ca18det ford sierra

[jonsierra89]

anyone have any ideas what i will need to do this conversion thanks

[Copey]

best bet, buy a full S13 and rob the engine, box and loom from it, you need a hyrdo clutch, easy to adapt the s13 one, use a cossie rad and FMIC, easy drop in and then custom engine and box mounts and then a custom propshaft or possibly adapt the sierre one and front of SX one, one thing to keep an eye on is that the CA is a front bowl sump

[jonsierra89]

thanks mate would i have to do anything with the sump or will it just drop in

[dude]

It won't drop in beacuse of the front sump copey mentioned, you'll have to modify it or try to find an already modified one.
You might get away with mounting the engine very high and forwards, resulting in a front heavy car, and a whole new set of problems.

Personally i wouldn't go through the trouble for a ca18, sr20's aren't that expensive any more. But if you don't plan to drive the car hard i guess you could get away with a ca18det, apparently many on here runs them without problems..

[jonsierra89]

cheers do u no anywere i can get a sump made

[Copey]

CAs are not as weak as people make out, they die when they arent looked after properly, look after them well and they are a good motor

[Rusted Pistons]

Amen Copey!

[dude]

But how do you know a used engine has been looked after well?
I didn't mean to pick a fight, I just stated my personal opinion. The sr20 is considered by some as the best 4-pot around, whilst the ca18 gets quite a bit of aggro.
But obviously any engine should survive a bit of spirited driving if looked after well and not tuned with cheap ecu's and force fed 40 psi. And yes, there are plenty of ca18det's around doing just fine, and they are very cheap horsepower.

Apr 1, 2013 11:16:47 GMT jonsierra89 said:

cheers do u no anywere I can get a sump made

Basically anyone who can weld aluminium should be able to modify one.
If you'd state your location someone could probably give you some pointers to someone local who's good at these things.

I'm sure many would like to see a build thread too

[damien4884]

The ca18det is an older engine they could be up to 25 years old now, chances of them being abused/lack of servicing before is much higher. I've got 2 sat here, ones perfect had new bearings and timing belt by last owner and feels good, other one that was "removed running" actually has broken ringlands on 2 pistons.

IMO you can't expect to buy one, chuck it in the car and it last for any length of time, it needs checking over, new big ends and mains, clean out all the breathers (main cause of issues) new timing belt and a good quality oil.

Wiring is pretty straight forward, its better if you can get the engine bay loom them seperate out the 2 body to engine plugs with plenty of wire along with DET sensor wiring. Its pretty easy to find all the info using google, if you go ahead and get stuck I can sort you out the links as I'm putting one in the datsun.

PS the sumps are steel, pretty easy to modify if you know what you are doing (i had a ca18et one flipped round and oil pickup sorted quite cheaply)

[Rusted Pistons]

Oh yeah definately, you have to 'rebuild' one really to know its good. The main problems being blocked breathers and they really dislike low oil levels, the dipstick is about as useful as a donkey at the national! They're very old now as well, mine second hand 'good engine' ran for about 250 miles (with perfect oil level) before catastrophic bearing failure. However, I rebuilt it and have made sure the level is perfect (eradicate all leaks and blown seals and fill with the correct amount of oil!) and I've given it shed loads of abuse at high boost levels and its been ace. They are absolutely fantastic and having experience of both the SR and the CA I do much prefer the CA, for silly reasons like the noise it makes (SRs are always quite rattley even with good VVT gear).
If you're thorough with the build make sure it's always got good oil and correct level they're absolutely bomb proof! It's their only Achilles heal really and gets a bad press for it! I much prefer V8s but I still don't regret my decision to fit a CA (even though at the time it was to be different and now there're more capris with CAs than pintos!) as it really is a corker of a motor. I'm currently working through some electrical issues and a blown turbo though ;D

[ChasR]

Even a rebuilt engine does not guarantee good health for an engine. An S13 a friend of mine bought came rebuilt. It's a shame it was not rebuilt that well (the bigs end did not wear so much as they exploded (the caps had not been torque up enough, not what you want on a track/drifting day!). To be fair, the engine that followed afterwards (he bought that through a known source) served him very well.

[Robinxr4i]

Apr 1, 2013 19:52:44 GMT Copey said:

CAs are not as weak as people make out, they die when they arent looked after properly, look after them well and they are a good motor

They are as you said an internally strong engine, thay revs well, sounds good and will make excellent levels of power on standard internals. However, this is painfully true....

Apr 4, 2013 7:55:58 GMT damien4884 said:

IMO you can't expect to buy one, chuck it in the car and it last for any length of time, it needs checking over, new big ends and mains, clean out all the breathers (main cause of issues) new timing belt and a good quality oil.

....They are an old engine and do suffer from some annoying and common problems.

All of my mates (Rob, Adam, Phil, Jacob, Matt - all have an S13 fetish) they have all suffered bottom end failures on both original and rebuilt engines. Buy a donor carefully and budget on a full rebuild. Simply swapping the bearing isn't enough.

What kind of power do you want?

[30psi]

I put an SR20 in my daily Datsun. Big ends went.

Check all engines over. End of.

The CA18DET doesn't actually have an issue as such. The CA18ET doesn't either. They're identical more or less when it comes to serving oil to the bearings. CA18DET's do big ends all the time. I know of very little CA18ET's with big ends gone. The difference? Well my opinion is that the servicing (oil reading specifically) is at fault. The DET dipstick is awful. The ET dipstick is perfectly straight and reads very well. Because the original engine wasn't designed as a twin cam, the DET had an additional pulley, that the dipstick then had to bend round. So it was changed to a cable job. This led to a false readings.

I've dropped a sump off a DET. Even though I can see from underneath there's no oil near the dipstick, pull it out and hey presto it reads oil because of the sharp angles it gets dragged up and catching oil inside the tube.

This meant alot of CA18DET's run low on oil. If you build a CA18DET well then it will last as long as any other engine.

[ChasR]

I also understood that the oil readings were the cause of most CA18 failures. Indeed a few of my friends who have had them have had few issues once they have been running right, although they have been rigorous in maintaining and servicing them.

Does anyone provide a better design of dipstick for the CA18DET (Apex for example?)?

[30psi]

No one does anything that I'm aware of. I've thought about modifying the dipstick. It would need to be very short, literally 6" long to sit below the wider bit of the timing cover.

[ChasR]

That's nothing new though (short dipsticks). Awkward I admit, but many manufacturers have done this on cars old and new. The Dolomite Sprint, Triumph Stag, and Phase II Renault Clio 1.4 16V all have short dipsticks, with two of them (the Clio and the Dolly) not having the most accessible dipsticks.

[30psi]

Yeah and to be honest it's easily accessible (assuming you aren't running the power steering pump, which sits above)