jon_the_limey

Provocative slur? Getting close to the mark. Besides us Brits have to go a long way to beat the vulgar displays of jingoism in the US. Yes and it was good old-fashioned American corporate mismanagement that allowed it to get to that stage. GM and Ford's largest market in Europe is the UK, and things in Europe for both companies would have been a damned sight worse if there wasn't "Treasure Island" to prop them up. GM's treatment of their european "home-market" has been shameful with their continual pandering to the Germans (Ford's treatment has been only slightly better). An Opel/Fiat merger including Vauxhall will probably mean that GM's Ellesmere Port and Luton plants are shut down sooner than a split Vauxhall eventually importing Daewoo's, but there is probably little in it. The future lineup of Daewoo and Opel will have all their platforms merged by the next generation models, so there is little loss there. Most Brits (including myself) couldn't give a damn if Opel and Vauxhall do split, and I doubt many Vauxhall drivers would even be aware.

It will be the same, just a different rating. As for engine life being 150000 miles, that is the industry-standard B10 life for a light duty engine (Predicted failure rate of 10% for 150000 miles or 10 years). It is impossible to develop an engine that will live to that point and then expire just after that for all cases, because the duty of the engine is different for every customer and not least because the engine manufacturer can't do 10 years of testing! Therefore one can only develop the engine with several very specific accelerated tests , i.e. low-cycle-fatigue & high-cycle-fatigue, various permutations of extremes of part tolerances, various abuses, etc. From this testing the engineers will try to predict statistically how long the engine should live for average use (whatever that is!) If this sounds like gambling, well it is but this all that can be done. All I can do is assure is that Ford are as good as anybody else in the business for life-ing their engines, and that some of their accelerated test are amongst the strictest in the business. As long as the 3.5 ecoboost is treated with a modicum of respect then it should live for 150000 miles and has the potential to go way beyond, just like the current NA modulars.

The vaporisation of gasoline happens by the gasoline taking on the heat of it's surroundings. If the fuel is atomised then the droplets have a greater surface area to volume, which allows the heat from the surroundings to transfer more quickly. Also from the ideal gas law, when a gas is compressed the gas will increase in temperature. In the case of GDI the fuel is injected at 150 Bar and is therefore a fine mist of atomised droplets. GDI (in current stoich applications) injects the fuel whilst the inlet valve is open, and as the air is rushing in the fuel vapourises. The vapourisation of the fuel takes on the heat of it's surroundings (the air) reducing the temperature of the air & fuel mixture (charge) in the cylinder, therefore reducing the pressure in the the cylinder. The reduced pressure in cylinder, if the the inlet valve is still open, allows even more air to flow in, which is why the BMEP is usually higher in GDI NA engines. Ethanol has a very high latent heat of vapourisation, therefore when it vapourises it removes a lot of heat from it's surroundings and thus cools the charge considerably. This was the whole wonder of the Bobcat program! Battyr, engineers do have to know something about Physics (Newtonian at least), they also have to have a decent knowledge of mathematics (to help do the physics) and a working knowledge of the science that surrounds the engineering application (in the case of combustion a bit of basic chemistry). It can be quite interesting sometimes!

400 lbft on a naturally aspirated 5 litre gives a BMEP of 13.6 Bar. Not a chance! Especially on a truck V8 with a cross-plane crankshaft and just port injection running on regular! Not even the BMW V10 M5 engine gets much more than 13 Bar BMEP and that runs on premium and doesn't have the charge robbing that crossplane V8s have. 12.5 Bar BMEP for such an engine would be exceptional and that gives a torque of very nearly 370 lbft. Hurricane with 2 Valves and 6.2 litres natually aspirated would be doing very well with 12 Bar BMEP and therefore 437 lbft. Boosted is a whole different story.

