85 replies to this topic

[Kevin Thomas]

Are there any differences between a Holden V8 and A Chevrolet smallblock? Or Ford US and Ford AU engines?
Just curious if they followed their own evolution or not.

[cosworth bdg]

Originally posted by Kevin Thomas
Are there any differences between a Holden V8 and A Chevrolet smallblock? Or Ford US and Ford AU engines?
Just curious if they followed their own evolution or not.

A very interesting question ??

[Lukin]

The V8 Supercar blocks are sourced from the US yeah; GM Racing and Ford Racing US.

[cheapracer]

If im not mistaken, historically that is, Larry Perkins was the last to win with an Aussie (305?) block at Bathurst when all the others had the Chev.

I'm really no expert though.

[cosworth bdg]

Non of us are experts, but you may just be correct....

[cheapracer]

Not often I'm right, but I may just be wrong this time.

[ray b]

the original cleveland HI-PO head 1970spec usa build lived on in aussie production for many years
and even the mid power v2 head was reimported from downunder

so basic bit may be the same but year build is different

[Ray Bell]

I'm no expert, but I was given to understand that the Ford engine is a Windsor...

[cosworth bdg]

Originally posted by Ray Bell
I'm no expert, but I was given to understand that the Ford engine is a Windsor...

Ray, you are correct..

[ray b]

there are two small block ford familys post 69-70
the windsor and the cleveland

the boss 351 was a cleveland a wider headed more HI-PO motor with better flow
grand-am cars used this motor post 289
windsor was a econ motor but now is the only one still made in the usa
cleveland tooling was sent down under but hot-rodders reimported some stuff for years
windsor lived on in both cars and trucks
used in 5.0 mustang's intill the 4.6 and then droped EXCPT for nastycar
nasty car switched from the older clevelands to windsor some years ago
but many years after ford no longer used the cleveland motor in cars
but still banns OHC motors so the motor is still in production for nastycar
and used in boats and other race off road stuff ect

no idea when your ford quit the cleveland in both 4v and 2v form [2 or 4 is carb barrel not valves!!!]
and is port valve and C/R based
4v heads were race/leaded hi test only, 2v for street motors post unleaded gas
and switched to windsor only
but I bet it was smog related
there was also smogged cleveland call mod but a real dog vs the older motors/heads

they are named for the original plants built at

[ray b]

221-260-289-302-351.....= windsor

302 boss 351 boss and 400 = clevelands the more powerfull at the time motor

http://en.wikipedia....leveland_engine

http://en.wikipedia...._Windsor_engine

[Amaroo Park]

Originally posted by cheapracer
If im not mistaken, historically that is, Larry Perkins was the last to win with an Aussie (305?) block at Bathurst when all the others had the Chev.

I'm really no expert though.

Yes in 1993 he raced a Holden v8. He was forced by the rule makers the following year to go to the Chev

[Bob Riebe]

Originally posted by ray b
there are two small block ford familys post 69-70
the windsor and the cleveland

the boss 351 was a cleveland a wider headed more HI-PO motor with better flow
grand-am cars used this motor post 289
windsor was a econ motor but now is the only one still made in the usa
cleveland tooling was sent down under but hot-rodders reimported some stuff for years
windsor lived on in both cars and trucks
used in 5.0 mustang's intill the 4.6 and then droped EXCPT for nastycar
nasty car switched from the older clevelands to windsor some years ago
but many years after ford no longer used the cleveland motor in cars
but still banns OHC motors so the motor is still in production for nastycar
and used in boats and other race off road stuff ect

no idea when your ford quit the cleveland in both 4v and 2v form [2 or 4 is carb barrel not valves!!!]
and is port valve and C/R based
4v heads were race/leaded hi test only, 2v for street motors post unleaded gas
and switched to windsor only
but I bet it was smog related
there was also smogged cleveland call mod but a real dog vs the older motors/heads

they are named for the original plants built at

Australian Ford Cleveland heads were much used by US Ford die-hards in the seventies and eighties when Ford did not have a hi-po catalog.
Australia had a unique Cleveland head easier to work with than US variants.
The 302 from down under was a Cleveland 302 both in heads and blocks, I cannot say for abolutely sure, but I believe this was also the engine used in the 302 Capri sold in South Africa.

