Ford V10

[Ratu]

Reccently a guy near here got himself a Ford V10 shortblock and a pair of aluminium cylinder heads to go with it. There were no manifolds or any electronics parts, but enough parts to build up the 6.8l long block. He is going to assemble it up and stick it in a car he said. Heartell he wants some carbs on it in order to get it up and running- quick and dirty like. Fair enough. There is always plenty of time to muck about collecting all the EFI stuff later on I guess. Anyway he shouldn't have to worry too much about getting good power out of 6.8 litres. Surely there must be an easy 400 bhp waiting in there with a little preparation on his part...? Come to think of it, I have not read much about anyone in the USA doing much performance work on this engine. Why wouldn't it be popular for modifying by now? There ought to be quite a few available in the salvage yards ready for "hot rodding" and stuff.

I got to having a good looking at that Ford V10 and all its bits (laid out on the bench). It really does appear a lot like the 5.4 V8 we used to get in the Falcon, but with two bonus cylinders on it. Story I heard was that when Ford engineers designed the Modular engines the original idea was to add more cylinders for higher capacities. That way they could share common component sets over many models. So the 4.6 V8 could lead to a 351cid V10 and also a nice big V12 of 422cid (near to 7-litre as can be). I understand that Ford did build a 351 V10 and tested it out in the Mustang. They also built prototype V12s which were tested in the Crrown Victoria (a later variant of the V12 was a short stroke multi-turbo unit of 6.0 litres for the GT90 show car). I'd be keen to know more about these development programs if anyone has any information.

Anyway, at some point the plan seems to have changed over at Ford. The 351 V10 and the big V12 (which would have made a really nice engine for cars as well as the trucks) never arrived. Instead the little 4.6 V8 got stroked waaaaay out, over four inches with a raised deck block, all the way up to 5.4 litres (man, are these things wiiiiiide- especially the dohc ones). Then the V10 came out as a stroker at 6.8 litres. Now there is a 5.0 "Coyote" V8, recently introduced. Along comes a new and totally different engine, a Boss/Hurricane 6.2l V8, of separate architecture and with fundamental dimensions having little in common with the Modular engine family. Why was there so much change to the product plan? These significant chops and changes must have been way more expensive in tooling, component supplies, stock, logistics, manufacturing alterations, emissionising programs etc etc than continuing with the originally planned modular approach. What happened? Why did Ford change course mid-stream?



The V10 based on the original 4.6 V8 was not seen in production and the V12 disappeared (wonder where the Crown Vics with that engine are these days- who has 'em).




So why didn't that happen? The 351 never showed up and a V-12 didn't either, although prototypes were assembled, as I understand.

[Schurkey]

These significant chops and changes must have been way more expensive in tooling, component supplies, stock, logistics, manufacturing alterations, emissionising programs etc etc than continuing with the originally planned modular approach. What happened? Why did Ford change course mid-stream?

Ford already paid the engineers, Ford Management decided they might as well have 'em change a bunch of stuff???




The only Ford V-10 I drove was in a U-haul truck. Could pass anything but a gas station.

[91stang]

I believe the GT90 engine was a couple of taurus duratec V-6's. It also had some sort of camless valvetrain, Hyd or electro hyd or something. And the V-10 have a split-pin crank, nothing i would consider High Performance.

[jsgarage]

The SOHC Triton 6.8-L V-10 weighs 650 lbs according to Ford's web pg and has no aftermarket support beyond those parts that also coincidently fit a Ford SOHC V-8. It's not much longer than a 351-C or 351-W so it should fit most vehicles, but the old motors are (or can be built) 100-150+ lbs lighter with far more power & tune-ability. I think the Triton uses TBI which is known to be a little less flexible with its tune. I would really like to see what your friend can do with the lump but figure on slogging thru uncharted territory while hotting this thing up. Good luck!

[91stang]

The SOHC Triton 6.8-L V-10 weighs 650 lbs according to Ford's web pg and has no aftermarket support beyond those parts that also coincidently fit a Ford SOHC V-8. It's not much longer than a 351-C or 351-W so it should fit most vehicles, but the old motors are (or can be built) 100-150+ lbs lighter with far more power & tune-ability. I think the Triton uses TBI which is known to be a little less flexible with its tune. I would really like to see what your friend can do with the lump but figure on slogging thru uncharted territory while hotting this thing up. Good luck!

They are SFI or port fuel injection (whatever you want to call it). And they sell blowers, and headers, some other stuff.

[fastvette]

I have a complete intake manifold with injectors if you are intersted. Also have all the coil packs I think. I might have some of the wiring harnes also.

Randy

[Ratu]

Gentlemen,

Thank you for your responses.

John reckoned he'd carb this engine since that would be the fastest way to get it up and going. He wanted to put it into a Falcon sedan. I told him to put it in the ute and put it in behind the cab. That way it'd be mid-mounted. One thing for sure- no-one else would have one like it!

I'm interested to see what performance he extracts in the end. Given it is a 6.8 litre engine I'd have thought it shouldn't be that difficult to get good power out of it.

