Ford Zetec race engine

[Bob Gray]

I'm looking into building a 2.0 Zetec for circuit racing and wonder if anyone has experience of both the SE and ST170 (badged Duratec), which gives more power in naturally aspirated form on carbs/itbs and which is a better base to start with? We're looking for 230-250bhp btw.
T.I.A

[BertMk2]

We ran a 2 litre Zetec in our first rally car, it came out of a Mondeo and I think it ran at about 150bhp on Weber 45's. Reliability wise it was fine and the power delivery was ok - but I'd dump the Weber alpha ecu and go for something else.

When we built the new car we considered Zetec, Duratec and XE power - we plumped for XE in the end as it was the cheapest way to get the power we wanted (we're running 235bhp now). If we had to go with a Ford unit we'd have gone for a Duratec (again it seems easier to get the power out of a Duratec than a Zetec). Is there any specific reason you're looking at the Zetec?

[Bob Gray]

Will be on Jenvey throttle bodies with dta management, Zetec because it'll save changing a lot of other stuff on the car, is fairly lightweight/compact and unlike the ugly Duratec won't look out of place in a classic Ford engine bay(if we wanted cheap but ugly power we'd go for a S2000 engine)