Bob

[ray b]

never seen a holden other then the new GTO rebadged car but as that car is a LS-1/6 motor
I supect it is a chevy perhaps with minor mods

http://en.wikipedia....ki/GM_LS_engine

but the chevy small block aka the mouse motor [ pre lt-1 ls-1 versions]

has had many different heads inc race spec heads

there were both buick and pontiac heads on the chevy mouse block
these were used in NHRA and NASTYCAR and IMSA
both in iron and al alloy

[Bob Riebe]

As an aside; C.O.M.E. now is making the genuine Holden V-8 in rebuild and new build versions, including an aluminum block.
Bob
http://www.comeracin...oducts/engines/

[Joe Bosworth]

Since the onset of the alloy LS1 engines in Holdens there has been total similarity Chev to Holden. I believe that Holden has been importing complete Chev engine machanical packages.

In the days of cast iron blocks the Chev and Holden were quite different. Not the least of differnces brought about by the fact that the heads were different to the point of having totally different sequencing of inlet and exhaust valves. This meant differnet cams, headers and inlet manifolds. The blocks were dimensionally different.

Regards

[AS110]

The 253 and 308 Holden V8's were made using the 6 cyl components.So was the Starfire 4 cyl....

[McGuire]

I have not been over there for a few years and I may be off a bit, so perhaps the natives will be kind enough to correct me as necessary... In V8 Supercars, Holdens ran the genuine Holden V8 until around '94ish, at which point they switched to a smallblock Chevy, until around 2004-05 when they switched to the GM LS1 family. (I believe teams were able to run either engine for a year or so due to vagaries in the rules, or so I recall from one trip over there.) The Fords all run a basic D3 combination which is essentially a five-liter version of the current NASCAR engine. How did I do?

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Joe Bosworth
In the days of cast iron blocks the Chev and Holden were quite different. Not the least of differnces brought about by the fact that the heads were different to the point of having totally different sequencing of inlet and exhaust valves. This meant differnet cams, headers and inlet manifolds. The blocks were dimensionally different.

I think Americans may tend to assume that the Holden V8 was a smallblock Chevy or some derivative thereof, when just as you say they were totally different engines. To me the Holden V8 has always been a very interesting engine: There is no mistaking it for a GM product when you see it, yet it is also unique unto itself. Very nice little motor, more advanced than the SBC in at least a couple of ways, and with one or two features not found in other pushrod V8s.

[phantom II]

The Chevy 350 was made in Canada and exported to Australia for many years since the 60s. The LS1 and LS2 made in Canada are exported to Holden. Most of the V8 supercar engines both Ford and Holden are made in the USA.

Originally posted by McGuire


I think Americans may tend to assume that the Holden V8 was a smallblock Chevy or some derivative thereof, when just as you say they were totally different engines. To me the Holden V8 has always been a very interesting engine: There is no mistaking it for a GM product when you see it, yet it is also unique unto itself. Very nice little motor, more advanced than the SBC in at least a couple of ways, and with one or two features not found in other pushrod V8s.

[Bob Riebe]

Originally posted by phantom II
The Chevy 350 was made in Canada and exported to Australia for many years since the 60s. The LS1 and LS2 made in Canada are exported to Holden. Most of the V8 supercar engines both Ford and Holden are made in the USA.

The Chevy was available in Australia but the Holden engine was not a Chevy and the Fords were not US Ford engines.
Bob

[NRoshier]

in a similar way the Ford I6 developed into a uniquely Australian engine and this will cease production in 2010 to bring Ford Aus into line with US production

[Catalina Park]

Originally posted by phantom II
The Chevy 350 was made in Canada and exported to Australia for many years since the 60s. The LS1 and LS2 made in Canada are exported to Holden. Most of the V8 supercar engines both Ford and Holden are made in the USA.

