Ferrari spends more than 10x per engine than the mass producers do. That allows them to use stronger, lighter materials throughout. Light rotating and oscillating weight is the only way to make a flat plane V8 live. And for that matter, Ferrari engines don’t live very long. Generally less than 50,000 miles. Also,…

The block is tiny, as it should be for such a small (displacement) engine. The heads are massive and that’s the rub. And the packaging constraints in a transverse layout are no less or more constrictive than in a similarly sized longitudinal package, other than you need to fit a good amount of transmission on the…

I’m not in any way saying the LS should have been used. I’m saying anything else should have been used. Literally anything.

They aren’t “better” other than being smaller. They offer similar performance in a smaller package, and small is important when you’re not building a truck.

OHC is no excuse for being this big. The Ford heads (both single and double cam) are f-ing huge compared to other heads of similar design. It’s packaging, plain and simple. If it wasn’t, the single cam heads would have been smaller.

A Toyota or Audi V8 with one bad coil pack can do that with less weight then.

Oh I agree the SBC/LS is obnoxiously overplayed. That being said, I would have preferred to see a less common but better V8 engine, like a Toyota or Audi. And flat-plane crank is a bad idea. You really don’t want that kind of paint shaker in your life.

Haha I’m just being a, aero-jerk. It’s really not a very big deal, I just don’t get many opportunities to bust people’s balls over measurement fidelity!

Eh, that’s a weak reason to use a sub-par engine. People don’t connect TVR with Ford the way they do Shelby and Ford, or Chaparral with Chevy, or Lotus with... well, car fires I guess.

Generally, people like to blame the fact that it’s overhead cam. In reality, Toyota, BMW, Nissan, and Audi all developed overhead cam V8 engines around the same time (late 80s) and the Ford is the only one that’s offensively big. I blame poor packaging (in the interest of low manufacturing costs), but I’m an…

Loving the Mustang steering column. Totally doesn’t look out of place. Guessing that’s where the HVAC vents came from, too.

Boy am I glad they chose a Ford Modular engine for their world class sports car! I mean, it’s so light and compact! Er... oh, wait... no... it’s unnecessarily huge. It was a huge disappointment in 1991 (see what I did there), still is in 2017.

The funniest thing about that claim of .1375 is that it’s impossible to measure down to 1/10th of a count in an automotive wind tunnel (and CFD is even worse). The best we can hope for is ±1 or 2 counts on a modern balance. So the claim should have been .138, if they’re being scientifically honest :)

Fred Williams didn’t need one, but he went and off-roaded one anyway!

I aim to please!

And they’re actually pretty good trucks, too

Gov surplus LMTV is the only obvious answer.

Eh, having driven both, I would take a “normal” Cobra over a Daytona every time. The coupe is super tight inside, shockingly hot (even on a cool day), and has terrible ventilation because you can’t open the windows. Not that a Cobra is exactly comfortable... but it’s certainly less uncomfortable!

We demand Van Surrender Boxes NOW!

Just for teh historical lolz: