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Originally posted by 73torinoqcode:
Personally I think the styling stinks. The prototype car was way nicer than production.

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Yikes, now that?s a shocker to me.... I think the 05 Stang is one of the nicest Stangs since the 60's. I've never been inclined to buy any new car... well, til now with the 05 Stang.

I still bet the 05 Stang is the reason Cheby stopped the Camaro production. That is, once they found out about it... they knew there was no way they could compete with that new Mustang in town... so they hit the highway and left town with it.

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Originally posted by 73torinoqcode:
Personally I think the styling stinks. The prototype car was way nicer than production.

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Originally posted by JCQuinn@work:
Being an old fart, I have an old fart's opinion. Ford stopped making Mustangs when they went to that piece of crap modular engine. I will not buy engines that don't have pushrods. I don't care how nice the styling is I buy whats under the hood.

John

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Sorry but I couldn't disagree more. The overhead camshaft technology is what sets Ford apart from Chevy. Why live in the past when there is so much room to step forward and advance. Just look at the 427 Cammer. Hasn't this been called one of the most powerful engines ever? Wasn't this largely atributed to the SOHC?

Ford can make more power more efficiently with their overhead cam engine. If they had any where close to the displacement of those chevy 350s, then I think the power levels would not even be close, Ford taking all. Just look at what they can do with only 281 cubes in the new Mach 1. Last I checked they can run low 13s outta the box. That exceeds even the big blocks of yesteryear. I won't even start on the 03 cobra engine.

Paul

When the modular engines are even close to competitive to the pushrod engines in the naturally asperated racing classes with comprable dollars being spent I will consider them good. Right now the push rod engine is far superior in terms of horsepower per dollar.

Overhead cams come to us from the 1920's, modern technology hah.

Overhead cam engines typically have poor torque curves compared to pushrod engines. That is why the factory is putting superchargers on them. Superchargers have long been a crutch to make horsepower when the basic engine design is flawed.

modular motors however, don't have the pushrods to hinder intake routing.

but other than that i see no advantage whatsoever with the overhead cam design. You have to turn another cam, you still have the same friction, as the number of lifters has not been reduced. And with todays very strong pushrods i don't see that they would flex enough that they are a weakness.

modulars are typically alot heavier as well, which really sucks in performance applications

plus, ever have to change a head gasket on a modular?? root canals have more appeal

I am not talking about factory tune up motors. I am talking about modified engines, that is what I play with and what I am concerned about.

John

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Originally posted by JCQuinn@work:
If you don't think there's a performance difference enter one in NMRA Hot Street class and watch the pushrods go by.

I am not talking about factory tune up motors. I am talking about modified engines, that is what I play with and what I am concerned about.

John

I know the thread started with a factory stock car but every new Ford I have ever bought ended up being a drag car.

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Take a 2003 cobra, put on a free flowing exhaust, free flowing air filter, and change a pulley, get a tune. With that you will be running low 11s and more than 500hp at the flywheel at least 450 at the wheels. Pretty good for under $1000 worth of mods IMO.

Finding a factory head that will outflow a ford DOHC would be tough if not impossible to do.

Paul

P.S. I am just proposing an argument, no flaming.

Marketing hype. First of all, overhead camshaft technology is nothing
new and dates all the way back to the 1890's. Second, the question isn't
which is newer, it's which is better. The Ford modular V8 packaging was
severely compromised for transverse mount installations. When the engine
was designed, Ford believed many of them would be installed in front wheel
drive applications. This dictated the engines be as short as possible
longitudinally, so they would fit in the planned engine compartments when
installed transversely. The bore spacing is very narrow, resulting in
very small bores and long strokes for their displacements. The 4.6L and
5.4L V8's have bores about the size of my little Buick 215 cube V8. To
get the displacement desired, the blocks had to be relatively tall.

The small bores limit the valve curtain area and, ultimately, the
maximum flow the heads can achieve and power the engine can develop.
This forced the designers to 4 valve per cylinder heads for the high
performance versions. Unfortunately, the heads and cam drives were
made very bulky. Combine the enormous cylinder head castings with the
tall decks needed to contain the long stroke cranks and you get an
engine that is very tall and wide and doesn't lend itself to swapping
in many engine bays. In a Pantera that can easily swallow a 460 big
block, either the heads must altered (shaved for clearance) or the
inner fenders clearanced. Don't even think about putting them in an
older Ford without hacking out the shock towers. Even in aluminum, the
engines are very heavy for their displacement. The trade publication
"Design News" lists the weight of the aluminum block and heads 4.6L DOHC
engine at 521 lbs. Compare that to the pushrod 4.6L aluminum Rover V8
at nearly 200 pounds lighter. Plus the Rover can be stroked to 5.3L
without resorting to a taller block. The taller 5.4L block adds even
more weight. Even with aluminum block and heads, Ford's published
number for the Ford GT's supercharged 5.4L DOHC is 315 Kg (695 lbs.).

