Has "Ford" asked to be taken off the cam covers?

[H16]

I notice all the reports list the JMR as an "R&S Yates". Of course, this is the Ford block and Yates is a Ford man, so has Ford asked to be removed from the title of the car?

"Ford" has been around since the GT40, first on the Cosworth DFL that won Le Mans twice and since in limited roles like the Panoz Ford that was sponsored in 1999 by then-Ford owned Visteon.

I know that three of the engines in 900 are "Ford" based, but one is Yates, another Panoz/Elan, and the other is Lincoln, a Ford car. Whats the deal there? The Saleen uses a Ford block, I doubt their on the covers there either. Then the Cosworth turbo in the Grean Reynard that is a Ford owned engine.

Safe to assume that at this point, Ford would like their likeness to be removed from their block in the ALMS?

For a company that is not doing well in health at the moment, I suspect they could use all the exposure they could get.

[Tim Northcutt]

That is a good question...I was asking that type of question in another thread, but there could be a number of reasons for it...

As an example....

Years ago, A.J. Foyt took a Ford V-* that powered Indy cars in the mid-60s and 1970s and he reworked virtually the entire engine except the block to his specifications (pistons, cam, heads, valves, intake & exhause manifold, etc.) Because it was such a different engine than the original product, he tagged it as a "Foyt" engine...with the name on the valve covers...

The Elan Performance & Technologies engines are built from a Ford-based engine or block, but the changes would probably run just as extensive as the Foyt changes did from the original product...with specific fuel injection systems, the cross-ram air induction they use, etc....the engine that Elan builds is, in essence, a new creation via many of the working parts and the performance elements they put into it...

It may just depend entirely on the extent of the re-work that the builder does....

Back in the 1980s and 1990s in Indy Champ Car racing...
Was it an Illmor or was it a Chevy?
Was it a Buick V-6 or a Menard V-6?

[H16]

Mernard totally redid the Buick, never did quite get there, but the Ilmor was a Chevy sponsored engine. GM owned 25% of the company at the time. Earlier "Chevy" Indy Cars that ran in the 1980s were atmo stock block pushrods developed by private firms. One sat on the outside pole at Indy one year, then won the next race (81), then Rahal took the Chevy engine to victory at Mid Ohio (Great acceleration vs turbo lag from Cosworth), but not much else was heard about the engine which had cooling problems and was generally down on power.

[Tim Northcutt]

That is exactly my point....

I guess it depends on how much Yates has re-done the Ford engine for R&S, or how much Elan redoes the Ford engine, and thus calls it an Elan....

That Cosworth engine is what CART is racing this season...correct?

The CART Series' new name ends with the words "powered by Ford" even though they are running Cosworth engines...

Those are my thoughts, but I could be wrong...at least it seems to make some sense...

[H16]

Yes, but Cosworth is a Ford owned company, and have been assicoated with one another since the mid 1960s.

[IanGrohse]

Originally posted by H16
Yes, but Cosworth is a Ford owned company, and have been assicoated with one another since the mid 1960s.

IMO Ford has been getting credit for great technological prowess that they have absolutly nothing to do with, at least in terms of US manufacturing. And they have been dong so since they owned Cosworth. They badge their name on it, even if they have no technological ties to Cosworth at all, only monitarily.

EDIT........Dont get me wronge, im not saying Ford doesnt have technological ability, or that they dont inact it! Just that the tech developed by Cosworth has no production link with Ford, in the US.

[paul-collins]

Originally posted by IanGrohse
IMO Ford has been getting credit for great technological prowess that they have absolutly nothing to do with, at least in terms of US manufacturing.

That's nothing. Have you seen the recent "Ford Century" coffee-table book? It claims Jaguar's 1950s Le Mans wins for Ford!

[Lee Janotta]

Originally posted by paul-collins
That's nothing. Have you seen the recent "Ford Century" coffee-table book? It claims Jaguar's 1950s Le Mans wins for Ford!

Ugh... Nothing like a little historical revisionism to make capitalism seem like a bad idea.

BTW guys, pushrod engines have _valve_ covers. The cam's in the block, between the cylinder banks.

[Smokey 6 litre]

Ford should have stopped with the GT40, i believe its the greatest car of all time, and if you cant beat the best why bother. ford is likely to stop most motor racing, i heard they were loosing $3000000 a day, how can you loose that much money and still put money into racing.

[Tim Northcutt]

To H-16:

The whole point of this thread was "Why is Ford Taking its name off the engines???

If CART Engines are Cosworths (Ford-Cosworths) and the Racing Series name says "powered by Ford" in it, do you really think Ford gives a hoot in hell whether or not their name is on the engine itself, when their name is plastered all over the ads, TV promos, and every story written about the series???

Fans who spend the bucks don't read the engine blocks, valve covers or whatever...but they sure read about the series and see Ford's name on all the signs...

Whoever started this snake of a thred asked why the R&S engine is called a Yates, or the Panoz engine an Elan instead of a Ford...

I tried to give him a reasonable, historical explanation, and eveybody who has responded thereafter has tried to pick fly **** out of pepper with semantics....