Corky's engine choice

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 23:48:14 -0700, Barry S.
wrote:


On additional subjects in this thread, right now there is no one of
whom I am aware that is manufacturing PSRUs for the Ford. Johnny
at Northwest Aero discontinued his, though he still makes them for
other engines, because of low demand. Johnny also used to build the

This was essentially my original point. The Ford, for all its weight
and cost advantages, just didn't generate enough interest/dollars to
sustain the production of a single off the shelf PSRU.

Why?

I can only speculate Barry, but I'd guess that because Chevy had so
many high performance parts, and virtually no on supported the Ford
V-6 in that manner, it just kinda started out slow and then petered
out.

You can buy just about anything in performance from Chevy or a vast
number of racing specialists for the Vortec V-6. It will cost you a
lot more than the Ford in the end, but you can buy things like
Edelbrock intake manifolds, in several varieties, aluminum heads and
even aluminum blocks. It's just that you're paying dearly for each of
those items whereas on the Ford, the intake manifold, timing chain
cover and heads came from the factory as stock aluminum items. That's
why Blanton turned to the Ford in the first place, he was obsessed
with developing a really inexpensive alternative engine that
approached the weight of the typical Lycoming.

There are some problems with using the Chevy parts: The aluminum heads
are really strictly for high performance or racing and are developed
for high airflow and big valves. This works fine if you are always
running around 8,000 rpm, but doesn't work well for idling or
intermediate power. Early aluminum heads used smaller valves and were
better for conversion but they are getting scarce now. Who knows, by
now someone may have developed a head that works for our purposes
again.

Corky Scott