You would reduce the force back from the valve spring, but to achieve the same valve lift (which is what is required) then the pushrod and tappet would have a larger displacement and hence larger acceleration of the more massive side of rocker arm (i.e tappet and pushrod). F=ma and therefore increase that particular component of the valvetrain contact forces. There is no easy answer as the contact forces are a function of both and it will depend on where it is best to optimise for engine speed.

4-valve diesel engines with pushrods generally require a valve bridge to activate two inlet (or two exhaust) valves at a time. This reduces valvetrain stiffness and increases valvetrain inertia, which has disadvantages for timing control and overall valvetrain forces especially at high speeds. Also to activate a pair of valves at the centreline of the two valves this (kind-off) forces a tandem valve pattern where the pairs of valves are arranged from the front to back inlet, exhaust, inlet, exhaust..... so that the rocker-arms can be either side of the cylinder (without the rocker arms being some even weirder skewed valve actuation like the Hemi engines!) This forces the inlet ports of the engine into a swirl type which is less suitable for a high flowing gasoline type ports, also having the valves like this arrangement makes almost impoossible to put any sort of valve angle which helps put in larger vlaves for the bore size. Then there are the pushrods which take up space and make getting any sort of decent port more difficult, even more difficult in terms of package if one tries to get in a side mounted injector, and especially more difficult considering the gasoline bore needs to be smaller because to really gain advantage of GDI turbo the engine must be downsized. Then there is the fact that if you have pushrod it is more difficult to have independent phasing of the inlet and exhaust cam lobes to really control the gas exchange. Not an exhaustive list but some reasons why for GDI turbo it is preferable to go for DOHC.

Perhaps there is no conspiracy, maybe Horbury just wants to return to Europe.

Ilmor is still going with a number of other things including Indycar and Stockcar (I know a few guys still there), and so is Cosworth which split up into road and racing engine divisions a decade ago. Cosworth road engines became part of Audi and was then sold onto Mahle (renamed Mahle Powertrain) and is still active in road engine engineering consultancy. Cosworth Racing is still going (was Ford and is now owned by two Americans Kalkhoven & Forsythe of Champcar fame) and is now back in both racing and road engine consultancy (did the V12 upgrade for Aston Martin on the One-77). Regardless of ownership or funding (which I know is hard to accept, and being English it used to piss me off) the engineering was still done in Britain.

OK a history lesson. Honda F1 was created when they purchased the British American Racing F1 team, which was setup by a consortium (including Adrian Reynard of Reynard Motorsport of Brackley) after buying the Tyrrell F1 team. The BAR team and subsequently Honda F1 team headquarters were in Brackley Northamptonshire England. Mercedes High Performance Engines is based at Brixworth Northamptonshire England, and this is a spin-off from Ilmor Engineering. Ilmor have a long pedigree of race winning engines in F1, Indycar and numerous other motorsports and itself was set up by two former Cosworth engineers (Mario Illien & Peter Morgan). Cosworth itself being headquartered in Northampton England and was responsonsible for the design of all the Ford F1 engines and god knows how many other motorsport winning engines. Button made few friends with that contract business with Williams, but he was only 20 years old when it happened! How many stupid things did we do at that age.

Not much can piss us off today, a British Driver won in a British car powered by a British designed engine! And best of all it was in Australia. :happy feet: Anyway the Star Spangled Banner was set to the the tune of British drinking song!

Oil control valves for cylinder deactivation. Both pictures show the OCV for the VCT phaser adjacent to the oil filler cap.

Alright, go on then what were you involved with?

