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classicford

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  1. That's why they had the secondary intake ports that only opened up after 3,250 RPM or something like that. If it weren't for that there's no way the early DOHC heads would have been made streetable because the engine's power band would have been much higher than the stock engine was capable of spinning to. Ford eventually got tired of trying to give a n/a, small displacement OHC engine low end torque and put a blower on the 10th ann. Cobras. Made for a very nice car but once again proved that power-wise there's no replacement for displacement. Your right that the C-heads are much better, the '03-'04 Cobra, Mach 1 and Marauder heads are regarded as the best DOHC heads. One problem with the earlier '99-'01 Cobra and FR500 heads was that they had cooling problems with the #7 and #8 cylinders, that was fixed in '03 though. That would make it justifiable as a good drag car engine........having a street car without low end power sucks big time though.
  2. TFS R heads on an 8.2" Windsor will work, granted you are either building a very high-revving engine or something that's going to get a lot of boost thrown at it. (Either combination makes for a very fun car) Keep in mind the 4V Cobra heads are capable of outflowing many big block heads as cast, and they work fine on a 281 cid engine. If the Modular's were capable of large displacements that engine would destroy all V8s before or after it, no questions asked. The Modular is just a much more durable engine than the Windsor, at least when factory versions are compared. That's why the Teskid aluminum blocks in the '96-'98 Cobras can withstand well over 600-700 HP, while a factory 302 can take about 400, a 351W about 500-600, and they won't last forever at those power levels. Also you have to do less to a Modular to make power. If you want BIG power levels in a Windsor, every part of that engine is going to have to be serious aftermarket pieces. Modulars can make crazy power with the stock heads, and they don't need the semi-extensive oiling mods Windsors do (pretty much all aftermarket Windsor blocks use a priority-main oiling system). Obviously the Modular's biggest weakness, displacement, limits its naturally aspirated potential, but there are quite a few 800+ HP twin-turbo Cobras in this country. If the Hurricane V8 has DAMBS, at at least eventually DOHC heads, it will replace Windsors as my favorite engine. It took 65 more cubic inches for the LS1 Camaros to be able to outrun the Cobra Mustangs, imagine what a 5.7L+ DOHC engine will be capable of...
  3. Ford already has Mazda, and I think they could even do without PAG and put that toward making Lincoln/Mercury completely different from Ford. They don't need to merge with anyone, outside North America Ford's doing great anyways.
  4. Oh, not hardly. Big blocks and the massive low end torque that come with them do wonderous things to a car's performance, even if said car only has recirculating ball steering and leaf springs for a rear suspension. A new V6 Mustang can do a standing 1/4 mile in the low 15/high 14 second range. Needless to say a V6 just doesn't have the grunt to go up against the old pushrod V8s that were build with low end power being a priority. It would have a handling advantage, but put a 351 CJ, Boss 302, or a 429 SCJ in a Fox or SN95 late model Mustang, and you will be destroying a lot of tuner guys' egos. Niteflight--Thank Ford's and others' obsession with bulky OHC engines for the lack of engine bay real estate on today's cars. In all honesty, how much of a mechanical advantage do today's engines have with all the extra weight, electronics, and space engineers need to account for?
  5. Stray Kat, I completely agree with you about street rod parts. I think the 5.0L engine is popular enough now that with some incentive we could actually start seeing old Ford streetrods with FORD engines again. The SBF market is massive, enough so that Ford ought to realize they could reap some benefits from the 5.0L yet. I've yet to see a reason why FRPP doesn't offer complete EFI SBF crate engines complete with an EEC computer and the wiring harness. Quite a few streetrod guys I've talked to use or would like to use EFI anymore. would say more but I'll let it go for now--American Grafitti is on.
  6. In the early '70s (with a few exceptions such as the Datsun 240Z) Japanese imports were also largely ignored and called "crapboxes" (the "nice" version of their nickname). Also the Mustang, probably Ford's most loved car, was not considered one of Ford's cooler vehicles thruout the '70s, most people still remember the Mustang II as an overglorified Pinto with weird body cladding and big decals. Things change.......
