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From another forum posted by "torontoworker"
"In answer to the Chevy/Ford question: This from a Cosworth person...
June 8th
OK we have finally been given permission to talk about this thing. I have had many people ask me about it and it seems that many people believe that what is being discussed is Chevy coming to us (cosworth) to help them re-engineer their existing Chevy IRL V8. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In the middle of last season, when the whole CART is dead regime was in full swing. The Ford Cosworth engineers sat down and designed a 3.5L NA V8 for competition either in CART or IRL depending on what happened with rules. Well that whole plan got scrapped and we are now sole suppliers to CART. However this IRL engine was completely designed and tested. And in my estimation is very close if not superior to the Current Honda and Toyota powerplants.
Chevy is at this time exploring a few different options, but the one that is quite likely, is that they would buy our engine design and completely scrap thier own. They would then badge it as a chevy and have us develope it or possibly themselves.
Now cosworth is as much a part of Ford Motor company as Lincoln and we here do much development for the company. There are many Ford engineers here and we are completely interwoven with one another. We do nearly all of the major racing powerplants for ford WRC, F1, CART, and several others, including design and development of several of thier production vehicles. And this relationship grows stronger day by day.
We are a company out to make money and have done powerplants for other manufacturers throughout the years. Ford would let this chevy deal happen for 2 reasons. Number one, is that there was a significant amount of time and effort put into the 3.5L engine project and as it sits doing nothing, all that money and time were wasted. This way we can fully recoop the money and probably make a profit on the whole deal. That just makes good sense.
The second reason is because of the future. CARTs future is still a bit unknown and also the future engine formula. Selling and developing our engine would allow us to get a nice head start on new designs and development, on this engine formula should we end up needing it for ourselves in the near future.
As a very fine last situation it will be a very good media tool and a huge shot in the arm, for us and Ford to say that thier chief rival needed to come crawling to us to get thier pathetic program up to speed. It would be forever held over them. And that is a nice thought. This would be a huge world wide shot to GMl's technical abilities and only further our own. Plus thier may be a deal or 2 arranged to allow it.
I hope this can atleast ease all the stupid rumors I have heard and inform you on the real situation.
July 16th
Chevy has applied to the IRL for a completely new engine to be used from Michigan on July 27 and onwards. It will be called Gen IV. It is the engine that was originally designed and built as a Ford Cosworth. Or atleast it appears to be. There are a few conflicting reports at this time, so I will leave it at that for now. I'll post more info later.
July 21
Yes some funding comes from Ford, but Cosworth is a profitable business for Ford and have the right to make money for the firm. The engine was built on the very strong likelyhood at that time, that the IRL and CART would have a unified engine formula for 2003 onward. When that fell apart then Ford and Cosworth signed on to be the exclusive engine supplier to CART until 2005. After that it looks like a V10 formula is on the horizon. With all this going on, Ford had no use to enter an engine in a series that would rival its own spec engined series. So the engine was designed by Ford and Cosworth engineers, had very little development, and was scrapped.
After GM's hard times recently as compared to Honda and Toyota, the possibility arised for Ford and Cosworth to get much of thier investment back, by selling the all complete engine to GM as the new Gen 4 chevy.
Even as an employee I am not privee to the political forces behind all of this. I am disappointed that the IRL and Chevy are kind of putting off and stepping around the fact that the engine is a Cosworth from thier arch rivals. Instead they make it sound as if it is a all in house chevy. Obviously there was an agreement with Ford to allow this to be kind of brushed under the rug.
There may be an agreement for Cosworth to develope this formula, for thier and fords future use, also it gives them a chance to compete against thier arch rivals at Toyota and Honda, although the honda engine is designed and built by Ilmor engineering (yes the same firm that builds the Mercedes engines that power mclaren, and the same company that is funded in some by Roger Penske, who uses the Toyota mill). And there is the third possibility that Ford either intends to eventually enter a series with that engine spec, or has no intent to ever use that formula and just wants Cosworth to make thier investment back.