With the limited bore spacing, stroke and extra cylinders are your only
ways to get extra displacement. The 5.4L V8 (with a taller deck to
accomodate the longer stroke crank) and 6.8L V10 are the direct result.
The 5.4L V8's have an even worse bore/stroke ratio than the 4.6L, resulting
in very high piston speed at a given RPM. The limited bore spacing also
limits the crank journal width, limiting the crankshaft strength. A
bunch of Lightning truck 5.4L engines have snapped connecting rods and
ventilated blocks due to this.

> Just look at the 427 Cammer. Hasn't this been called one of the most powerful
> engines ever? Wasn't this largely atributed to the SOHC?

7 liters of displacement didn't hurt either. The asymmetric cam lobe design
played an important role, too. Understand I'm not anti-OHC. I like OHC's
on inline engines where the packaging penalty is not nearly as important as
it is on a larger displacement V8. I just don't buy in to new-and-improved
marketing hype.

> Ford can make more power more efficiently with their overhead cam engine.

I care not one bit about specific power output. What is important is
power output per dollar (how much power can I make within my budget),
per pound (for handling), or per volume (will it fit in something I'd
care to swap it into). On all those accounts, a pushrod V8 is the clear
winner. On the new 2005 Mustang, Ford had to drop the nice short-long
arm front suspension of the DEW98 platform with it's superior camber
gain and revert to McPherson struts because the modular motors are
just too wide. Fuel economy is also important but there's really no
clear difference with respect to fuel economy.

> If they had any where close to the displacement of those chevy 350s, then
> I think the power levels would not even be close, Ford taking all.

But they don't have the displacement of the Chevy, despite being
enormous. The Chevy is smaller, lighter, cheaper to produce, and packs
an extra liter of displacement. A normally aspirated Z06 makes similar
peak power to a supercharged 2003 Cobra. There's a reason Ford had to
resort to slapping a supercharger on the Cobra and GT to make competitive
power. John Colleti, the head of Ford's Special Vehicle Team gave an
interview in which he explained why Ford's 2003 Cobra is supercharged.
He said they were able to reach their power goals with the normally
aspirated 4.6L DOHC V8 but they couldn't keep the motor together for
the durability cycle, even with premium aftermarket race rods (2003
Cobras use Manley H-beam forged rods and forged steel cranks). For Ford,
the answer was a supercharger but it comes at a cost in both dollars and
weight. The 2003 Mustang Cobras are up to nearly 3700 pounds now.

Ford designers will continue to develop the modular motors but you'll
have a real tough time convining me they are inherently better.

Even with the limited bore sizing though it is interesting how Ford has found ways to work around it, and keep up with/suprass the competition.

I still have one question...
Why would Ford handicap itself like this and continue to produce these small bore engines for all these years? How much more would it really have cost for them to increase the bore sizing on these blocks?

Paul

Thanks guys.

> Even with the limited bore sizing though it is interesting how Ford
> has found ways to work around it, and keep up with/suprass the
> competition.

Yes. If I had a mod motor-powered vehicle, I'd be doing the same thing
as Ford. Slap a blower on it. Best bang-for-the-buck.

> Why would Ford handicap itself like this

The initial decision to limit the bore spacing was made for several
reasons. The biggest was they expected to fit many of them in
transverse applications. Second, the long stroke and small bore
are best for meeting the ever tightening emissions. The SOHC and
DOHC was probably as much a marketing decision as it was an engineering
decision (gotta compete with BMW and Lexus).

> and continue to produce these small bore engines for all these years?

The tooling is all paid for. Tooling cost is massive.

> How much more would it really have cost for them to increase the bore
> sizing on these blocks?

A staggering amount. To change the bore spacing, you must change
the most expensive parts of the rest of the engine: heads, crankshaft,
manifolding, etc.

Paul

Les

What's with the 5w-20 oil they want us to use in the mod motors? Now that my 5.4 is out of warranty can I use 10w-30? Any insights would be apprciated.

Not necessarily. The engine doesn't know or care where the cams are.
What matters is how well the induction path flows. Just because it has 4
small valves doesn't mean it will outflow something with 2 larger valves,
say a 351C cylinder head. Particularly when the pushrod head mounts on a
4" bore and the DOHC head mounts on a 3.5" bore. If you're comparing it
to a stock 5.0L Windsor head, then yes it does flow better. A good after-
market Windsor head will outflow a 4.6 DOHC head, though. I remember B&M
putting a disclaimer in their supercharger catalog that their blower should
not be mounted on a 302 or 351W with stock heads as the restriction could
cause the blower to overheat. No such disclaimer on 351C-4V heads.
My C302 heads will outflow the best 4.6L or 5.4L DOHC head I've seen.
Early in the 4.6L DOHC engine's development, a former Ford engineer told
me the highest output DOHC head ever massaged by Ford flow less than an
unported A3 head. Those heads were based on custom cores with one inch
raised ports that were completely modified for an all out race effort (for
the SCORE off-road truck series) using the modular motor. According to
Ed Olin (the Ford engineer who oversaw the development of the 2000 Cobra R
powertrain), they wanted to use those SCORE/Rough Riders DOHC heads on the
Cobra R but tooling limitations forced them to use a revised production
casting.

