Historic Formula Ford 2000 Association

A couple of problems I hope somebody can help me with.....

I want to fit an "idiot light" to the cooling system of the Pilbeam so that if it boils a big light comes on (temp gauge only partially visible). Is there a specific sender that I should use and where is the best place to fit it?

I have a breather on the back of my cam cover that goes into a catch tank, over a 10 lap race distance it easily pumps out a litre of oil, partly from the breather and also from the plastic filler cap.can anybody advise where the breathers should be? I have a wet sump with 5 litre capacity, I also have the standard flame trap breather which goes into the same catch tank..

The problem with a wet sump will always be, that the crank shaft will be spinning round smashing the oil into a froth

The volume of the froth builds up in the engine and gets expelled through the breathers. This is exactly what a "Dry sump" cures by evacuating the oil and froth from the bottom of the engine.

I have a lot of experience of 12.000 rpm engines and designing centrifuges to turn the oil froth back into clean oil again. Unfortunately, your problem, even with a lower RPM engine like a pinto is that eventually the froth will build up with the results you have already seen.

I have been involved in designing solutions for these sorts of issues and know that your problem will only be resolved by fitting a proper dry sump system.


I appreciate that this will cost "A Budget" to achieve but it will save you a great deal of trouble and ultimately money on broken engines in the future.

Apologies if this seems like an expensive answer to your problem but in the long run this will prove to be "Honest and good advice"

I agree with Greg, in all my years around FF2000 I have never seen one with a wet sump. I reckon you've got to bite the bullet and do the conversion. I'm surprised you could even operate with a wet sump without it hitting the ground!

It's a very clever sump built by someone with a lot of experience, works well notwithstanding this problem which relates to too much oil being in the cam cover. I also ran a wet sump on a Lotus 7 I used to race without problems. I do remember reducing the size of the hole in the block which pumps oil to the head, was so long ago I wish I could remember the details! I will take your advice and start sourcing parts.