The vast majority of people use their 03/04 Cobra for daily driving. And that's why IRS.
True, but most owners I have delt with would be happier not having the wheel-hop issues and the worry of breaking an axle.
That's just being an apologist. Lots of manufacturers make IRS setups that handle that kind of power, it's not particularly difficult or expensive.
Actually its not, thats what Ford actually said in their press release addressing the absence of IRS. They had a price range they were shooting for and thinking that it isnt expensive to completely re-engineer anything on a car and produce it is just ridiculous. Especially in such a small production run. And name how many mfg. have 500 hp 4k lbs cars for $40k.
What numbers would you be referring to? Skidpad? As pointless a measurement as there ever was, it tells very little of the handling story. GT500 is a pig by any definition.
Skidpad numbers do give information, but no, not just skidpad numbers. The car does pretty good in the slalom and its track numbers when compared dont suck either considering. I mean its no Evo but it doesnt have the Evo's buckboard ride either. But I will agree, the car IS too heavy.
Continue to produce a boring product while losing a billion dollars a year and going out of business. What would you do?
The mustang has never been part of the problem. Nor has it ever been expected to be the solution. It has always sold well in its catagory even in slower years of a particular body style. Ford needed/needs to consentrate on its bread and butter cars, the mid size and compact markets. They are hurtin bad, and they are losing more and more in the truck market every year. They also need to work on their reliability reputation. So anyway,it may be boring to you, but people were buying them and thats all that matters to Ford.
Got any data to back that up? Precisely how is a pushrod motor different from an OHC motor in emissions? Last time I checked they burn gasoline in much the same fashion.
Actually I have experience in it, alot of it. I mean how could someone think that just because two engines burn the same fuel they will have the same efficiencies? Do you know anything about combustion efficiency? How about volumetric efficiency? I didnt think you did. How about this, your never gonna get a 5.0 to make 300 hp without putting a larger profile cam in it, not to mention heads and intake. How many cammed up 5.0s have you tried to get to pass a local smog check? Current production EPA standards are alot higher than your local smog stations.
1) What stock block are you referring to? Sure, the two-bolt late model production 302 is only capable of ~500 rwhp Cry me a river. How does the price of a stronger block compare to the cost of a stock modular?
Well this is how it compares, a windsor block as strong as a 4.6, $2200
A windsor crank as strong as an 8 bolt 4.6 crank, bout a grand
A set of heads that will flow as much as a 4V 4.6 head, getting close to $2k
For the same $5k you just spent on those 3 parts ( okay so its actually 4) I could build an entire 4.6 engine with all forged internals including the core block, crank, and heads. But thats just me, for someone that doesnt have a clue about CE or VE Im sure both options would cost considerably more.Please don't tell me you think that's impressive.
Especially considering it was a torqueless bastard and required four valves and 7000 RPM to make that number.
I didnt say it was impressive, but it didnt suck at the time. And I simply stated it because you said they finally produced 300 hp. And the 96 cobra didnt make peak hp at 7k rpm. but it didnt fall off too much from its peak at 6600 rpm and 7k.
Do your research. How the heck do you think we ended up with a short, fat motor that cannot be significantly bored and requires a very long stroke to achieve 5.4L. If you actually believe it was that poorly designed from the beginning, you are doing the engineers at Ford a disservice.
Is that really why you decided it was designed for fwd applications? I mean I have been around the block and done a decent amount of reading, built a fair amount of mod motors even and this is the first I have heard of this. I was really hoping to be enlightened ( I admit I far from know everything) but instead you say its because its "short and fat"? I mean correct me if Im wrong but didnt they only put the mod motor in one fwd car? And wasnt that like quite a few years after the engine came out in other cars?
Yeah, I know, it is very stupid -- the GT costs twice as much. Doesn't it suck? I do think the GT is a lot better looking, if that counts for anything
.
Yes the GT costs twice as much, its an "exotic car" there sport. Its in a totally different class than the Z06. Not meaning to discount the Z06, its an awesome car, but it is not an exotic, it just runs like one. And the reason I said it was stupid is the Z06 has yet to trounce a GT in anything from any article I have ever read. From what I have seen, on any given day its anyones race,. Actually I believe I have seen more articles with the GT slightly edging over the Z06 on a road course.
Except it isn't 10 years ago. It's only a problem if you compare it to other cars. The price point (MSRP, no markup) is comparable to a Corvette, and the performance is not.
I guess your right if your talking about taking both cars showroom stock on stock tires and putting them on a road course. And even at that, they are still two totally different class of car.
Because the only way they got 5.0 from the modular was by using a boring technique that is impractical on a production scale -- 'tis very expensive.
Boring technique? Tell me more about this boring technique ( man, I sure hope your not talking about spray bore
).
You're making my argument for me with that last comment. The Windsor motors had a lot of flexibility to be whatever Ford wanted to make with them. The 5.0 and 5.7 are both short stroke big bore designs. Compare that to the 4.6L which is already square at the smallest available displacement. A Windsor in the same arrangement would displace 6.6L. Ford could easily have produced a Windsor powered GT500 that produced the same 500 bhp and weighed a lot less, by ditching that heavy supercharger, water/air intercooler, and iron block.
Again, go read up a bit on CE and VE and the current EPA and CAFE requirements. Theres alot more to it than that.