  7. Ford since the discontinuance of the 5.0L/5.8L small blocks has always been like this when it comes to aftermarket support for their products. If it weren't for the 5.0L Mustang and the excitement for Ford products it created, Ford probably wouldn't be here today, or at least Ford wouldn't be nowhere near the company they are today. EVERYBODY in high school back in the late '80s who had any interest in cars knew the 5.0L was hot, and they wanted one. I was certainly one of those people. That single engine created an entire new generation of Ford lovers, and what did Ford do, they ditched the engine for something that was much more refined and efficient, but was nowhere near as user-friendly for hotrodders as the '89-'93 Mustangs were. Today, there are several superior aftermarket parts for any comparable part for the old pushrod engines FRPP has. The 5.0L Mustang is increasingly the enthusiasts/aftermarket's own car, and while this is part of what has made the Mustang so successful, it shows that Ford isn't willing to try to offer actual Ford parts for their old cars that have been made into hotrods, showcars, dragsters, etc. The Ford community is now it's own business supporting and running their own 5.0L-catering businesses more than ever. Again, this is part of what has made the Mustang so succesful though, but it just shows that Ford neither cares or wants to support the people who support Ford. ----------------------------now, to the point------------------------------------- Ford's abandonement of the big block market absolutely does not surprise me. They would rather let the few people who do use BBF's to switch to Chevys or Mopars, who both have in-house performance parts programs that offer quite a nice choice of big block parts. I myself right now would prefer to build a 426 Hemi-based big block than an FE or a 385-Series, and until very recently I was a die hard Ford fan. My blood runs plain red today, not a trace of blue in it. I imagine some sort of plan only capable of being thought of by crackheads and meth addicts is currently in practice at Ford today, a plan to end all support of the aftermarket community, Ford Racing, and any high-performance cars alltogether. It seems Ford's turning Japanese.............they wish to offer great cars, but cars with no personality to them. Outside of the Mustang I don't know of any brand new Ford's that people will be keeping and restoring 40 years from today. It is stuff like this which has made me no longer a Ford fan. I'm not moving to any other manufacturer, non of them impress me enough to like them anymore. I'll always love the Mustang and the Windsor engine, but I'm no longer any more inclined to buy a Ford than I am to buy a Dodge or a Pontiac now. IF, if Ford can do enough to attract me back then I'll keep buying exclusively Ford. Time will tell....
  8. Oh, probably, but I know and love the Merc's that were meant to be upscale luxo-Ford's that could be ordered as the closest thing the Lincoln-Mercury Division ever had to a hotrod. (Remember the Marauder V8s?) I hate how all the cars today put no interest into their American muscle heritage or the massive, instant power and torque American cars used to be famous for. Even the "grandma's cars" back in the day could end up being quite a street sleeper if you checked the right boxes.
  9. Also keep in mind that Ford considered all of the racing and performance applications the S197 was going to be used for once in production. The chassis is considerably stronger than any previous one, and the S197 doesn't need the subframe connectors, torque box reinforcements, etc, that the Fox and SN95 chassis need when they're put in high-horsepower applications. It's not like all of that extra weight is there for nothing. The interior and engine bay are also larger than the SN95's were. You can't take the heads off of a Modular engine in an SN95 Mustang without pulling the engine first... The GT aluminum block would cost much more than $500 per car, trust me. BTW, if you haven't realized this yet, Ford gets critized for everything they do and everything they don't do. Nothing's going to change just because Ford builds a car with "Shelby" on the decklid.
  10. Um, the Fairlane was at least a little sporty, and offered more than some decent power if memory recalls.....I say the 500 wouldn't do the name justice. I would much rather see the Fusion called Falcon too. It would be nice to be able to buy a brand new Falcon Sprint that has a 4.4L V8 and a standard shift trans.......... I just hate the name Fusion. It so hip-hop and American Idol-ish. Granted, the people the Fusion was meant to appeal to are most likely girls and metro's that watch American Idol and think hip-hop sounds great, but that ruins it for the rest of us, don't you think? And I hate Milan even more. Is there a word that could possibly be more metro sounding, outside of Civic? I did like the name Zephyr, but Ford ran that down the drain....
  11. Naaaah, I was thinking an '80s Camaro...
  12. Richard, Many people don't act like this engine won't completely replace the Modular within a couple of years. What's your opinion on that? If this engine impresses me enough, and can be bored/stroked to at least 7.0L's, it's my new favorite engine. I'm hoping physically the engine is no larger than an FE, which is smaller than a 429 (which is smaller than a Modular). I'm also expecting an all-aluminum version, as well as a DOHC. I'm hoping that Ford will fix the problem with the current DOHC heads, which have a sharp radius in the ports, instead of a smooth, straight path like the 3V's. The early DOHC heads also had some cooling problems, I think. I'm guessing the engine will look a lot like the current Modular, and that the base engines will be iron block/3V heads. As long as it's smaller, lighter, and has capacity for a 4.00 inch bore and a 0.030 overbore or two on top of that, I'm happy and I'll probably be running OHC. The fact that you can't easily retrofit a SBF into the S197 Mustang as you could the SN95's has been the only thing keeping me out of them. The Z06 engine has a 4.125" bore. There's no way on earth you're going to be able to overbore that thing safely. Even the wildest SBF blocks you can buy with a 4.125" bore can only accomodate a single "30 over" safely, and that's putting things on the edge. I heard Chevy was going to make a supercharged version of this engine that would rate at 680 HP, to have almost 100 cubic inches more than the comparable Ford engine yet get only 80 more HP...........