For many years = 1969 to 1974, then again from the late 90's. From 1974 to 1999 there were no Chev engines in Holdens.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by McGuire
I have not been over there for a few years and I may be off a bit, so perhaps the natives will be kind enough to correct me as necessary... In V8 Supercars, Holdens ran the genuine Holden V8 until around '94ish, at which point they switched to a smallblock Chevy, until around 2004-05 when they switched to the GM LS1 family. (I believe teams were able to run either engine for a year or so due to vagaries in the rules, or so I recall from one trip over there.) The Fords all run a basic D3 combination which is essentially a five-liter version of the current NASCAR engine. How did I do?

They weren't 'V8 Supercars' until about '94 anyway...

Up until then it was Touring Cars built to the National rules, whatever they were called at the time (Group C?). These required the original block and heads, and some other bits, so the Holden V8 was necessary.

They ran against BMWs and Ford Sierras and other makes at that time. But a TV commentator thought he should rewrite the rulebook and squeeze out everyone but the 'homegrown' V8s in the interests of manufacturer interest (ie. sponsorship bucks) and perceived spectator interest. Getting the greater number of beer-swillers on the hill, in other words.

I'm not sure now, but possibly the Chevy engine was allowed in prior to the V8 Supercar class coming about. I recall Larry Perkins being the last to run the Walkinshaw VL Commodore that was near the front of the field, but he was eventually forced to upgrade also. His was the last Holden V8 to run, at the pointy end, anyway.

McGuire... what do you see as the advanced design features of the Holden engine v the Chevy, and the other features not found in pushrod V8s?

And yes, as AS110 has stated, some parts from the more commonplace Holden six were used in the 253 and 308 V8s. In fact, the engine sizes were the product of this component sharing originally.

[AS110]

I never found anything advanced about the Holden V8...it was just a V8.But the red 6 cyl really was advanced for it's day - the best and easiest 6 cyl to work on.They had a few issues over the years.....the 179 was never liked,the 161 and the 186 were honeys,the 202 was not liked when it first came out,but we got it for the next 15 years,in other colours too,so it became the standard.I could do anything quicker on a 7 brg Holden 6 than any other 6 cyl of the period.

The V8 was just the same stuff in a harder to work on form.This is from working mechanics point of view - we had to churn out work in a profitable time....working on a Holden was easier than working on a Falcon,and still is.

[McGuire]

"McGuire... what do you see as the advanced design features of the Holden engine v the Chevy?"


One interesting feature of the Holden V8: the distributor and oil pump are driven from opposite ends of the camshaft. As far as I know that is totally unique in pushrod V8s. Also, the oil pump is mounted in the timing cover (like Buick V6/V8) rather than in the crankcase, which is rather clever as with the SB Ford the sump must go forward of the crossmember, while the SB Chevy requires a rear sump. The Holden V8 can go either way.

The Holden cylinder head is pretty interesting too, but then it is over a decade newer than the Chevy book fold head, which after all is a 1954 deal.

Another impressive aspect of the Holden V8 is it was developed on an absolute shoestring compared to other GM engines, and with only a couple of guys. As the story goes, USA engineering was rather incredulous that they were able to do it, and at first dismissed the program... but once they looked the engine over they were impressed and gave it the green light.

As long as we are talking about the Ford NASCAR D3 engine/head, Mose Nowland was the Ford engineer responsible for that development. Mose has had a hand in virtually every Ford racing engine from the early '60s on, including the Indy engines, the SOHC 427 and all the NASCAR and drag racing stuff. If you are an engine guy, Mose is one of your heroes.

[cheapracer]

Originally posted by AS110
I never found anything advanced about the Holden V8...it was just a V8.But the red 6 cyl really was advanced for it's day - the best and easiest 6 cyl to work on.They had a few issues over the years.....the 179 was never liked,the 161 and the 186 were honeys,the 202 was not liked when it first came out,but we got it for the next 15 years,in other colours too,so it became the standard.I could do anything quicker on a 7 brg Holden 6 than any other 6 cyl of the period.

The V8 was just the same stuff in a harder to work on form.This is from working mechanics point of view - we had to churn out work in a profitable time....working on a Holden was easier than working on a Falcon,and still is.

