P51, 100% in agreement, FINALLY!!! The Mod motors "should" be able to meet future emission requirements easier. But I think a lot of people, me included, are very impressed that the LS series of motors has been this powerful AND clean..



It appears that with 2 plugs and other refinements the bores have snuck past 4.0" again with the LS6 motor and the pseudo-hemi..........almost like Ford jumped the gun a tad.

 

The physical size diff of the OHC motors is astonishing!!!

Like I'd mentioned earlier; a friend is putting an LS1 into a sand rail, a few doors down from his shop was a 4.6 DOHC at a another friend's shop.....

I'd never seen the 2 motors on stands within a few minutes of each other.


dayuuuuuum...........the Mod motor is physically large(much like I assume the Northstar to be)

 

Shoot I'm new around here and have been watching this thread for a while, I guess I'll throw my 2 cents in. The "modular" engine family is a GREAT engine design. I'm pretty sure Ford's intention with the small bores and tight bore spacing was designed for small fast burn cylinders and shorter engine length. They intended to simply add cylinders if more displacement was required. The problem is the short deck V10 (at 351 cubes) has never been brought to market. If it was, in either 3v or 4v form it would be game over! This was the plan for this engine family from the beginning. An F150, Crown Vic or Mustang with a short deck 351 V10 I believe would pretty much send the others back to the drawing board. The main reasons I feel this way are due to the fact the a camshaft acting almost directly on the valvetrain, as in an OHC engine, offer the most advantageous valve timing control. The "Mods" are just now getting VCT and look at the results. I don't know how you'd accomplish total valve timing control in a single "cam in block" pushrod engine.

There are always considerations to overall physical engine size. The Mods do appear huge for their displacement (though the 3v's are more compact). I can tell you right now that even the meaty 4v 4.6 are easier to swap than the tiny but bumpy small block Fords into early hot rod vehicles. Short engine length is ALWAYS a benefit when choosing a powerplant. The crank driven oil pump removes the biggest interference point (pan to crossmember clearance). No brackets, all the accessories bolt directly to the block. This eliminates tons of headaches making brackets and finding appropriate pulleys. Not to mention in the old days the "hemis" were the holy grail of hot rodding. The massive deep breathing cylinder heads were the focal point of any engine compartment that housed them. Now in the case of the 4v Fords you have a similar situation, nice wide free breathing heads, covered with aluminum covers and centrally mounted plugs. These could be the most impressive looking powerplants that run harder while delivering better mileage than the early hemis. What's not to like?

 

Would it surprise you to learn the Mod motors are a 1/2" LONGER than the 302/Windsor motors?

 

Yes it would surprise me, and respectfully I do not believe that's true. My measurement standard includes the distance between the tip of the water pump to the bellhousing flange. The exact numbers escape me right now but if memory serves the Mod is shorter by 2-3". In 1991 Ford reduced the length of the 5.0 in the T-Birds a full 1 3/4" by eliminating the space behind the timing cover for the fuel pump eccentric. They cast up a new cover and w/pump to shorten the engine up. The "shorter" 5.0 comes close but is still a bit longer than the Mod V-8's.

 

I'm currently looking at page 155 of the 2005 Ford Racing Performance Parts catalog.

It shows the overall length from the tip of the water pump mounting flange to an installed flywheel on the 302/351 to be 27 1/2".

The Mod motor shows a 28" length.

Here's an astonishing measurement (that I'm sure you already knew) The 281 CID MOD motor is a whopping 4" WIDER than a 460 and nearly 4" TALLER than a 460.........not to mention the DOHC is over 9" taller than 302.

I dig on my 4 valve DOHC motors...........but they're freakin' huge!!!

BTW, I was also surprised.......I,too, had read that the Mod motors were designed for front wheel drives and a short overall length for transverse mounting..........much to the dismay of many pseudo-performance gurus who WRONGLY predicted an early failure rate due to narrow main and rod bearings.

 

My statement made earlier has still not been answered: Why does my great big 4.6 engine get poor mileage and poor performance? All the theory about how great the design is does not matter when engines made by other manufacturers of comparable size make better numbers. Dont give me the 5.4 line either, I have driven several of them and they are lame also compared to the Hemis and LS1 motors. Why is it GM can get better everything out of an old school push rod motor? Why is it that my 1.8 liter Acura engine makes 200 horsepower bone stock and still gets low 30's for economy?

