set at 8750rpm which I still thought was a safe bet.

[culminator]

Thanks Jeff. Sounds like I'm being too careful ;-)

[mic]

k20erham said:

I'm no expert with duratecs like most engines they have their limits, and exceed at your peril, oil issues usually come from installation issues,if you encounter bottom end issues throw it away and start with new, I build K20 Hondas, out of the box 205 hp,do rods pistons cams run at 9000rpm all day if you want at 250hp but you have to dry sump if you track them,go away from standard and it all gets very expensive. Just watch the 620r owners if they track them seriously the motors will go pop big time, watch the videos of them see how the are fueling!! Very very rich!!! Read safe, the Rotrex don't like heat either, the traction oil needs very carefulmonitoring or else they go off.

Really?
How many have gone bang, either SPR300 or 620, the engines in the dev cars have done countless miles on and off the track including several races. They are still running !

Edited by mic on Monday 4th August 16:26

[Ross_328i_sport]

Wow a lot more comments then I thought there would be.

As Jeff has indicated I am very careful regarding the preparation side of the car warming the engine before giving the car full revs etc. This even went to the extent of having the engine built to 270 - 280 bhp specification without the cams therefore rods, pistons, bolts and bearings were to a higher specification to ensure the ensure was bullet proof.

With the cams I had installed the car made 232 BHP (2 litre) and the rev limit was set to 7800 rpm (To get 270+ revs over 8600 are required). Due to the previous blow as a result of high oil temps and surge I had fitted a large laminova on the new engine with the dry sump and oil temperature has never been above 110 deg c. I have changed the oil regularly every 7- 8 hours and always used Millers nanodrive 10w60 and on track never had any surge issues.

I'm sure that had the engine been built incorrectly then I would certainly have had issues prior to 17 hours of running most of which have been hard track work.

I never understand the track/ racing argument however I do race in the fun cup and drive the Caterham equally as hard once all fluids and tyres are up to temperature and spend no longer than 40 mins on track.

Having posted times close to race pace with the mild cams I had decided I wanted to increase the power to 260 - 270 and race the Caterham after this cam change during mapping is when it is believed to have spun a shell.

Since the news I have toyed with the idea of selling the car however watching videos etc I just love driving it on track but want to have reliability and wanted to find out what sort of life engines had at different levels of power.

Having spoken to Jonny at Book a track at Donnington on Friday they get between 300 and 400 hours from their duratecs, however the level of ability during each outing will vary significantly i.e. it will not be at a high load for all of those hours in terms of oil surge and revs and they use CR500 tyres which do not generate the same levels of grip as slicks.

I have also looked at race series and opne option which I have not mentioned before is the fitment of the Honda engine as this is preferred in VdeV for reliability reasons I believe.

I would be interested to hear from people who race in their caterham with a duratec and how often this is refreshed in terms of hours.

[mic]

Which dry sump are you using?