What you may not know about the red 6 and is fact, at the time it was the lightest mass production 6 cylinder engine in the world even with cast iron head. Not bad considering it was 202/3.3 litre compared to some 2.0 litre 6's with alloy heads. Of a few conversions I have done using the red, one was a 192 (yella terra head of course) into a Datsun 240Z which required shortened front springs as it sat about an 1'' higher after. The red was great for conversions as it was so narrow, short (height) and as mentioned, light.

[AS110]

Originally posted by McGuire
[B][B it was developed on an absolute shoestring ]

The raw material for their shoe string was the red 6 - the 6 cyl engine had an external oil pump,so the V8 got the same set up....not the same pump,but very close.The cyl head design is from the 6 cyl too - nothing radical about it,just making the best use of what they had.There was also a 4 cyl made of of the 6 cyl too,it was not so successful as the V8,although most of the running issues came from the lean carb setup.A common mod we did was to fit a Weber off the 2 litre Cortina engine,they ran much better then.

The first red engine was the 149 cheapracer,202 was as big as they got.They went to 161,179 then 186,the 202 and 173 were later engines.The red engines were fitted into almost everything,even industrial applications....like running mixer bowls on concrete trucks.One conversion I often came across was not my favorite - Holden 6 into Landrover.Compared to the 4 cyl Landrover the Holden was much more powerful - but it had less low rpm torque,and revved lower.So when driving they stalled easily and needed too many revs in tricky conditions....making the job even harder,and on the open road needed an overdrive box to get a good cruising speed.

[Ray Bell]

I'm worrying a little about perspective on the Holden red 6...

1963 to 1966 it was available as a 149 and 179.

Later in '66 it was available (only) as a 161 and 186.

Around 1968, I think, maybe '69, the 138 version came out as the base engine for the 6-cyl Torana.

In 1970 they dropped the 161 and 186 and marketed the 173 and 202. The 202 remained in production until 1986 or so.

[AS110]

And do you want to do the colours next Ray? Different shades of red....black and blue.....

[Ray Bell]

Sorry about that... it's just that in TNF we make a point of getting information right...

I keep forgetting this isn't TNF.

[AS110]

Well to get things right you can go on and on about things that are of no interest to anyone else.I was trying to set the 173 and 202 apart from the earlier dark red engines - the more orange coloured 173/202 were a more modern interpretation.The non adjustable bridged rocker support is the obvious difference - I can't remember if the early V8 had them,or did they come in 1971 when the 173/202 came out with them? With such a long production life,there were a lot of versions made,and this many years down the track things get a bit hazy.

[Ray Bell]

Never having had one, I'm not familiar with the V8 engine's layout in detail...

I'll ask someone who knows, however.

[Terry Walker]

The point about the Holden V8 having the oil pump running off the front of the camshaft and the distributor off the rear interests me, because my weekend car's V8 has the oil pump running off the crankshaft (!) at the front, and the distributor off the rear of the camshaft. The oil pump, judging by the cutaway drawing, is in the bottom of the timing chest, in front of the camshaft drive, and has a long pipe running back to the oil pickup in the sump itself which is at the back of the engine. Odd layout.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by AS110
.The non adjustable bridged rocker support is the obvious difference - I can't remember if the early V8 had them,or did they come in 1971 when the 173/202 came out with them? With such a long production life,there were a lot of versions made,and this many years down the track things get a bit hazy.

I am no Holden authority (I'm not even Australian) but in the engines and drawings I have seen, early V8s appear to use a ball/stud rocker while later ones use the die-cast saddle pivot, which is an Oldsmobile thing. The ball/stud/stamped rocker arm is usually associated with Chevrolet but was actually invented by a Pontiac engineer... whose name escapes me at the moment.

[McGuire]

Clayton Leach

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Terry Walker
The point about the Holden V8 having the oil pump running off the front of the camshaft and the distributor off the rear interests me, because my weekend car's V8 has the oil pump running off the crankshaft (!) at the front, and the distributor off the rear of the camshaft. The oil pump, judging by the cutaway drawing, is in the bottom of the timing chest, in front of the camshaft drive, and has a long pipe running back to the oil pickup in the sump itself which is at the back of the engine. Odd layout.