  13. Richard, never said the Modular wasn't a good OEM engine, I prefer it over its crosstown rivals any day of the week. The Modular's block is lightyears ahead of the old thinwall-cast 5.0L blocks, too. 5.0L can withstand around 400HP reliably, the Modular has seen up to 900HP on an OEM block. The 5.0L obviously has proven to be a great performance and aftermarket engine, and if built properly it's also a great little blower or turbo engine. Granted, I wouldn't run anything radical on the stock block or bottom end, but considering how many Mustangs end up with engine upgrades sooner or later, the 5.0L, albeit in a highly improved form, should still be in there. Don't get me wrong, hi tech multivalve OHC engines are great for small displacement engines, and yes, the Modular truck engines have come a long way, but I think making a thoroughly modern 5.0L with a great torque curve would have taken considerably less effort (and money). The very first Cobra DOHC heads flowed so well Ford had to restrict them at lower RPMs. The reason Ford put a blower on the 10th Anniversary Cobras was to provide instant torque, which they had been wrestling with since the Cobra 4.6L's introduction. These heads would be excellent for a larger engine, but alas, Ford messed that one up..... In fact, the DOHC heads flow far better than almost any factory engine short of a supercar beast would require, which takes us back to the aftermarket. While the aftermarket does offer a considerable amount of goodies for the Modular, the engine is still in the Windsor's shadow, as one can build an all aluminum Windsor today that is able to rev to 8,000 RPM on factory lifters, all while continuing to weigh less and cost less than the Modular. It's not that the Modular's a bad engine, it just happens to have a few qualities that tend to shoot the engine's potential in the foot....
  14. That's comparing apples to oranges, in the 5.0L's heyday, engines (and that includes the first Modulars) usually made well under to just under 1HP/Cubic inch, rarely above it. Almost all of the engines you talk about have to be supercharged to amount to anything, which is kinda sad for an American V8. The Boss 302 saw way over 400HP naturally aspirated in the Trans Am Mustangs, and those engines had just a few valvetrain, intake, and bottom end upgrades over their street cousins. The biggest choke on the factory 5.0L's were the heads and intake, a problem that could have been solve with pennys on the dime compared to the Modular's R&D bill. The engines were aging, but minimal improvement could have been made to improve emissions, mileage, power, and durability for fractions of the Modular program's cost. The compact, pushrod 5.0L made 225HP/300 ft. lbs. torque, in Cobra trim it made an underrated 240HP, probably closer to 275. The first Modulars made 215 HP in 2V form, with a torque curve nowhere near as impressive as the 5.0L's. Even the early DOHC 32V's made only 280HP, only marginally above the 5.0L Cobra's, which could achieve nearly the same, again with better torque, with merely 2 valves pushrod actuated. And those 5.0L's fit much more comfortably into a Mustang's engine bay, a Modular is phsyically larger than a 429 big block! The Modular took an expensive production line revamp, all for an engine that weighs more, is physically bigger yet is capable of only 360 cubic inches max. And that's with a massive undersquare, something that revs don't agree with. A tall deck Windsor can handle over 430 cubic inches, and even a 302 can accomplish about 360 cubic inches. The Modular is more expensive to produce and more complicated to repair than a Windsor. The reason Ford can't get their hi-po 5.4L's to rev is because the tiny bore and massive stroke cause such high piston speeds that stability is compromised at said speeds. Windsors never had this problem as they can accomodate up to a 4.125" bore, while a Modular maxes out at 3.7". It has been continually proven the only way to get huge power numbers out of a Modular is to resort to forced induction. This has two causes, one being that the Modular's OHC design encourages it to rev too high for street use naturally aspirated, and the engine's dismal displacement potential. I used to be a Modular fan, but the more I learned about them, the less I liked them....Windsors and 385 Series fat blocks make more performance sense and are much cheaper for me to build than a 4.6L.
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