Shaun_E

I assume you are aware of the SimpleSevens site? If not, take a look there: https://www.simplesevens.org/forsale/forsale.htm

I ran without sidelights for a couple of years after the car was rewired and they were missed (my MOT tester at the time wasn't bothered) but when I moved house and had to use other testers, both the ones I tried insisted on there being "front and rear position lamps". I tried arguing with them that my headlights qualified but they wouldn't accept that. Reluctantly I wired the lamps back in. You can of course run without any lights at all as long as the car is "only used during daylight hours" but I guess if you are going to use the car regularly on the road that's not really ideal. You could run with all the other lights and just accept the advisory "front position lights not working vehicle only used during daylight hours". The risk is that you get pulled over when it's dark and the MOT says you only use it during daylight hours.

Engine is now out and with the engine builder so we should find out soon enough.When PGM drained the oil it had a metallic sheen to it hence going straight to engine strip down rather than just replacing the oil pump. I just stripped the Laminova heat exchanger and the core has lots of tiny pieces of metal in it - that doesn't bode well especially as they are magnetic!

Thanks Richard and Danny. I did fit a 100 Ohm pull up resistor - either I got the value wrong or fitted it wrong - will have to check again. Now have plenty of time as the engine is off for a rebuild :-( @Jonathan - it was this thread that got Andrew started but as I am the only one needing a 0-5V gauge output, he rightly chose to go the route he did.

Car booked in at PGM for them to drop the sump and take a look. Symptoms do suggest a sticking PRV so lets hope that's all it is. I spoke to Raceline and although they've not seen any failures since the longer plunger was introduced, they agreed it was possible that it had somehow stuck open. Answering my own questions. 1. Yes it's possible but not ideal since the front cover needs to come off the engine. 2. Easy enough to remove the bearing caps once the sump is off so they will be checked. Let's see what Andy finds. If it's not the pump then it's engine out time.

DS set-up was purchased early 2013 as part of a complete engine from Raceline. Normal pressures were cold: 30 psi at idle /approx 50psi at higher RPM, hot: low 20s at idle/mid 40s at higher rpm - it has run like that since new and it's been rebuilt once in that time after a season racing. I am not concerned about the normal pressures since it has run (very successfully) like that for 10 years! I haven't noticed any odours from the oil but then again I haven't really checked. I had an oil analysis done last year and it came back clear of hydrocarbons and it's not been run much since then. I've been chasing an issue with the car since last year and finally tracked it down to the fuel pump which has now been replaced. I guess it's remotely possible that running with the dodgy fuel pump has damaged something in the engine! Question 1: can the oil pump be replaced with the engine in-situ? If I understand correctly, the Raceline DS set-up replaces the standard oil pump with a combined pressure/single stage scavenge pump - is that correct? Question 2: is it worth trying that or should I just get the engine out and checked over properly? Can all the bearings be checked with the engine in-situ? I can't get the engine our myself due to my back problems so will need to pay someone to do it.

Yes its a fuel pressure gauge but it's all I've got - it has the right range and thread fitting so I think it should work. It might not like hot oil but I've only tried it cold. Readings match those of the dash oil pressure sensor so no reason to suspect it isn't working. Yes it could be PRV I guess - not sure where it is though. Pump is inside - needs front cover removing to see it. Any idea on how to check the PRV?

After all the issues I've had with the car, I thought I'd finally got it sorted with the replacement of the fuel pump but no. I drove the car at the weekend for the first time since the fuel pump was replaced and all seemed fine - car was running perfectly. Once warmed up and giving it some full throttle runs I noticed the oil pressure was lower than usual. The further I drove the lower it got until it dropped tp 7 or 8 psi. Raising the revs didn't seem to improve things. I headed straight home since by this point, nothing had gone bang and I assumed it was a failed pressure sender (supplied by Race Technology to go with the Dash 2 Pro I have fitted). Today I have removed the sender and put a mechanical pressure gauge on and, unfortunately, it shows the RT sender is correct. Cold idle was showing about 22psi which began to drop as the car warmed up a bit and raising the revs caused the pressure to decrease - opposite to normal behaviour. Normal oil pressure is closer to 30 psi at cold idle rising to approx 50psi at higher RPM. This drops to low 20s at hot idle and mid 40s at higher rpm. It's a 2.0 Ford Duratec fitted with a Raceline dry sump system with internal scavenge pump. Any ideas? Oil pump, bearings? Is it going to be an engine out job and a trip to the engine builder? The mechnical gauge is this one from DT. I have the sender mounted remotely with a hose from the oil filter housing - do I need to bleed the oil through before attaching the mechanical gauge?

Hi Richard - I thought I had them written down somewhere but I can't find them. If I find them, I'll post them here. I'll probably have to go through the calibration process again :-(

Here's the equation the software generated - I added a couple of litres at a time and used a table for it to calculate from.