On the GM LS1 engine (which has no distributor drive as manufactured so we needn't worry about it) the oil pump is in the timing cover, driven off the crank snout via concentric gear. Crescent pump, like an automatic transmission or P/S pump. Sort of interesting in that GM had played around with this configuration since the 1960s, used it on some Chevy and Pontiac Trans Am engines (some with center oiling). The Vega engine also used this setup.

One interesting oiling scheme was found on the Ford 7 liter LeMans engines. This was essentially a dry sump system but with the pressure and scavenge pumps in the oil pan.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by AS110
Well to get things right you can go on and on about things that are of no interest to anyone else.I was trying to set the 173 and 202 apart from the earlier dark red engines - the more orange coloured 173/202 were a more modern interpretation.The non adjustable bridged rocker support is the obvious difference - I can't remember if the early V8 had them,or did they come in 1971 when the 173/202 came out with them? With such a long production life,there were a lot of versions made,and this many years down the track things get a bit hazy.

My brother fiddles with all this stuff...

He tells me that the 308s had the bridged setup from the beginning (1969?) and the 253s got it later on.

Regarding oil pumps on the front of the crank... some Rover V8s had these, as did some Nissan engines. They seem to require that the front main seal be in good shape to retain oil pressure, which doesn't seem too smart to me.

[phantom II]

It cost $3 million to develop in 50s $ and has paid for itself many times over. GM engineers design for the stock holder, or at least in those days they did. Ed Cole used it in his little V8 in 54. Where was it first used? Not a trick question.

Originally posted by McGuire
Clayton Leach

[Ray Bell]

Seems pretty trick to me...

Exactly what are we talking about?

[phantom II]

The stamped rocker achieved several milestones in production procedures and cost reduction. It carries a number of patents. After many failures the correct steel, thickness, heat treatment, etc was determined and billions found their way into production over the years. McGuire probably could tell you the rest of the story.

Originally posted by Ray Bell
Seems pretty trick to me...

Exactly what are we talking about?

[Hank the Deuce]

Originally posted by Kevin Thomas
Are there any differences between a Holden V8 and A Chevrolet smallblock? Or Ford US and Ford AU engines?
Just curious if they followed their own evolution or not.

When the category changed to the two-marque winged-wonder formula for 1993 (was it Group 5A they called it then? Certainly they marketed it as 5-litre touring cars until the coverage swapped networks, and they wanted a Super name for what was being touted as the most Super thing in the universe), it was marketed on the basis that both Holden and Ford in Australia had 5-litre V8 options in their big car ranges again (the Commodore and the Falcon respectively), and as Ray pointed out, one of the TV tyros thought it made sense to throw out the imports in the interest of lifting the levels of jingoism to record levels, or something like that... or at least giving tin-tops the relevance it was losing with the domination by various Euro and Japanese cars, most of which weren't marketed locally.

For Holden, it was no bother; the 304c.i. V8 had been in constant production for yonks, and had gained 4-bolt mains and stuff for Group A homologation over the years, and had a stack of demon tuners to build them, like LP and Neill Burns... they were a good grounding for the new rules.

Ford, however, were a bit worried by the racing prospects for the crate motor they were installing in the Falcon, as its basic architecture didn't lend itself to relevant durable hot-rodding - which was one of the requirements for the category's success... so they applied successfully to the powers-that-be, to use the Ford Motorsport block, with its thicker webbings and 4-bolt caps and stuff.

Problem then was that they (CAMS, or whoever was running the show then) couldn't just open the gate for one mob, so what could we give Holden runners to make up for the imported Ford powerplant? How about the option of a Chev small-block? Well, that made them happy (for a while, anyway)... Larry Perkins (most prominently) soldiered on with the local motor, which he'd had a big hand in homologating for the previous category anyway, and since he had a gun slide-injection set-up and some other tweaks up his sleeve, he felt the local was at least as good as the Chevs being rapidly installed in a heap of Commodore racers... and he was vindicated, winning the Bathurst 1000 in 1993 in fine fighting style, partially assisted by taking one less fuel stop over the distance. Larry would continue to use Holden motors for some time yet (even as late as 1997 in the Castrol Cougars car driven by Melinda Price and Kerryn Brewer)... although I don't believe anyone's ever confirmed which breed of donk it was he flogged all day to win in 1995.

