Yknot
09-06-2008, 10:44 PM
You know most of these threads on this site as well as most other Mustang sites all deal with power. Power Adders, High Performance Parts and anything else people add to enhance there Mustangs. While everyone is looking for the Next best part, have you ever thought about the engine you currently have , and how it's doing......Don't get me wrong, I like everyone else, likes to add to the horsepower level, or overall look of the car, but from what I have seen.....Maybe we should be looking a little closer to home.
Here's the problem, and one of the reasons why I believe most current Cobra owners keep looking for more and more power. Maybe, just maybe the power level you were at when the car was new, or last year....last month, isn't the power level your at today.
Let me explain.....I've been involved in the modular motors for several years now, and I like to dabble in the cylinder head and engine building aspect of these cars, mainly with the 4V-32valve engines, but not exclusively. While I don't claim to be the best engine guy out here, long from that, I have disassembled and assembled a good many of these engines. And it concerns me greatly with what I have found on say some 80% of all Ford Modular engines.......Gunk. Yell Gunk is a funky little word not used seriously in any industry but fuel adds, but Gunk is a evil thing to have. And I'm finding alot of it lately. It use to be I'd look for signs, signs of how the original owner of the engine maintained it. You know, there are many things you can tell about an engine while you are tearing it down, and with the modular engine group, it's even easier to see it's history, good or bad. While tearing into one, the first thing you come across is the bottom end, here you can see if the car was serviced right, if the guy ran it hard, used it only for short trips...things like that. Once the valve covers are off, you get another picture of what happened and how the car was treated, and once you have the heads off and the water plugs out, I can see if the car was over heated, rev-ed to high and several other tail tell signs of the previous ownership. But lately, every head I remove is covered with a goldish like finish that coats everything under the valve cover and sometimes inside the block and oil pan. This I believe is the result of the newer oil standards, were they lowered the Lead and Zinc content, along with many other additives. These blocks have increased wear on all internal parts, especially in the head where the cam and followers are. It use to be that 4-V heads would look great as long as they never experienced an oil shortage, or extreme overheating, but now it's almost normal to find extreme cam shaft and bearing wear, to the point of many heads being useless. Further dis-assembly of the valve train now revels all that Gunk I was talking about. The complete under side of the valves, both intake and exhaust is covered in Gunk, and I mean thick built-up Gunk many times over a 1/2" on each side of the valve. Many of these valves were so bad that they were hanging open, because the Gunk was so badly built-up under the valve seat and down into the guide area. I first started seeing this about two years ago, then it was sporadic and I just contributed it too poor maintenance, but now I see it in 80% of all the engines I tear down.
Let's stop for a moment and think about what this does to your engine.
On many of the engines, the Gunk is so built-up it is almost completely blocking the intake and exhaust tract! The last two heads I tore into, had this very problem of almost complete blockage. Complete blockage is off the hook, but think about an engine with only half that amount.....We spend thousands on trick pieces to gain only a few % of horsepower, yet run around with clogged ports a Honda couldn't breath through. I suppose this problem is a mixture of bad motor oil and even worse fuel standards. And don't think this engines are not representable of the general population, because they are. Many are right off the street.
A engine is first and foremost a air pump....if it can't pump air, it cant do it's job. We talk about engine efficiency alot in the trade, and a typical 4-V Mod motor in good mechanical condition will run at about 80% efficiency, while a good, fresh race engine will see 90%. I can only guess what these engines are turning with all this Gunk, most have to be down in the 40% range and a few I've seen can not be above 25%. This is a huge problem....Not only are you throwing away performance, your loosing valuable fuel mileage as well. Yell I know.....everyone says not me, well it has to be most of you, cause my engines are telling me so. The bad thing is if your engine has a severe case of Gunk, you can't fix it without tearing the heads off. On the other hand, if you don't think you have a bad Gunk issue, I would advise you to start and continue with a serious Fuel Injection cleaner routine, like every fill-up. Gunk, like so many wear issues, sneaks up on you. You don't feel the loss of say 1-2% of performance, probably not even 5-15%. But as it slowly makes it way through the valve train, you'll end up noticing the change. I think thats why so many constantly keep searching for more power, they don't realize the engine is getting slower and slower, so they look for the next best thing, when really it's a problem no bolt-on will fix.
I don't want to alarm you, I was alarmed when it kept showing up, and was getting worse, I only want to let you know the problem exist, and it's not going away.