These are some of the possibilities and that is about all I can say on the subject.
July 29th
Well at least there has finally been a slight and very brief accknowledgement that the Gen IV chevy is a cosworth, by the IRL media people. I guess that was all that could be hoped for anyway.
The engine had its first run in a race on Sunday at Michigan International Speedway. the only car that had it was Sam Hornish Jr. He qualified 4th, after dominating practice.
At the very drop of the green he rocketed out to take the lead by the start finish line. He ended up leading 124 of the 200 laps around the 3.22 km oval. On a circuit that is usually a close pack drafting race, Hornish was able simply drive away from the pack, and pull out a 7 sec lead for much of the race, until a "nascar type yellow appeared to slow the field. (NASCAR is famous for throwing the yellow flag, and having full course cautions, when there is no reason for them, they do it just to close up the field becuase someone is getting too far in the lead, and the "show" is less excititing to the fans). Even doing this hornish only needed to stop one lap earlier for fuel than the rest of the field.
On the last lap, he made a small mistake coming off of the second turn, allowing Alex barron to get a run on him and take the win by .012 of a second. The next chevy powered car, using the real chevy built gen 3, was 11th and two laps down.
Clearly showing its strength. The Cosworth will be available to all teams after one more test race with team cheever in 2 weeks.
I hate to see it badged a chevy, but I kind of like the fact that it is not being advertised as to what it is. I would just like all the american GM fans to know that thier precious "saviour" engine that has brought them back to the front of the grid, was built by FORD, and COSWORTH engineers and people, and then scrapped to sit in the corner. It is a Ford Cosworth engine dear people, and despite the fact that chevrolet has gone well out of thier way to make it sound like they put in all this hard work and used components that are "similar to our chevy production vehicles" Chevy had absolutely nothing at all in the world to do with the design, develpment or anything else to do with this engine.
Ah that feels better, been eating away at me for a while and needed to let it out."
*********
"In answer to the Chevy/Ford question: This from a Cosworth person...
June 8th
OK we have finally been given permission to talk about this thing. I have had many people ask me about it and it seems that many people believe that what is being discussed is Chevy coming to us (cosworth) to help them re-engineer their existing Chevy IRL V8. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In the middle of last season, when the whole CART is dead regime was in full swing. The Ford Cosworth engineers sat down and designed a 3.5L NA V8 for competition either in CART or IRL depending on what happened with rules. Well that whole plan got scrapped and we are now sole suppliers to CART. However this IRL engine was completely designed and tested. And in my estimation is very close if not superior to the Current Honda and Toyota powerplants.
Chevy is at this time exploring a few different options, but the one that is quite likely, is that they would buy our engine design and completely scrap thier own. They would then badge it as a chevy and have us develope it or possibly themselves.
Now cosworth is as much a part of Ford Motor company as Lincoln and we here do much development for the company. There are many Ford engineers here and we are completely interwoven with one another. We do nearly all of the major racing powerplants for ford WRC, F1, CART, and several others, including design and development of several of thier production vehicles. And this relationship grows stronger day by day.
We are a company out to make money and have done powerplants for other manufacturers throughout the years. Ford would let this chevy deal happen for 2 reasons. Number one, is that there was a significant amount of time and effort put into the 3.5L engine project and as it sits doing nothing, all that money and time were wasted. This way we can fully recoop the money and probably make a profit on the whole deal. That just makes good sense.
The second reason is because of the future. CARTs future is still a bit unknown and also the future engine formula. Selling and developing our engine would allow us to get a nice head start on new designs and development, on this engine formula should we end up needing it for ourselves in the near future.
As a very fine last situation it will be a very good media tool and a huge shot in the arm, for us and Ford to say that thier chief rival needed to come crawling to us to get thier pathetic program up to speed. It would be forever held over them. And that is a nice thought. This would be a huge world wide shot to GMl's technical abilities and only further our own. Plus thier may be a deal or 2 arranged to allow it.
