Engine Masters and the Ford Modular 4V

T

Too Many Cars

New member
What happens when the Popular Hotrod magazine finally decides to let the Ford Modular 4V run in the Engine Masters competition? The 4V Modular takes the top 3 positions of course! I am curious to see how they got 400+ cubic inches from their engines as well as what it took to get 700+ HP from them naturally aspirated! I see that they still have the small block Ford/Cleveland style head rule! No Cleveland heads on a Windsor style block (very common and called a Clevor). Popular Hotrod caters more to the Chevy crowd than anything else so it is their best interest that a Chevy win the Engine Masters competition. Despite all of the rule changes Ford has won more than Chevy. I suspect that they will find a way to disqualify the Ford 4V Modular next year!


http://www.popularhotrodding.com/en...asters_challenge_friday_coverage/viewall.html
 
racecougar

racecougar

New member
Kaase's engine ran a 4.7" stroke Sonny Bryant crank, coupled with a 3.72" bore. I believe Mihovetz ran a 3.72" bore as well with a little less stroke, but I'm not 100% certain. What really impressed me is that Modulars were new to Kaase as of this past January. It's been cool seeing him post over at Corral.
 
T

Too Many Cars

New member
When Kaase ran a Ford Cleveland engine for the first time at Engine Masters and also won the Engine Masters that same year he posted on a 351 Cleveland forum for opinions and that engine definitely wasn't new to him! He worked on them in the 70's in his Pro Stock days. Even a guy like Kaase knows that the enthusiast forums are a wealth of information.

A 4.7" stroke! That just sank in and I question how can a 4.7" stroke fit in a modular? Even a 5.4L doesn't have enough deck height to fit that kind of stroke. That would explain the low RPM/high torque numbers though.
 
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racecougar

racecougar

New member
Too Many Cars said:
When Kaase ran a Ford Cleveland engine for the first time at Engine Masters and also won the Engine Masters that same year he posted on a 351 Cleveland forum for opinions and that engine definitely wasn't new to him! He worked on them in the 70's in his Pro Stock days. Even a guy like Kaase knows that the enthusiast forums are a wealth of information.
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Yes, but in this case, Kaase plainly said that these engines were completely new to him. Take a look at the threads over at Corral.

Too Many Cars said:
A 4.7" stroke! That just sank in and I question how can a 4.7" stroke fit in a modular? Even a 5.4L doesn't have enough deck height to fit that kind of stroke.
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All three Modulars in the competition this year used the 10.08" (5.4L) deck height blocks.
 
T

Too Many Cars

New member
The 385 series Ford 370 Truck 429 passenger and 460 passenger blocks had a 10.3" to 10.31" deck height with a very generously wide crankcase and the longest stoke that I know of that is available for that engine is 4.75" at the very extreme limit. The 5.4L modular has a disadvantage of ~0.2" plus the crankcase is narrower. There has to be some trickery going on with these Modular engines to fit such a long stroke in these blocks; however if someone is going to figure this out it is going to be Kaase! He won that competition with a Pontiac! I believe that the Engine Masters made the rule that a winner has to use a different engine manufacturer the next year to stop Kaase from winning every year!

I guess that a 4.7" stroke isn't impossible for a 5.4 Modular but it isn't straightforward either. I don't expect to see 4.7" strokers listed for the Modulars any time soon. Still I am impressed with the 4V showing this year and in a way dissapointed that a Cleveland didn't beat all of the Chevy LS's as in the past.
 
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racecougar

racecougar

New member
Compare the cylinder length between the BBF and a M-54-A block. :wink: If you have $4k, you can pick up a 4.7" stroke Modular crank from Bryant, too.
 
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T

Too Many Cars

New member
The cylinder length isn't what I was considering. It was the crankshaft counterweight crashing into the piston skirt. I thought about it though and a bored 5.4L has a bore of ~3.7" vs 4.36" to 4.5" for a BBF or even greater in an aftermarket block. Thinking about it the 5.4L has much less reciprocating mass so you can get away with smaller counterweighting on the crank so a 4.7" stroke is doable. The rod/stroke ratio is another story though and the BBF being a taller deck wins in this aspect because you can use a longer rod for a given stroke. I suspect that a 4.7" stroke mod motor will wear out rings/bores at a goodly rate; however for anyone building one for competitive racing this is not a major concern! For a street driven Mod Motor or BBF a 4.7" or 4.75" stroke is impractical due to accelerated wear in my opinion. Either way they are both very good engines as I have two cars with mod motors (3V and 4V), and one car with a BBF (545 cu/in). The BBF makes much more power than the 2 Mod Motors; however the Mod motors are stock and the BBF is far from it plus I would go broke driving the BBF car every day!
 
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SCTBIRD1173

SCTBIRD1173

Mark my Bird!
Nice win for the Mod motors.

I always love to see Ford technology trump GM's aint broke don't fix it mentality... :cool:
 
Lvnmarks

Lvnmarks

quandoomniflunkusmoritati
Sounds just like when MOPAR was running Hemi's in NASCAR and Ford came out with their SOHC motor that immediately got disqualified for being such a power monster.
 
T

Too Many Cars

New member
There is obviously something wrong with the published Accufab specs! The compression height for the pistons is listed as .004". That would leave the piston in the hole by over one inch (1.138") plus no room to package the rings. This Engine Masters outcome is still a testament to the potential of the 4V.

Ford made some awesome engines such as the 427 SOHC ~660 HP with duel quads as I recall! Too bad that NASCAR disallowed the 427 SOHC because it would be interesting to see what vehicle/configuration the final outcome would have turned to be if NASCAR hadn't disallowed this engine. I can only imagine what a timing chain replacement would have cost with that 10 foot timing chain and the complexity to setup the cam timing!
 
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