A total myth! However I'm glad you were gracious enough to admit it's your personal opinion. I was a Ford engineer that worked on the diesels that went into Jaguars, Land Rovers and a few PSAs (and also the diesel that could eventually go into the F150) and we had a good working relationship with them and they were very pleased with the results (look at some of the reviews of JLR vehicles with those diesels). Also the DEW98 platform was not forced down Jaguar's throats because it was a joint development between FNA and Jaguar. The DEW98 architecture now forms the basis of all the larger Jags, again something that on the whole Jag is pleased about. Also Jaguars engines still to this day are made at Ford facilities (Bridgend and Dagenham). As I've repeatedly said, Jaguar problems stemmed from a reckless gamble in expansion. The X-type stretched the sales volume limits of the Jaguar brand far too quickly. It saddled them with an extra factory that they could not utilise economically, it swallowed up valuable & expensive PD resources and it also potentially canibalised sales from the larger Jags. Things might have been so different if a degree of circumspection was shown. Indeed if Volvo was bought earlier then it may never have been started.

Yes the NOx does drop, but that is not the whole story. The problem with homogenous lean-burn upto roughly AFR 18:1 is that it is still producing NOx in significant quantities, but now the HC and CO are now being oxidised by the excess air and therefore there is nothing in the exhaust gases to chemically reduce the NOx in the 3-way catalyst. A stratified charge will have a similar problem because whilst the combustion takes place in stoichiometric region of the combustion chamber, there will still be an excess of air in the exhaust gas at the catalyst, and the HC and CO will be oxidised again by the excess air. The only way to get round this is to have a seperate NOx catalyst with reducing agent, ammonia in an SCR or with a NOx trap every so often a burst of rich burn in combustion to reduce the collected NOx. If a homogenous charge engine is run at around AFR 20:1 then the NOx is minute, however this means that combustion is becoming more irregular and the engine is running ever closer to the misfire point, and if it misfires then it is game over from an emissions standpoint. The irregular combustion means that it is very difficult to tune the engine to the mean cycle, look up COV of IMEP some time!

They have shared DNA but it ain't Peugeot!

Unfortunately not quite right, the BMW hasn't done it! The Valvetronic (variable valve lift system) does not have DI, not least because there is too little room for both systems with the small 91mm bore centres. Also the naturally aspirated DI versions of the BMW run with NOx traps and lean-stratified charge so there is less opportunity for the Valvetronic system to improve fuel economy from reduced throttled loss. Also the Valvetronic isn't throttle less. The difference is that the valves do the throttling rather than a seperate throttle plate. Anyway Diesels make use of a throttle now to increase the delta-P between intake and exhaust for driving the EGR.

Unfortunately the competetive impetus for Ford to put the the 4.4 Diesel in LD trucks will have been lost if GM don't put this into production. Diesels engines alone are expensive (esp. the "swiss-watch" like 4.4 V8) and on top the aftertreatment equipment is just ridiculously expensive. With the pickup market a lot smaller than it used to be a diesel would more than likely just canibalise sales off far more profitable gas engines, and who wants to do that in the current economic climate? Also the later Tier2 Bin2 emissions (even with SCR, closed loop cylinder-pressure monitoring and lots of EGR) is going to be horrendously difficult. http://www.motortrend.com/features/auto_ne...gine/index.html If the MT article is to be believed then a Ford spokesperson already said it is already postponed. The best hope for that engine appearing in a future F150 is that it will go into production for the Range Rover for Euro 5 emissions.

Unfortunately I don't know what (or if anything) has changed in QC since the change of ownership. It is unlikely because Tata has a very hands off approach to it's subsidaries. Ford's (continuously developing) quality methods, amongst other engineering & business processes, have been instituted at Jaguar for nearly 20 years starting with the appointment of Ford lifer Bill Hayden immediately after it's purchase, and I'm sure one of Tata's motivations in buying JLR was to gain access to this. However I do know the former Quality Director of NA trucks and Henry Ford Technical Fellow of Quality Engineering is now the Quality Director at JLR. http://uk.mediajaguar.com/php/biographies....3d3d13adf1a096a In my time at FoE we had a brief lecture from him on Failure prevention using statistical methods, for what it's worth I was very impressed. Whether that gets filtered down to all at ground level is quite another matter.

