Engine Option (Just For Discussion)

[moore_rb]

Originally Posted by blykins

The fact that the LS head is based solely on the Cleveland head should be a dead giveaway.

Ummm... I'm going to need to see your documented sources on that one.

The cylinder heads on all GM GenIII /GenIV performance engines were designed by Ron Sperry, using combustion chamber and port symmetries first used on the NASCAR Chevy small blocks in the late 80's, and first applied to street engines with the single-year LT4 small block in 1996.

Ron Sperry has worked as a racing engine designer for many teams during his long career with GM (going all the way back to 1963); but he has no prior association with the Ford/Lincoln Cleveland cylinder head design, nor with Cosworth.

And, if GM had "based" their cylinder head design on Ford-owned intellectual property, Ford would have raised patent infringement lawsuits long before the first LS1 Corvette rolled out of a showroom in 1997

The major US car companies ALL give away FREE pre-production examples of their significant new car designs to their competitors to disassemble and evaluate in the interest of patent, copyright, and trademark protection.

Ford R&D had its hands on a pre-production Corvette LS1 in fall of 1995. No lawsuits were ever filed by Ford regarding ANY component in the LS1 engine.

Fact is fact (and Thor Maine is correct ) - The GM GenIII and GenIV engines are the most efficient (and durable) naturally aspirated street V8 engines (in terms of torque and HP per unit of displacement) available today, and they achieved most of this efficiency through materials science and friction management.

The LS1 cylinder heads were simply the crown upon the throne, but no part of that crown was forged in Cleveland Ohio.

The Coyote engine is VERY close to "catching up" with GM's GenIII in the performance engine department, but if you guys want to have an honest discussion about who's copying whom, then let's start with GM's 18 year head-start over Ford in the compact aluminum V8 street engine department... We can start with the "coincidence" that the 1997 LS1's corkscrew style phenolic plastic intake manifold now finds a rendition of itself sitting atop the 2015 Shelby GT350 Coyote engine... (GM owns the materials patent on the all-plastic intake, BTW- GM makes money on every car Ford sells with a black plastic intake manifold )

We could also discuss the fact that Corvette Racing/Pratt and Miller have dominated both IMSA and FIA for DECADES longer than Ford did back in the late 1960's.

Ford says they're coming back to racing with the new 2017 GT- It will be interesting to see if they can repeat history and de-throne the sitting King.