Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

Also, the aeroquip parts below are FiA Approved.

[Graham]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

you should be able to get a litre of fuel out in about 15 seconds,

so do we taking your going to run in the british or a nation A championship?

the daft thing about this fuel sampling malarkey is off the record the scruits are told to avoid fuel testing because it costs a fortune and is dammed difficult to get done!

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

Hoping to do the British Sprint Championship this year Graham. Depends on how the work pans out. Current contract only runs until end of Feb 2011.

Ran the engine last night, after fitting a 2mm restrictor to the swirl pot top hose. Will run her up to temp today to check for leaks and see if the overheating has been cured.

If this fails, the stats coming out. x-)

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

Ran her up to temperature today, and the same condition exists.
I tried clamping the swirl pot return to stop the water bypassing the radiator, and that made no difference.
So I'll remove the thermostat and see what happens.

It must be the design of the radiator. I'll chat to Radtec in the new year to see what can be done. It could be a new radiator is required.

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

My cunning plan is as follows:

Remove the radiator, and turn it over, so that both the inlet and outlet ports are at the thermostat end of the engine. (they're both on the sensor housing end at the moment)

I'll have the bottom radiator outlet removed, and blanked off, and the outlet welded back on to the bottom end of the radiator so it exits from the side of the end cap.

This will allow me to route the hot water from the sensor housing, across the width of the rad using the 32mm alloy tube, to the top inlet.

And I can plumb the thermostat housing (inlet) in to the bottom of the rad, with a couple of 90 degree rubber hoses.

That ought to do it. I'll drop the rad out tomorrow and see if Altiss can modify it for me.

The problem with the existing setup is that the thermostat housing is fed from a hose that runs up and down across the width of the rad, and the water pump isn't designed to pull water through a pipe, its there to circulate the water in the block.

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

Dropped the rad off at Altiss.com for the modification.

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

Radiator is done. I'll collect it today. Pics to follow.

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

Done



I'll fit it tonight.

[dobuy]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

fingers crossed

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

Radiator is in, and almost ready for testing. Just a couple of jubilee clips to do and I can fill it with water.





Fits ok, no issues with clearance, lots of room around the alternator for the new bottom hoses to run.

In an ideal world, I'd go back to square one, and design the rad without the horizontal split, and then I could run the hot water from the top of the block straight in to the top of the rad, and do away with the ally pipe that runs across the length of the top of the radiator.

I'll test it at the weekend.

[Graham]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

crossing my fingers for you graham but TBH i thinkit wil be exactly the same as before

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

crossing my fingers for you graham but TBH i thinkit wil be exactly the same as before

I've no idea whats going on if it is the same Graham. Please share your theories before I end up spending any more money on this irritating problem.

Is it because I've split the rad? So no matter how I route the water, its not going to circulate?

[Graham]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

as long as there is a head of water i.e the pumps near the bottom of the cooling system and theres a decent amount of water above it the pump will displace water as it should irrespective of which way round the rad is or its design, because gravity will do the work for you of making sure the pumps well supplied, you have ruled out having too much water bypass the rad so it cant be that, so that leaves us with two possiblities, either the waterpump impeller slips on its shaft, something thats VERY common on diesel mondeos and transits not to mention quite a few vw, although all of theses suffer cooling problems at high rpm and appear normal at low rpm, so your problems unlikely to be the pump.

in an earlier post you said the engine has a two stage/bypass thermostat, your problem most likely relates to this in some way, the stat is a normal stat but with an additional disc on one end, what should happen is as the stat opens to allow coolant to circulate through the rad the extra bit on the end shuts off an internal waterway, if that internal waterway doent get shut off the coolant takes the path of least resistance, which guess what isnt through the rad! unless your revving it hard at which point the pumps pumping so hard some of the coolant has to go through the rad,

so whats wrong? well either the stat itself, or theres something wrong with the plumbing relating to the stat or its housing and the coolants simply finding another path avoided the rad,

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

I reckon its the first theory in your post thats the explanation of the problem. Because there was no head of water above the height of the pump, it could never have worked. I was running the water from the outlet on the bottom of the radiator, upward to the height of the rad, across the width of the rad, and down to the pump.

When I ran the engine last week, this pipe itself was getting hot, even though the bottom of the radiator was cold. Therefore, the water was stagnant in this pipe, or at least it was being expelled by the stat in the wrong direction. So at least this confirms that the stat was opening (which I'd already tested)

I'm hoping this cures the fault. I dont want to run it without a stat, simply because its a two stage stat.
An electric water pump is on the cards, as the final attempt to cure the overheating at tickover, but that'll be used to supplement the mechanical one, not to replace it.

And thanks for sharing your knowledge again Graham.

[Graham]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

you havnt actually changed the head of water though, the upper most level of the coolant that is above the pump and thats all that matters, how the water gets to the pumps irrelavent,

the only way to increase the head of water is to move the pump down or radiator/header tank up