This anti-Jag sentiment on here is beyond fucking retarded! How would you guys have reacted if this had a blue-oval badge, it would have been dismissed as 1 car. I don't know how well this reliability "data" would stand up to scrutiny (what reliabilty statistical techniques have been used, with less than a year since the car was released we're fairly early on the "bathtub" curve, also what was the sample size). Besides it would have undoubtably been automatically dismissed here (for Ford at least) because it has been compiled by someone who contributes to TTAC. This car was developed and put into production on Ford's watch, long before Tata got involved so please no bullshit about indian ownership. If you so worried about British reliability then you'd better stop flying because the Brits are still pretty big in the aerospace sub system supply. For automotive the Brits are still pretty big in engineering services as well. Of course like fuck the Ford's I've had have been perfect (5 new and 2 used). Amongst a few rather stupid minor issues there has been some biggies: a blown-up turbo bearing on my Focus diesel, which did leave me at the side of the road, and the warranty history on my 2007 Explorer shows a replacement front diff. But then friends Audi's and BMW's have had their problems, one poor bastard had to replace the CVT in his Audi out of warranty. In fact the Diff and Powersteering system on this XF would have been alomost certainly made in GERMANY, probably ZF.

Ford, unfortunately, doesn't have that great a name in Europe. And whilst over the last few years there has been some excellent cars that have been well received by the press, there is still a massive perception lag amongst a very large proportion of the populous. People will always bring up anecdotes that their 3rd cousin once removed had a terrible experience with Ford over 10 years ago. Also with many "car freaks" in Europe perceived quality always get mixed up with "real" quailty. If a car doesn't have the soft touch & painted/chromed plastics and the even panel gaps then it will be automatically rubbished. Because of this german cars always seem to get wanked over in both the press and on the streets. In the UK on some forums there are always a number of accusations that the press has been bought off when a Ford has been praised, even Clarkson is accused of Ford bias in the UK! The key is that they must maintain their existing customer base for Fords in Europe within established markets (UK/Germany/Italy) and any expansion will need to come from elsewhere (Eastern europe and Russia where such perceptions are not ingrained). Any increase in market share for Fords in western europe is especially hard fought.

The V6 "Ecoboost" has one GDI fuel pump driven off the cam, and I know that the fuel delivery capability (of single GDI pumps) will be very close to it's limit for that power. If power is to be increased then someone will have to fashion a means of putting another fuel pump on, perhaps from the other bank which will require some significant changes to the other cam cover and camshaft. The V6 "Ecoboost" also has a compression ratio of 10:1, which is pretty high for turbocharged engine. If the boost is to be winded-up (assuming the stock-turbos can deliver the required air) then this will almost certainly have to be backed off to avoid detonation. Ford's durability targets are notoriously arduous, but the increase in heat rejection from any increased power will stretch things into the unknown. But anyone fooling around with aftermarket stuff should hopefully realise that!

It's true that Euro emissions allow slightly more NOx than the NA emissions, but not enough that allows gasoline engines to run without NOx traps if running stratified. Most manufacturers are trying to avoid the use of NOx trap technology all together. The emerging consensus for Euro 6 is very small & highly boosted GDI turbo gasoline engines (120+ Bar cylinder pressures with ~25 Bar BMEP) running stoich with conventional 3-way Cat, also low end torque boosted with mild hybrid. As jpd80 mentions the largest engine Transit has is a 3.2 I5, 200hp & 370 lbft, this is based off the Puma engine.

