White99GT Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 So was the Lima, following this line of logic it must have been miserable as well. Let's blame that on the Modular Mafia, Ford's very own Illuminati, promoting their one engine order... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardJensen Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Well, what part of the Mod 'architecture' is being phased out? The Boss & Coyote are both going to have deep skirt 6 bolt mains, a high deck height:stroke ratio, and overhead cams. The Boss & Coyote are the children of the Mod engine. It's not as though Ford's launching a short skirtless cam in block engine.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthewq4b Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 (edited) The Mods were a compromised design. And it took basically a decade to over come the shortcomings imposed by the compromise design. Also 09 is the 20th anniversary of the Mod motor. Yup the mod has been in production for 20 years now. Happy Anniversary. The mod has grown and evolved in to a class leading V architecture engine. But this has not happened over night. It has taken over 20 years to get the motors where they are today. Yes the mods had issues. But technology and time has manged to over come these issues. The original were mods the most advanced mass production Domestic engines on the market for quite awhile. But they did have problems. To mention a few weak bottoms ends, not weak in the sense of parts breaking. But the bearing surface was considerably narrower than was normal. It took several years before Bearing technology was able to overcome this issue and a change in oil weights, The early mods used in the panthers and the F series were suffering bearing failures at an alarming rate in colder climes. The switch to 5w-20 motor oil probably helped this more than any single thing. I believe the only reason I was able to get over 600K out my Dec 1990 production 4.6 was because I used synthetic oil in it from near day one. They ate valve seals, had cam follower issues had rapid cylinder wear in some apps exhaust manifold cracking was also a problem on some of the earlier engines and the V10 not to mention the spark plug problem ( I believe the spark plug issue was more Ford recommending an improper torque spec than an actual design problem) The narrow bore was a departure from engines that traditionally built horsepower. Traditionally long stroke engines were great tractor engines good for building torque. Exactly what was need in the original intended application. It took Ford and the after market a lot of years lots of dollars and lots of failed head designs and cam profiles to finally figure out how to reliably get the big HP numbers out of the long stroked small bore mod. Yes the mods have turned out to be great engines with durability almost unmatched by anything. But this did not happen over night. They do and did have short comings do not kid you're self. But Ford doggedly stuck to the mod and worked through the issues with large sums of cash R&D and lots of time. If the engines had not been compromised from the onset and had been allowed to have a larger bore from the get go the engines would have not suffered the bearing failures and would have been able to post much bigger HP numbers earlier on. And we would most likely be seeing even higher numbers now. In the long run we would have a better engine that would have been able to show it's back side to any thing on the road much earlier on. Ford has 20 years worth of undersqaure engine tech to build upon now so the logical thing is to follow this in the next gen of engines. That is probably the reason for doing it more than anything else. All in all a damn good showing for an engine originally designed for the Panthers and the FWD Conti. The Mods have turned out to be a truly great engine but it has taken over 20 years worth of development to get to this point. Lets not kids our selves here they were not a fantastic engine out of the gate. But had a solid and strong design backing them up that allowed Ford to work though the short comings and build upon it's strengths. The thing that one has to wonder is what would we have now 20 years later if the mods had been able to handle a 4" bore from the onset ? I believe a 500hp streatable non forced induction engine would have been a real possibility. Matthew Edited February 14, 2009 by matthewq4b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
White99GT Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Wow, I actually agree with most of that post. Very nice... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caseman Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 Ford power just won Daytona! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
351cid Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goingincirclez Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 I had a love-hate relationship with the stock detuned mod in my 97 t-birds. I mean on the one hand the power was almost laughable... but on the other they were a blast to wind up and sounded beautiful at full song. And just could not be killed. True story: my alpine green '97 had some sort of racket coming from the bottom end for a year. I suspected it was either the water pump or a lower crank bearing, but hadn't been able to narrow it down or work on it. We actually had the car at my in-laws' farm once I had designs to remove the water pump, but couldn't get the #&*^ thing off the motor!!! So I ended up driving the car with all its dieselish racket for over a year... Eventually in a fit of prescription-med 'roid rage, I decided I was GOING to GET that damn water pump off the car for once and for all... with the aid of a 15-lb sledge. Well, that water pump is now a trophy: once it was off the car, it could not be turned even by hand! Needless to say a new pump had the motor as quiet as new. But how it ran for 25K miles with a nearly seized water pump, I'll never understand. Long live the Mod. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JETSOLVER Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 NO qualms. ATI procharger and makes a regular, every day (if high maintainance) 435+++ horse bullitt. SVT+ 4v MOd = Terminator That worked. Sure hope this one does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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