X-Flow Oil Consumption

[jboult]

Does anyone know roughly what sort of oil consumption a 1600 X-Flow should have? At a track day at Goodwood, my Caterham was blowing about 1/3 litre into the catch tank for every 8 or so laps.

This seems rather a lot, but for all I know could be normal. Any advice?

[Mark B]

Doesn't sound normal to me, what sort of revs were you using? The old cross flow is renowned for blowing at high revs. You may also find piston rings are a little worn, could be pressurising the sump??

[jboult]

It was a track day, so very high revs...

It may just be that it was blowing off excess, as I tend to slightly overfill to be on the safe side. There's no oil from anywhere else, and no blue smoke so I'm hoping that's all it is.

[Mark B]

jboult said:

It was a track day, so very high revs...

What do you call very high revs, the old pushrod shouldn't got to far beyond 6000rpm without some internal workings, were you using more revs than this?? Or has it been lightened and balanced??

[Justin s]

If the engine is in a sound condition,then the thing I would look at is the catch tank routing.My Pre-lit had the catch tank on the passenger end of the footwell and by running the breather hose high over the engine,made all the breathed oil drain back into the engine rather than into the catch tank.If you run it short the oil will fill the tank at an alarming rate.The breather on the crankcase is enough to let the engine to breath and depressurise,so a rocker cover breather is not needed.
Most oil is not breathed up the pipe,but due to the reciprocating crank,it splashes up the pipe.The other thing you can do,which is effective,is if you are not using a mechanical fuel pump,to remove the cover plate and weld a small baffle plate to that to 'mask' the breather hole and prevent the oil splashing.
I hope this helps,as I had the same problems,but after they were resolved,the tank made about 50ml per 1000 miles.

[minimax]

my X-Flow veritably p1sses oil into the catchtank but that tip about routing it high might just solve it...thanks guys! One other point though - do check the level of gearbox oil as leaks on the ground can look as if they are just sump leaks - I just had to put a litre ( ) of oil in my gearbox!

[jboult]

[/quote]


What do you call very high revs, the old pushrod shouldn't got to far beyond 6000rpm without some internal workings, were you using more revs than this?? Or has it been lightened and balanced??[/quote]

Although I try to max out at 6k, I must admit that on some faster 3rd gear corners I occasionally go through that (too much time spent in a fully prepped Midget that was revved until the valves bounced...).

I'll certainly try rerouting the breather as it's low at the moment, and so is the catch tank. I had thought about putting an (old Fiesta?) filler cap on with the breather outlet and T'ing it into the main pipe to reduce pressure, but it sounds like that shouldn't be needed.

Thanks for the advice guys!

[Graham.J]

Could be the venting, I'm having alot of troubles with mine at the moment, need to change to a polo rad which is also part of my trouble, the information is on my website but I've just copied and pasted the relevant part below:

My Website said:

Firstly, mount the catch tank as high up as it'll go in the engine bay. Then take the breather from the engine block (under the inlet manifolds) and take it to the back of the rocker cover. Then, from the front of the rocker cover, run a breather pipe to the bottom of the catch tank, this means that when the engine is off the oil will drain back into the engine instead of filling up the catch tank

That's how a X-Flow should be vented.

HTH

Graham


Edited to get the quoting right.

>> Edited by Graham.J on Wednesday 6th August 14:01