I also know the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and this isn't a problem that makes alot of noise, so most will dismiss this, or simply think their OK, because I don't see the problem. Thats fine, but I'm now requesting that the heads be tore down before I purchase them, so I can see the bearing journals. I have too many bad cores to do other wise. While I don't drive these engines, and don't care if the former owners suffered performance or mileage issues, I do have to fix them, and the mess they left behind. Just don't say I didn't warn you.
Here's the problem, and one of the reasons why I believe most current Cobra owners keep looking for more and more power. Maybe, just maybe the power level you were at when the car was new, or last year....last month, isn't the power level your at today.
Let me explain.....I've been involved in the modular motors for several years now, and I like to dabble in the cylinder head and engine building aspect of these cars, mainly with the 4V-32valve engines, but not exclusively. While I don't claim to be the best engine guy out here, long from that, I have disassembled and assembled a good many of these engines. And it concerns me greatly with what I have found on say some 80% of all Ford Modular engines.......Gunk. Yell Gunk is a funky little word not used seriously in any industry but fuel adds, but Gunk is a evil thing to have. And I'm finding alot of it lately. It use to be I'd look for signs, signs of how the original owner of the engine maintained it. You know, there are many things you can tell about an engine while you are tearing it down, and with the modular engine group, it's even easier to see it's history, good or bad. While tearing into one, the first thing you come across is the bottom end, here you can see if the car was serviced right, if the guy ran it hard, used it only for short trips...things like that. Once the valve covers are off, you get another picture of what happened and how the car was treated, and once you have the heads off and the water plugs out, I can see if the car was over heated, rev-ed to high and several other tail tell signs of the previous ownership. But lately, every head I remove is covered with a goldish like finish that coats everything under the valve cover and sometimes inside the block and oil pan. This I believe is the result of the newer oil standards, were they lowered the Lead and Zinc content, along with many other additives. These blocks have increased wear on all internal parts, especially in the head where the cam and followers are. It use to be that 4-V heads would look great as long as they never experienced an oil shortage, or extreme overheating, but now it's almost normal to find extreme cam shaft and bearing wear, to the point of many heads being useless. Further dis-assembly of the valve train now revels all that Gunk I was talking about. The complete under side of the valves, both intake and exhaust is covered in Gunk, and I mean thick built-up Gunk many times over a 1/2" on each side of the valve. Many of these valves were so bad that they were hanging open, because the Gunk was so badly built-up under the valve seat and down into the guide area. I first started seeing this about two years ago, then it was sporadic and I just contributed it too poor maintenance, but now I see it in 80% of all the engines I tear down.
Let's stop for a moment and think about what this does to your engine.
On many of the engines, the Gunk is so built-up it is almost completely blocking the intake and exhaust tract! The last two heads I tore into, had this very problem of almost complete blockage. Complete blockage is off the hook, but think about an engine with only half that amount.....We spend thousands on trick pieces to gain only a few % of horsepower, yet run around with clogged ports a Honda couldn't breath through. I suppose this problem is a mixture of bad motor oil and even worse fuel standards. And don't think this engines are not representable of the general population, because they are. Many are right off the street.
A engine is first and foremost a air pump....if it can't pump air, it cant do it's job. We talk about engine efficiency alot in the trade, and a typical 4-V Mod motor in good mechanical condition will run at about 80% efficiency, while a good, fresh race engine will see 90%. I can only guess what these engines are turning with all this Gunk, most have to be down in the 40% range and a few I've seen can not be above 25%. This is a huge problem....Not only are you throwing away performance, your loosing valuable fuel mileage as well. Yell I know.....everyone says not me, well it has to be most of you, cause my engines are telling me so. The bad thing is if your engine has a severe case of Gunk, you can't fix it without tearing the heads off. On the other hand, if you don't think you have a bad Gunk issue, I would advise you to start and continue with a serious Fuel Injection cleaner routine, like every fill-up. Gunk, like so many wear issues, sneaks up on you. You don't feel the loss of say 1-2% of performance, probably not even 5-15%. But as it slowly makes it way through the valve train, you'll end up noticing the change. I think thats why so many constantly keep searching for more power, they don't realize the engine is getting slower and slower, so they look for the next best thing, when really it's a problem no bolt-on will fix.
I don't want to alarm you, I was alarmed when it kept showing up, and was getting worse, I only want to let you know the problem exist, and it's not going away.
I also know the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and this isn't a problem that makes alot of noise, so most will dismiss this, or simply think their OK, because I don't see the problem. Thats fine, but I'm now requesting that the heads be tore down before I purchase them, so I can see the bearing journals. I have too many bad cores to do other wise. While I don't drive these engines, and don't care if the former owners suffered performance or mileage issues, I do have to fix them, and the mess they left behind. Just don't say I didn't warn you.