Oil catchtank for X-flow

[Terry Field]

I'm planning to do my first club track day at Silverstone in March , so I am busy getting my act together. I have seen a reference to an oil overflow catch tank being advisable/necessary for track days, but I can see no way of fitting one. My car is a 1600 X flow with a Caterham fitted unleaded head. There is no obvious breather or overflow pipe which can be connected to an overflow tank. Any thoughts 🤔

 

Trying to get out of the garage

[greg]

This refers to a catch tank over the breather pipe to trap any liquid (oil) that may try to escape.

 

In its simplest form the pipe is run down to a large beer can secured to the car with a few tieits.

 

From the top of my head there could be a crankcase breather, but there is certainly a cylinder head breather - I cannot recall without looking at an Xflow. Also the pipe arrangements differ on a wet or dry sump application.

 

Greg, Q 86 NTM (Green 185BHP XF)

[Jimbo]

There should be a hole venting the crankcase underneath the carbs, which is the primary breather. you need to run a hose to a catch tank for this (beer can or the proper bit from Caterham). There may also be a breather on the rocker cover. if present you should do this too.

Jim.

[Roger King]

Later Caterham supplied engines had no breather at all except for the oil filler cap. In my opinion a wet sump Crossflow should have a block breather leading to a catch tank. The outlet is above the fuel pump and below the carbs, but the later engines were supplied with this plugged up. This was possibly due to Ford assuming that all later engines were destined for FF1600 use where they would be dry sumped.

 

It is possible to remove the plug and fit an outlet, but easier to do with inlet manfold removed.