Venom XR6

Boy are you going to have egg on your face next year.

They are very smart then. Next year will bring the new 5 litre all alloy V8's. Base engine should be 300 kw for XR8, with a bit of whine for the FPV's.

The X6 is the dumbest thing ever created. An SUV sedan with only 4 seats. Facepalm. Totally useless.

Some Euro cars have it within 10-20 cms of the head. I'd say Ford could fit the cat at the first join where the exhaust manifold bolts up to the exhaust pipe. Would save a lot of money by not needing to redesign the manifold which is still basically the same casting as what it was on the EA, just with a different shaped flange where it meets the oval ports on the DOHC heads. Individual convertors would take up too much space and would cost too much.

Driveline shunt does not affect autos anywhere near as much as it does manuals due to the autos torque convertor having a damping effect on it.

Nope. Direct injection would require the whole cylinder head to be redesigned, which would cost a bomb, and it would add around $1000 to the RRP as its an expensive technology. Ford say they can meet Euro 4 with injection, exhaust and calibration changes. Getting the cat close to the head for quicker warm up will be the key. The closer it is to the head, the quicker it warms up and starts working to reduce cold start emissions.

Hard evidence? Its pretty obvious isn't it that the injectors are different. The F6 ones are light blue, the 270 ones are grey.

Just like VR Commodores that have fake VY HSV Clubsport kits on them. They look retarded.

that's right. FG 270 injectors are bigger than BF, but smaller than FG F6.

Its a little heavier and doesn't have an LSD, but maybe the slightly softer suspension will help weight transfer. But either way they should be line ball.

How longs a piece of string? Higher than factory revs doesn't help them survive, but they probably aren't as weak as some people think they are. Better to be safe than sorry though.

There was one guy who worked on the block line, about 6'5 and 100+ kg. He was a big man and could bend down into crates and lift them out. He was older than 50 too.

The only internal difference is the pistons, which have a slightly lower compression ratio and are a little stronger. Everything else internally is the same.

The BF MkIII wagon and FG both use the same block, and some late BF MkII sedans use the FG block too as the changeover happened a few months before the FG went into production. The FG style block has 2 dipstick holes in it, one at the front for BF, one at the back for FG, and one hole is plugged with something called an avseal. Plugging the rear whole should be all you need to do. Are you using the BA head? That might need to be investigated as the FG head is a little different, cams, staggered ports etc. Piston to valve clearance? Should be ok but might need to check.

An FG 270 with a BA/F turbo will not have as much lag as an equivalent BA/F XR6 Turbo, both with standard inlets, due to the FG's much shorter inlet tract. This is also part of the FG's quicker spool up as well as the smaller turbo. The best way to see how much lag a BA/F turbo has in an FG is to drive an FG F6. It uses the BA/F turbo with the reduced FG inlet tract. I'm sure someone who has driven both back to back can comment on any difference in spool up between FG 270 and FG F6.

They call her biggie smalls. Anyone who's seen Chappelles Show will know what I mean.

That was the point I was trying to make. Replace bigger engines with smaller ones that not only make much more power and torque, but also reduce economy and emissions.

Its a bit hard when no alloy block Barra I6's exist. I've heard Ford cast a few alloy blocks years ago to test but they couldn't be machined properly on the current block line due to the incompatible tooling. Something like the softer alloy clogging up the cutting tools or something?

How much do you think a bare I6 block weighs. I've seen people pick them up with bare hands, big guys but I've seen it. I'd say 50-60 kgs maybe?. Even if alloy was half that it would only be 25-30 less, but once you add the cast iron sleeves and main caps etc it would come down to maybe 20kgs? Plus an alloy block would need a bit more material thickness in it to retain strength. I'm assuming the main caps in all alloy engines need to be steel or cast iron?

Hunt for the best finance/lease deal first, then find a dealer to screw down on price. Win win.

2nd quarter 2010. They need it released by then so they can fit the upgraded Euro 4 engines that need to be fitted before July 2010.

With direct injection the economy is not much worse than a normal V8. When you use the EcoBoost V8 to replace the V10 it actually uses less fuel with more power and torque. that's Fords strategy with EcoBoost, replacing bigger engines with smaller ones that make a bit more power and torque but use less fuel. The 4 cylinder EcoBoost which will go into future Focus's will have over 200 kw, 350nm at 1800rpm and use less fuel than the current XR5 engine.

He's still the boss of FPV, but because FPV is majority owned by Prodrive that makes David Richards the big boss I guess.

The will do that, I'm pretty sure they sell E85 Commodores in Brazil, but they make changes to the fuel system to do it, and they will make them all E85 compatible in the future, but they will just release it and hope other servos start selling it. Good luck. They are just doing it as a green stunt so they can say how environmentally friendly the Late model camira is when less than 1% of people who buy them could use it. The cost difference between a normal Late model camira and an E85 Late model camira would be very little, but in terms of being seen to be doing something environmentally friendly then it will work, just like the AFM V8 Commodores that do 2 fiths of bugger all in terms of fuel saving, but they fit ecoline green badges on them like they are Priuses or something, and they dropped the power on the V6 VE so it uses 0.1 litre per 100 less then put ecoline badges on them, even though it is still the biggest fuel user in the large car class, and its over 1 second slower to 100 then any of its competitors. Expensive Daewoo are a joke. They have one thing that will reduce emmisions, direct injection on the V6, but they only fit it to export vehicles because it would add too much to the cost of a car. Being green is not about actually making a difference, its about being seen to be making a difference.

that's incorrect. The block may take a bit longer to heat up, but it is not stopping the engine from going Euro 4. There are a hell of a lot of cast iron blocked diesels that are Euro 5 compliant. It makes it a little harder to pass but there's no rule saying it can't be done. The reason they were going to use an alloy V6 was due to the high costs of R&D to make the I6 Euro 4 compliant Vs the smaller number of engines they were making, its was becoming un-cost affective. Secretly they had a small crew working on the I6 to make it Euro 4 compliant even when the V6 development was going on, because they wanted to have a backup just in case the V6 option turned bad, which it did. It was cheaper to make the I6 Euro 4 compliant than it is to get the V6 fitted and past crash tests etc, plus the government have chipped in with some green car funding. The current I6 doesn't not require too much work to get it Euro 4 compliant, they think they can do it with changes to injection, exhaust and calibration. The most likely thing will be moving the cat convertor really close to the head so that it heats up quicker on start up. All Euro 5 compliant engines have cats right next to the head to get heat into them quickly, which reduces cold start emmisions.