Like it or not Ford must make some changes or they will continue to lose market share. There will not be enough die hard fans out there buying their underpowered vehicles to keep them afloat. If you think that can't happen then look at Chrysler, in the late 60's they had great cars and plenty of recognition as a performance car. By the early 80's they were in bankruptcy and you could not give one of their cars away. If it had not been for the government, then they would be gone.

The Japanese are coming after the full size truck market and delivering a good product for the money. Personally I would not buy a full size import because I do not think they are comparable to a domestic as an overall package. You may feel the same way but, a lot of Americans do not and they will buy. IMO it is time for Ford to prove why they have been the best all these years by delivering the goods instead of the talk.

 

I have never really liked the 2 valve engines that much. The whole purpose of over head cam design is so that the multi-valve concept can be best utilized, without resorting to complex, convoluted pushrod/rocker arm designs, that are a liabilty in high rpm enviroments. Moreover, you need multivalves with small bore engines, or you end up with modern day Chevy 305.

Ford's gear ratio's in the automatic are more to blame than the engine design. Ford did right by using a high tourqe (for the displacement) setup, rather than going for a big advertizable HP number in a heavy vehicle application, but the gear ratio's in the transmission don't allow this to be utilized. The Ford 4 speed truck/SUV auto has these gear ratios:

1-2.84
2-1.55
3-1.00
OD-.70

Compared to the Nissan ratios:

1-3.83
2-2.73
3-1.52
4-1.00
OD-.83

Heavy vehicle+relatively small engine for the application+poor gearing=high potential fuel consumption along with less snappy proformance.

The new three valve motors just need a better fuel and spark program and something done with the electronic throttle control. The 3 valve Mustang engine can pickup as much 30 HP with no other changes, by dealing with the electronic throttle control, and removing the air silencer. Ford doesn't need to dump the modular engines and regress to pushrod designs.

My brother got to use a Roush Mustang last weekend for the whole weekend and he reports 27mpg. He doesn't drive slow.

At what RPM does Accura make max HP?
What's it's max tourqe, and at what RPM?

 

The three valve design has the park plug located in the center with the intake and exaust sides oppossed. It has high swirl with the swirl combustion in the correct direction for effcient flow. Two smaller valves can provide more valve area than one larger valve. Two ideally shaped and sized intake tracts will provide extremely high flow without sacrificing world class flow velocities. Usually the exaust side needs less valve area than the intake side to provide balanced flow through a wide RPM range. Using one larger exaust valve in conjuntion with two intake valves provides these desirable features with less complexity and cost.

I agree that Ford has a potential world class winner of a design in the multi valve modular motors, albeit some detail improvements, partcularly in the electronic tune, would be welcome.

 

I got stranded in a low miles Caddy 700 miles from home a few years ago. The engine gave out in the desert heat. A guy down the road is parting out a nice STS, because it has a blown engine and it will cost more to fix it than the car's worth. For some reason GM is no longer pushing these engines much in racing, although they never really did that well in competition, in comparison to what the Modular Ford is doing. I kind of liked the Northstar's performance-when it it was running good.

 

I had a brand new 1989 Ford F-700 that blew an engine (429) at less than 2000 miles. When a took it back to the dealer, the service manager said that he had seen a lot of them go. I still don't think the 429 (or any Lima) is a bad engine.

 

[QUOTE=200cs]My statement made earlier has still not been answered: Why does my great big 4.6 engine get poor mileage and poor performance? All the theory about how great the design is does not matter when engines made by other manufacturers of comparable size make better numbers. Dont give me the 5.4 line either, I have driven several of them and they are lame also compared to the Hemis and LS1 motors. Why is it GM can get better everything out of an old school push rod motor? Why is it that my 1.8 liter Acura engine makes 200 horsepower bone stock and still gets low 30's for economy?


About 3-4 years ago a friend of mine (Marc Garland) built a neat Mustang for J.R> Granatelli. It's purpose was to prove and promote the Modular engine in Pro 5.0 competition. At that point in time there were very few full on race parts for the Modular engine series. There were mostly just street bolt ons. To make a long story short Granatelli recieved a few used 5.4 Navigator 4V engines from Ford to play around with. In race form the first engines built were stock block, crank, heads, and valvetrain and oiling. There was some porting, forged pistons & rods. The cams were experemental but mild at first and I'm sure the valvesprings were upgraded. The intake was fabbed with a race turbo and it had an MSD distributer driven off one of the cams. The result?.... 1360 horsepower out of the box. I was at the first shakedown passes in Orlando which were all in the 7.30's. Later those numbers improved to over 1600 hp and 6 sec E.T's.