Then there are the SOHC 2V heads. You'll notice the new 2005 Mustang is
getting 3 valve heads from Ford's 5.4L truck engines. There's a good
reason for that. Ford upper management originally planned for the 4-valve
version to be a large volume production engine, with the 2-valve version to
be a low-cost but relatively low-volume variant. So they designed a very
compromised 2-valve that could be produced from the same production equipment
as the 4-valve. The biggest compromise was that the intake valves lean away
from the intake ports, which makes for more convoluted and restrictive
intake ports. It also makes for a wider engine than necessary, even for OHC.
Somewhere in the design cycle, likely due to the DOHC version's higher cost,
the decision was made to make the 2-valve version the high volume engine.
By that time, the SOHC was stuck with the compromised intake tract. Lucky
for the 2005 Mustang, the truck program paid for an improved set of 3 valve
SOHC heads.

Getting back to supercharging, after you've got sufficient airflow capacity
(and the fuel to keep pace with it), the next question is will the short
block live under boost. You may have noticed that Ford reverted to an iron
block on the 2003 Cobra, despite the weight penalty on an already nose heavy
car. You might have also noticed they design an entirely new block for the
Ford GT. There are good reasons for both of those developments, too.
Modern production engines are designed to meet a specific target, with the
aid of computer-aided design and manufacturing. All the components tend to
be matched to the desired performance goal. Changing just one component
(like an intake or cam) in the system may not yield the payoff it once did.
Also, they tend to not be overbuilt. According to SAE paper #942474, by
Dan Yerace (Ford Motor Company) and Dennis Corn (Roush Industries), the
4.6 DOHC was designed for maximum output levels of 100 BHP/L. Ford realized
it would be easy for guys to crank up the boost and went with the stronger
iron block on the Cobra.

> DOHC have always been known to have a soft low end but strong high end,
> putting a roots or twin screw blower on seems to give you the best of both
> worlds.

Assuming the compression is low enough.

> What's with the 5w-20 oil they want us to use in the mod motors? Now that
> my 5.4 is out of warranty can I use 10w-30? Any insights would be apprciated.

The mod motors have a major problem in oiling at startup. The path from the
pan to the cam journals is over four feet long, and it takes a while for oil
to get up there. The journals are small and heavily loaded, and there are no
bearings. The cams ride directly in the head castings (at least in the SOHC,
haven't checked the DOHC). If I were running a mod motor, I'd run a quality
synthetic 5W-20, particularly if I ran it in a cold winter climate. A lot of
engines run tigher clearances and lighter weight oil to squeeze out that last
bit of fuel economy. My dad once ran straight 10W oil in an old flathead '48
Mercury. It was used when he got it and still running fine 70,000 miles later.
Modern oils have improved a lot since then, so I wouldn't be afraid of a good
5W-20, assuming you keep the oil temperature under control. There are also
5W-30 synthetics, not to mention 0W-40's.

> Sure makes me appreciate my little 289 and my Cleveland

When you are working on your 289, this ought to bring a smile to your face:

http://www.vorshlag.com/pictures/motor-4.6-4V-004.jpg

> Pile on!

One of my major beefs is that modular motors were not designed to be hot
rodder friendly. No room to be bored. Non-rebuildable connecting rods.
Oddball valve springs, press-lobe hollow core camshafts (four of them on the
DOHC and not one of them cheap), etc.

I'm gonna save this thread for future refrencing.

Again thanks alot!

Paul

Thanks for your enlightenment on the design of the Modular Ford engine. Nice job and I/we appreciate it.

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Originally posted by JCQuinn@work:
Being an old fart, I have an old fart's opinion. Ford stopped making Mustangs when they went to that piece of crap modular engine. I will not buy engines that don't have pushrods. I don't care how nice the styling is I buy whats under the hood.

John

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Y'know the flathead didn't have pushrods... newfangled crap,eh!

Well...guess what...here it is, five years later, and I own 2 of the '99+ Mustangs. Go figure.

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Originally posted by tricksixtyfive:
all those who do not like the 05 stang are the ones that think the fox body looked good huh.. the 05 stang is a great base car to make a shelby or even a boss on. this plateform rocks..it looks way better than the 94 did, and even the 2004 mach 1. just an opinion

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