I noticed the crankshaft was an even-fire design with split big-end journals. What I didn't check was whether it was a casting or a forging. I should have had a closer look. Surely for a truck they'd have used a forging?

650 lbs is getting up there a bit but not all that bad really. They should have done it in aluminium all the same.

[Ratu]

91stang

The story I heard was that the Ford Motor Company advanced engine guys had two different V-12 designs they were testing with (that is, these engines were ones that were actually built and tested- I imagine there were all sorts of paper engines and proposals and the like being tossed all around the show over there- must be like real good fun to be an engine design guy in a company like that). The V-12 engine types were:

1/. A 60-degree V-12 NA engine design based on a pair of Duratech V-6 engines. That one ended up being the engine for the Aston Martin company and entered series production. It was also proposed to go into Jaguar and Daimler sedans to replace the missing Jaguar V-12, but that application didn't eventuate. Recently an enthusiast put one of these "Aston Martin" V-12 engines into a Mustang.

2/. A 90-degree V12 engine actually made by modifying a pair of 4.6 Modular V-8 cylinder blocks and electron beam welding them together. Each of the Modular cylinder blocks had two cylinders cut off prior to being attached to its partner. I don't know about how the heads were done, but imagine a similar approach (cutting, welding and then machining). The resulting Modular V-12 engine that was seen in the GT90 had dohc four-valve heads. For the GT90 application the V-12 received turbocharging and was destroked to 6.0 litres. Interestingly the GT90 turns out to have been built on the Jaguar XJ220 supercar platform. The Modular V-12 was also evaluated in the Crown Victoria but in NA form. I do not know what the engine capacity was for the Crown Victoria, or whether they used sohc or dohc cylinder heads. I don't know whether the cylinder block was aluminium or cast iron (come to think of it I don't know what the block material was for the GT90 demonstration engine was either). This is the engine development program I'd like to know more about.

Cheers

Ratu

[tt 383]

The 3 valve V10 could make good power with a set of ported heads, and if willing to pay the money for a custum crank cubes could be 443. Following the stroker and over bore of a 5.4 with 2 extra.

[91stang]

Never thought about the 3V motors! I have driven both and the 3V puts out! I wonder if someone like patriot or fox lake would be able to use one of their CNC programs on the longer V10?

[Ratu]

Sounds like the three valve head is good. I recall reading a comment from a Ford engineer who said that in his opinion it had more potential than did the four valve. He reckoned the inlet valves were more upright than the four-valve head and that was to the good. That gave me cause for thought. Is is a head that can be readily ported for further improvement?

Would you really want to stroke the V10 engine further? I mean, the stroke is already over at four inches. Isn't that rather a lot for a street engine?

[tt 383]

I was merely stating what could be done cubes wise. As I understand it, the 3 valve head should be exactly the same as a 4.6 3v, so the program should be useable for the 6.8 head.

[nickmckinney]

The 3V head has the nicest intake port of any modular head save the GT heads. The newer Coyote head uses near the same intake port design. Its nice when you can see the intake manifold from the valve seats...............

The V10 is basically a 5.4 with 2 more cylinders, the heads use all the same parts, you can't get aftermarket cam cores so if you want to regrind the stock cams you should get custom taller valve stems to compensate. Only use Manley or stock valves on the 3V heads. The 3V head for the V10 does not have the cam phaser which is a plus as well for a conversion to another chassis. If its the 2V heads make sure you get the rectangular port heads and matching cams as they will perform better than the older round port heads (which also had crappier stock cams) They use the same pistons as the 4.6 engines but have the piston down in the hole 0.15" rather than the 0.015" of the 4.6 Getting the taller custom "zero deck" pistons really helps the compression. Logan Motorsports makes a sheetmetal intake for the 5.4 that you could get a V10 version of if the budget allows, otherwise there are no performance intakes for this (there are only 2 for the 5.4 even)

[peejay]

In the US the V10 is a pig, only used in large vans/small buses. No performance applications. They were in theory available in pickups, but people either stuck the a V8 gas engine or they went straight for the Diesel. (And the telco/cable company vans typically use the 4.2 V6, because Ford didn't offer a four cylinder )

Converting one to carburetor would be a hardcore pain in the ass, not because of the manifold problem, but because of the ignition problem. I have seen SOHC Mustangs with a distributor sticking out of the timing cover, driven off of one of the camshafts' ends, and this may be your salvation. Find a couple older 5-cylinder Audi distrubutors with advance mechanisms (all CIS-E injected models, or you could just look for the vacuum can on the distributor) and figure how to make them work. They appear to be Generic Bosch Internals so if they rotate the wrong way, you could probably grab the advance mechanisms from correct-spinning distributors and make it work.

My bet is that sourcing a wiring harness and PCM would be a simpler task, if not cheaper.

And I'm not really joking about the V6 comment, either. 8800lb GVW and overloaded beyond that, powered by the poor straining little V6.

[dfree383]

I had a V10 in a 2000 F250 4x4, Ran pretty damn good, but was a pig on fuel. My Dad had one in an Excursion, with some 4.30 gears..... Again Ran great, but a gas pig. They actually are quite common in the USA.