I'd say that based on what I saw firsthand the Mod is a decent performance platform. The ONLY real drawback is the tight borespacing which limits bore size. This is THE reason that the LS and DCX hemi can hang with the Mods. A good OHC engine like the Modular Fords can and will eventually run away from other types of engines all else being equal. In the case of the Mods the small bore negates some of the breathing potential of the 3V and 4V heads. If bore sizes of the three V8's mentioned were similar I firmly believe that the Modular Ford would win the hp debate. (Ford's intention was to add cylinders when greater displacement was needed. Some engineers did build a V10 out of the 4.6 platform, it came out at 351 cu in. The test mule was something like 450 hp and 475 lb ft. torque. Figure it detuned for production and one could easily imagine 375-400hp with 425 lb ft.



Other things that cement the Modular engine in my mind include: direct drive oil pump, "dry valley" area = no oil or water leaks, cross bolt main caps, cyl head bolts that purchase deep in the block not on the side of the cyl like a sbc. I like the flat intake manifold mount surface and the ready availability of steel crankshafts. Chain driven cams are nicer than belts, they are a premium feature and last a very long time. I like the fact that brackets to mount accessories are not needed. I like straight intake ports and the location of the injectors. I dig the fact that a supercharger has been a factory option and a realitively easy install with a variety of aftermarket kits(earlier pushrod Ford V8's were tougher due to dist location and crank snout length and diameter). I like the big wide aluminum valvecovers on the 4V Mods, they are impressive looking under the hood of a `40 Ford. The valvetrain is low friction rollerized, w/beehive springs. You dont need aftermarket heads because the factory ones are great with some detail and port work. The list goes on.



The mileage myth does interest me though. I'd like to see that one for myself. I can only tell you what I know from my experience at Ford dealerships. The 4.6 Crowns and the V10 Motorhomes are well known to have a mpg advantage over their pushrod predecessors. They also have at least equal or superior performance. I don't know if GM has that great of a mileage advantage over Ford (they may) but there are many factors not just engine design that affect this.



Each to his own. I'm sure there will be legions of car enthusiasts modifying all three engines. The nice thing about that is there is ALREADY a ton of Modular Ford development and aftermarket support. There are even a few different drag race series classes that are in place that either are Mod specific or are simply a great venue to compete with these. This fact simply cannot be ignored.

 

"About 3-4 years ago a friend of mine (Marc Garland) built a neat Mustang for J.R> Granatelli. It's purpose was to prove and promote the Modular engine in Pro 5.0 competition. At that point in time there were very few full on race parts for the Modular engine series. There were mostly just street bolt ons. To make a long story short Granatelli recieved a few used 5.4 Navigator 4V engines from Ford to play around with. In race form the first engines built were stock block, crank, heads, and valvetrain and oiling. There was some porting, forged pistons & rods. The cams were experemental but mild at first and I'm sure the valvesprings were upgraded. The intake was fabbed with a race turbo and it had an MSD distributer driven off one of the cams. The result?.... 1360 horsepower out of the box. I was at the first shakedown passes in Orlando which were all in the 7.30's. Later those numbers improved to over 1600 hp and 6 sec E.T's. "

In my opinion, it is not fair to compare forced induction with N/A. My Acura has a t3/t4 turbo setup and is somewhere in the 350 hp range (still tuning). There are several v8's producing unreal horsepower with forced induction so all things considered, the question is still not answered: Why the poor performance/economy. I have a freind with a 5.3 ls1 truck that makes 280 horsepower at the wheels and he gets better economy. All the design technology in the world means nothing if it can't be delivered on a daily basis.

As a side note, I will probably supercharge my expy because I do like the truck and with forced induction and tuning, I can get it better. When it comes time to replace it, Ford had better make some improvements or I will buy something else. For that matter, if Ford doesn't rethink their business plan of big underpowered trucks, they will continue to decline and may end up like Chrysler as stated in an earlier post...

 

??? Those things have a "limp-home" mode in case of a cooling system failure- it can actually cycle through the different cylinder banks in case of total coolant system failure. With all the failsafes built into that motor, you'd really have to be trying to kill a Northstar.

 

I would not say by any means that they are underpowered. Look at the trucks of the 70's and 80's and early to mid 90's. Much lower power than the trucks of today. It's just that we have become so used to every standard truck having 300+ horsepower and mountains of torque that we have become spoiled. Mark my words, it's all gonna come crashing down eventually when gas prices just won't go down and average joe American realizes he really doesent need 300 horse to haul firewood, or go on a picnic, or haul his 2500lb camper or boat.