I hope this can atleast ease all the stupid rumors I have heard and inform you on the real situation.
July 16th
Chevy has applied to the IRL for a completely new engine to be used from Michigan on July 27 and onwards. It will be called Gen IV. It is the engine that was originally designed and built as a Ford Cosworth. Or atleast it appears to be. There are a few conflicting reports at this time, so I will leave it at that for now. I'll post more info later.
July 21
Yes some funding comes from Ford, but Cosworth is a profitable business for Ford and have the right to make money for the firm. The engine was built on the very strong likelyhood at that time, that the IRL and CART would have a unified engine formula for 2003 onward. When that fell apart then Ford and Cosworth signed on to be the exclusive engine supplier to CART until 2005. After that it looks like a V10 formula is on the horizon. With all this going on, Ford had no use to enter an engine in a series that would rival its own spec engined series. So the engine was designed by Ford and Cosworth engineers, had very little development, and was scrapped.
After GM's hard times recently as compared to Honda and Toyota, the possibility arised for Ford and Cosworth to get much of thier investment back, by selling the all complete engine to GM as the new Gen 4 chevy.
Even as an employee I am not privee to the political forces behind all of this. I am disappointed that the IRL and Chevy are kind of putting off and stepping around the fact that the engine is a Cosworth from thier arch rivals. Instead they make it sound as if it is a all in house chevy. Obviously there was an agreement with Ford to allow this to be kind of brushed under the rug.
There may be an agreement for Cosworth to develope this formula, for thier and fords future use, also it gives them a chance to compete against thier arch rivals at Toyota and Honda, although the honda engine is designed and built by Ilmor engineering (yes the same firm that builds the Mercedes engines that power mclaren, and the same company that is funded in some by Roger Penske, who uses the Toyota mill). And there is the third possibility that Ford either intends to eventually enter a series with that engine spec, or has no intent to ever use that formula and just wants Cosworth to make thier investment back.
These are some of the possibilities and that is about all I can say on the subject.
July 29th
Well at least there has finally been a slight and very brief accknowledgement that the Gen IV chevy is a cosworth, by the IRL media people. I guess that was all that could be hoped for anyway.
The engine had its first run in a race on Sunday at Michigan International Speedway. the only car that had it was Sam Hornish Jr. He qualified 4th, after dominating practice.
At the very drop of the green he rocketed out to take the lead by the start finish line. He ended up leading 124 of the 200 laps around the 3.22 km oval. On a circuit that is usually a close pack drafting race, Hornish was able simply drive away from the pack, and pull out a 7 sec lead for much of the race, until a "nascar type yellow appeared to slow the field. (NASCAR is famous for throwing the yellow flag, and having full course cautions, when there is no reason for them, they do it just to close up the field becuase someone is getting too far in the lead, and the "show" is less excititing to the fans). Even doing this hornish only needed to stop one lap earlier for fuel than the rest of the field.
On the last lap, he made a small mistake coming off of the second turn, allowing Alex barron to get a run on him and take the win by .012 of a second. The next chevy powered car, using the real chevy built gen 3, was 11th and two laps down.
Clearly showing its strength. The Cosworth will be available to all teams after one more test race with team cheever in 2 weeks.
I hate to see it badged a chevy, but I kind of like the fact that it is not being advertised as to what it is. I would just like all the american GM fans to know that thier precious "saviour" engine that has brought them back to the front of the grid, was built by FORD, and COSWORTH engineers and people, and then scrapped to sit in the corner. It is a Ford Cosworth engine dear people, and despite the fact that chevrolet has gone well out of thier way to make it sound like they put in all this hard work and used components that are "similar to our chevy production vehicles" Chevy had absolutely nothing at all in the world to do with the design, develpment or anything else to do with this engine.
Ah that feels better, been eating away at me for a while and needed to let it out."
*********
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