The next hiccup came not long after the turn of the millenium, when some of the Holden runners felt disadvantaged by the port configuration in the Chev, as compared to the Ford, so they lobbied hard to get access to what was know as the Chev Aurora (the blearing came on the eve of the re-birth of Ford's competitive form, with the introduction of the much-improved BA racer)... and then spent yonks trying to get the things to work properly.

Of course, by 2004, neither maunfacturer produced a local road car with a 5-litre V8 (at least the Chev motor used in the Holden was a pushrod V8), with Ford kitting up a 5.4 litre OHC unit out of the US parts bin (3- and 4-valve head options and the like) and Holden utilising the 5.7 and later 6.0 litre Chev crate-import motors.

And anyway, the cars themselves retain very little dimensional commonality with the road car (the Holden's wheelbase is altered... "parity", you'll understand), they use altered (from production formats) suspension setups, and despite the carefully manipulated badge culture, are little more than a silhouette formula, offering little in the way of credible competition, due to a combination of the cars' performance outgrowing many of their traditional playgrounds (including IMHO, Mount Panorama, given the tragedy and farce witnessed at last year's enduro), a "hooray for everybody" points system, and an apparent (given the inconstent manner in which the officials spray penalties across the field) lust to manipulate the results so that each and every championship is undecided until the final minutes of the final race each season.

The next mooted change is a "control chassis", which should have them edging ever closer to the NASCAR model - often touted as the epitome of such things (but they at least seem to have a handle on how to effectively - and somewhat subtlely - govern their spectacle).

To be fair though, the formula was pretty much designed to minimise supercession of the cars: most of the original TEGA board was made of well-worn veteran racers and team owners who had lived through the evolution of Group A, when a change of model could quickly render substantial amounts of inventory completely obsolete very quickly. While it was (at least initially) quite successful in that regard (and some current teams are using vehicles with several seasons' worth of racing on their log books), they have (inevitably, one feels) found ways to dispose of very healthy-looking budgets, year after year.

At least some of the engine components (at least on the Fords), and most of the gearboxes (the excellent Hollinger six-speeds), share some commonality with the origins of the species... pity that there's not much you can trace to their road-going bases though...

[McGuire]

Originally posted by phantom II
The stamped rocker achieved several milestones in production procedures and cost reduction. It carries a number of patents. After many failures the correct steel, thickness, heat treatment, etc was determined and billions found their way into production over the years. McGuire probably could tell you the rest of the story.

Now there is a twice-told tale.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Hank the Deuce


At least some of the engine components (at least on the Fords), and most of the gearboxes (the excellent Hollinger six-speeds), share some commonality with the origins of the species... pity that there's not much you can trace to their road-going bases though...

You can't run a professional racing series with real production cars anymore. Production cars are not designed for racing, while racing is a far more sophisticated and competitive game than it used to be.

The cars eligible for any given racing series will all be designed and manufactured to somewhat different targets, including cost. One will invariably be more suited to racing, often by accident, and for reasons that have little or nothing to do with its suitability or desirablility as a road car. So racing doesn't really prove anything in that regard.

[Hank the Deuce]

Originally posted by McGuire


You can't run a professional racing series with real production cars anymore. Production cars are not designed for racing, while racing is a far more sophisticated and competitive game than it used to be.

The cars eligible for any given racing series will all be designed and manufactured to somewhat different targets, including cost. One will invariably be more suited to racing, often by accident, and for reasons that have little or nothing to do with its suitability or desirablility as a road car. So racing doesn't really prove anything in that regard.

True, too true. With the top 20 grid places often blanketed by half-a-second, the difference between zero and hero aint' much... but in others it's a gaping chasm.

And frankly, the proof of whay you was evident in hindsight, in the Series Proddie and Group C days really. In some ways, it might be that the current formula is far closer to a "pure" class of racing car than any local tourer class before... for mine, it's a spectacle - but it ain't what it once was.

[McGuire]

I guess you can be thankful for what you have. We Americans who have followed your series think the equipment is much cooler than we have over here, even if it is mainly a matter of appearances.