The old Jag V8 isn't based on the Mod because it has 98 bore centres, direct acting bucket valvetrain and an aluminium bedplate construction cylinder block. The latter design of this had a 90.3mm stroke. If you're feeling wealthy there is an SAE paper on the the first design: http://www.sae.org/technical/papers/970914 The new Jaguar V8 is again not based off the Mod (again DA bucket valvetrain, high pressure die cast block, and very different cooling and oil system), BUT it does share the very basic dimensions of the Mod, 100mm bore centres and 99mm lateral headbolt pitch. http://blog.drivers-republic.com/wp-conten...ines/index.html

Here are some pictures for the Volvo SI6: Very impressive achievement in terms of packaging, but in my opinion it compromises the base engine too much in terms of cost, power and fuel economy. Also the design, as it is with the rear chaindrive and accessory drive overhanging the gearbox, makes it very unsuitable for longitudinal applications. Jaguar might have considered it for the XF for all of about 15 mins considering the engine it was to replace (the DAMB V6 3.0) is more powerful and probably cheaper! I thought it was Ricardo that helped with this engine, but the gear power take off idea is very bike-engine like so the idea may have come from Yamaha.

I can't believe the assertions you've just come out with about Jag. What do you know about the dissention in the ranks of Jaguar engineers about Ford ownership, did you take a poll? Were you there? Very soon after Jaguar was bought the old management was swept aside and Ford management was brought in (starting with Bill Hayden), and this continued with Ford using it as a creche for upcoming Ford managers until it's sale. Jaguar was never run like a charity before Ford's purchase, it was starved of investment for decades by British Leyland because of all the other mess that was going on with the other brands, and then when privatised in 1984 it barely received anymore investment until the Ford purchase. Probably because of this, before it's purchase, it managed to be profitable and on a shoestring develop the XJ40 saloon (the basis of the 90's X300 XJ and X100 XK) and XJ41/42 "F" Type which was later to become the Aston Martin DB7, part of the reason Ford overpaid for Jaguar. I believe you would find that most Jag engineers would be grateful for what Ford did in the investment that went in and the quality improvements that came (Bill Hayden is especially revered). I also believe that the Jag engineers were very pleased with the DEW98 because for it's intended purpose (a proper luxury car with the features required i.e. aluminium double wishbone suspension all-round, stiff chassis, double bulkhead construction for NVH isolation) it was spot on. What Jaguar engineers were dubious about was the de-contenting of the AJ-V8 for the LS (increased amount of development costs to produce 2 effectively different engines) and the 5-speed auto, which just didn't have the shift quality required. What many were dubious about was the 'X' type project that was imposed upon it by Dearborn (Nasser et al) and Jaguar's Ford appointed management (Scheele et al) to chase Lexus/Acura/Infiniti. The 'X' type drastically increased the production capacity again 18 months after releasing the 'S' type into a market that wasn't ready for it. Think of it this way there are only a limited number of people at the time (say 100000 a year, the adage about needing 2 Jags "one to use and one for the shop" still fresh in the minds of the buying public) and the few Jaguar buyers that were available were given the choice between cheap one and a more expensive one. They buy the cheap one cannibalising sales of the more expensive one but they were not selling enough of the cheaper one to justify the investment in the new factory at Halewood and at the same time ruined the profitability of the more expensive one! Fucking recklessness beyond belief! Now you've said before that Jaguar engineers treated the 'X' type like a "ginger haired step child", but there were plenty glad of the work and the fact that quality wise it has been excellent throughout it's production and actually still a decent car rather suggests that the engineers did their job properly. The other criticism that "Jaguar engineers bristled at sharing ANYTHING" is yet another assertion, how do you know it wasn't the other way? Where is the evidence? Secondly, because they were being run directly by Ford (unlike Volvo was until recently with the appointment of O'Dell), there was fuck all they could do about it! I'll tell you an interesting fact about the new 5.0 V8 designed and developed by Jaguar inhouse, it has 100mm borecentres and 99mm lateral headbolt pitch, which is EXACTLY the same as the Modular V8. It also has DAMB and a 92.5mm bore, which is EXACTLY the same as D35. A coincidence? I think not! If Ford NA engineering wanted the centrally mounted DI combustion system developed by Jag (in conjunction with FoE) they could have had it easily. What is for certain the people responsible for the problems of Jaguar after it's dramatic expansion are the same mould of people responsible for the problems of Ford stemming from the 90's and early 00's.