I can see everyone loves a challenge :-). Thanks for your ideas. The sender gets a 5v reference feed from the dash so that takes care of any possible voltage fluctuations. The dash can do the mapping of voltage to litres as Richard has shown above - when I tried it the curve was so crazy that the software couldn't create an equation to match it! The dash can also damp the input so no need for the circuit to do that. The dash can read up to 20V on each analogue input but 0-5v is what the manual suggests. The Spiyda device is neat (I already looked at it) but it just maps one resistance range to another so isn't ideal in this scenario. Although, if it was used to map to a much higher resistance and a suitable (~1kOhm) pull up resistor were used it should produce a much better result (that's what the Race Technology supplied temp sensors use). I have it wired like this with a 100 Ohm pull up resistor - it should work according to RT but the values the dash receives don't map to any sensible curve. I'll plug the laptop in later and get the curve off it to show! This is all theoretical right now due to the fact I have a prolapsed disc in my lower back so I can't actually work on the car :-( but as soon as I am fit again I'll be keen to get it working.

I've been searching for a solution to this ever since I fitted a Race Technology Dash 2 Pro. The standard K series fuel sender is a simple potentiometer and the standard fuel level gauge works with that (as did the Stack dash I had previously). The Dash 2 only supports 0-5v inputs so I need to somehow convert the variable resistance to a 0-5v signal. The Race Technology instructions say to add a pull up resistor, the resistance value to be determined by the resistance of the sender. In my case, I believe that the sender is in the 0-200 Ohm range and that I should fit a resistor of about 100 Ohm. I've tried this and the voltage measured at the dash doesn't seem to follow any remotely linear curve. The wiring diagram and resistor values are shown here: http://www.race-technology.com/upload/DASH2_PRO_Default_Wiring_Web.pdf. Does anyone know the actual resistance range of the Caterham sender and/or have suggestions on how I could get this to work? It is possible to buy a 0-5v output fuel sender but the only UK supplier I can find is ATL and they want £200 for them! Similar are available in the US for about £35

I thought I'd update this thread with the solution for my issue. It turned out to be the fuel pump! It was priming fine and delivering 3.5 bar but as soon as the revs were increased, the fuel pressure dropped away until eventually it got so low that the engine cut out. It appears that the pump has been gradually failing - starting with an occasional misfire which got more frequent and eventually completely failing. All very annoying since I'd taken it out, found the dodgy wiring that I fixed using parts from an old pump unit I had on the shelf and put it back in.

On line MOT manual Emissions testingYou must inspect vehicles with spark ignition engines first used on or after 1 August 1975. You do not need to check: L category vehicleshybrid vehicles - with electric and combustion engineshydrogen fuel cell vehiclestwo-stroke engines - unless they are subject to a catalyst testIf an engine has been modified in any way, it still must meet the exhaust emission requirements according to the age of the vehicle. For emissions purposes only you should treat the following as first used before 1 August 1975: kit cars and amateur-built vehicles first used before 1 August 1998Wankel rotary-engined vehicles first used before 1 August 1987Q plated vehicles

Yes you are correct and the MOT tester should know it - but most don't. I took to printing off the relevant section from the on-line MOT manual and showing the tester. I've had a few testers insist on doing the basic emissions test which my car miraculously passed!

Great - thanks John. Won't be able to fit it for a while as the car is off to PGM tomorrow but once I get the car back, will try it out.

Perfect - I've been looking for something like this for ages. Currently have a bit of bent aluminium which is OK but hard to get firmly attached. Form completed and payment sent

Screwdriver and hammer are my usual weapons of choice - tap close to the edge of the cap, working your way around the circumference. Failing that, drill small hole and screw in a self tapping screw which will give you some extra purchase to pull it off with some pliers.

The injectors were cleaned and tested on an ASNU tester. Suspects now are either the fuel pump or the fuel pressure regulator as I don't think that the small fuel weep at the pressure gauge would be enough to cause the pressure to fluctuate wildly which is what the gauge was showing. Hopefully a new gauge arrives tomorrow along with the compression tester but actually I think it is going to an expert as I've had enough.

Injectors now cleaned and tested so that's them ruled out. I measured the header temps. 1 and 2 similar, 3 much higher and 4 somewhere in between. 200, 200, 300, 270 roughly. Suggests 3 is lean. I put the fuel pressure gauge back on and it showed about 3.3 bar until I put it under load when it fluctuated wildly. However I couldn't get it to seal and think maybe it was faulty so have ordered another. Could be that fuel pressure is the problem! The guy that cleaned the injectors suggested I do a compression test so that's tomorrow's job if I can source a compression tester

Thanks for the ideas John, Geoff and Andy. I will check the TPS and maybe replace it - yes the wiring to the connector is all new but the TPS and therefore the wire from it to the connector have been in the car a long time! I have an infrared thermometer like Andy linked to so will check the header temperatures as suggested. Will probably be getting the injectors cleaned but would be nice to know if it's a likely cause.

No lambda sensor but the TPS is the only other thing I haven't replaced so will look at that.

Quick update - I put some fresh fuel in and have checked I'm getting a spark at each cylinder and it is now running a bit better. However, when I increase the revs slowly, it reaches a point where it starts to misfire but there is a lot of unburnt fuel - it pops and bangs and shoots flames out the exhaust! More thinking to do!

Hi Mark - there was a fuel issue as in the fuel pump stopped working! The connector inside the tank had broken but I've fixed that now and the pump is working fine delivering good fuel pressure. I will put the pressure gauge back on and check with the engine running but it's a damped gauge so probably won't show any transient pressure drops. The injectors is a good shout though - I could get them checked/cleaned. Thanks, Shaun