[Hank the Deuce]

Yeah, the grass is always greener, methinks.

It's still my fave category, but I pine a little for the days when it was possible to build a Contender under your house, with your mates... while the current levels of professionalism, and the whole roadshow are laudable in many ways, from my couch, it seems that it's less accessible than it ever was.

[cheapracer]

Originally posted by Hank the Deuce
Yeah, the grass is always greener, methinks.

It's still my fave category, but I pine a little for the days when it was possible to build a Contender under your house, with your mates... while the current levels of professionalism, and the whole roadshow are laudable in many ways, from my couch, it seems that it's less accessible than it ever was.

On that point I can never understand why, in a controlled series, the exorborent costs involved. If they have to be the same why can't everybody run the same cheap parts rather than the same parts made from unobtainium?

[Bob Riebe]

Originally posted by McGuire


You can't run a professional racing series with real production cars anymore. Production cars are not designed for racing, while racing is a far more sophisticated and competitive game than it used to be.

The cars eligible for any given racing series will all be designed and manufactured to somewhat different targets, including cost. One will invariably be more suited to racing, often by accident, and for reasons that have little or nothing to do with its suitability or desirablility as a road car. So racing doesn't really prove anything in that regard.

THat is not true, as Ford's challenge to the contrived competition cancer that infests so called prod. based road racing, i.e. the "Man Racer" shows.

The current Mustang is no more or less suited to road racing than original was.

It was the whining of past car constructors as--its too haaaaard--to make a racer out of a car in white, whilst being limited to homologated parts, that eventually opened up and destroyed mod. prod. racing with the tube frame crap wagons.
THAT--plus the asinine decision by the "brains" of SCCA to emulate NASCAR in the early eightes (I still have the Comp. Press&Autoweek with the exact quote); so it was bye-bye production cars being modified with ALL the limitation and equalizations (That meant that EVERYONE had to use the same basic package, no wonderteam could creat it own "special' tube fram crap-wagon) that came with the "too haaaard" (and I remember this from when I spoke to people in the paddock back then of drivers joking about mechanics complaining about the prod. homo. rules) street to race basics.

It was only a couple of years ago I talked to Joe Chamberlain about his Greenwood styled Corvette and even after replacing the prod. chassis on a Cat. II car , with a tube frame was allowd, the prod. dimensions and pick-up point location were so set by prod. dimensions that outside of not having to use prod. rails, they produced a car in which all was still located in the exact same place as the prod. car.; I.e. after the tech. inspectors were done they had to go back and rebuild the car.

It is the asinine contrived competition now exercised with the excuse of "close competition" and the fact that sanctions now have god complex in which they thing they know more about building a race car than those who actually build them do, that is making road racing a pathetic shadow of what it once was.
Why spend hundred of thousands to millions of dollars to prove your product is better when the sanction will penalize you down to the lowest common denominator for the sake of grade school FAAAAAIRNESS.

Bob

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Bob Riebe


THat is not true, as Ford's challenge to the contrived competition cancer that infests so called prod. based road racing, i.e. the "Man Racer" shows.

Sorry, I am not following that at all. The Man Racer is indeed a contrived competition race car. The engine, transmision, rear axle, brakes, and rear suspension (coilover) are not production Mustang pieces and you cannot buy them in any Mustang off a showroom floor. The chances of the Man Racer (500 hp) or the Boy Racer (400 hp) ever making it through DOT or EPA approval are absolutely zero. It never will be, never can be, a production vehicle sold by Ford for highway use. Not gonna happen.

And currently the Man Racer has no series in which to race. Since it is not a production vehicle it fits no production classes. And since it is not a purpose-built race car it will have its ass handed to it in any pro racing category. It so happens I like the Man Racer concept because it is built on a stock (more or less) floor pan, but it is not a production car in any sense.

The Man Racer concept will only work in a one-make spec series. As soon as you bring in multiple manufacturers, one of them will decide to budget $50 to $100 million in race development for their vehicle and that will be the end of that. It doesn't matter what kind of rules you write; rules can always be beaten. It's only money.