About engines?

[sweaty]

Is Chevrolet still developing the Gen. 4 with hopes of using it vs the Cosworth?
What about the Infinity engine? Seems like Chrysler, Mazda, someone, could badge it, too many engines, not enough teams?

[vegasduo]

Re: About engines?

Originally posted by sweaty
Is Chevrolet still developing the Gen. 4 with hopes of using it vs the Cosworth?
What about the Infinity engine? Seems like Chrysler, Mazda, someone, could badge it, too many engines, not enough teams?

The Cosworth is the Gen IV. Chevy said they would continue work on their Gen III but if they actually did or not I don't know.

[autoracingfan2]

There's still one approved engine out there looking for an auto maker to badge it.

[damilt]

Dodge would be a good badge. But the company continues to hemorrage $$. Probably won't happen. The Dodge Indy Hemi.

[Rob In Indy]

Infiniti should do it, they are a more well-established company now and are already doing the MIPS, and IndyCar program would be cool. Mazda would be cool too, except that they are only really interested in building rotary engines for their racing programs; and I don't know how feasible a 3.5 liter Wankel would be. Personally, I think it would be kinda cool if Pontiac got into the IRL, since they are leaving the WWF after this year.

[dironstarr]

There's always Kia....

[tbyars]

Re: About engines?

Originally posted by sweaty
too many engines, not enough teams?

I think that's really the crux of it.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the next two years. Odds are that in that time, Ford will want to be in the IRL. Will they do that with the Cosworth, taking it away from Chevy, or will they develop a new Ford engine?

I've always thought it might be interesting for Ford and Chevy to openly join hands on the Chevy/Cosworth project, and promote it as the top two US automakers joining forces to stick it to the foreign invasion of Toyota and Honda. It's kind of a way to bring in the Fast & Furious crowd and give them a stake. Yep, it's kind of WWF, but it's that kind of manufacturer competition that helps make NASCAR popular. I can see that approach working a lot easier within the open wheel ranks than it will NASCAR. If Toyota starts walking all over Ford/Chevy/Dodge there, I think the average NASCAR fan will just turn it off in disgust.

Frankly, my high school junior son has friends who have customized rice burners that, on the surface, seem to have a lot more in comon with a G-Force/Toyota than they do a NASCAR Ford Taurus.

[slinger]

Originally posted by Rob In Indy
Infiniti should do it, they are a more well-established company now and are already doing the MIPS, and IndyCar program would be cool. Mazda would be cool too, except that they are only really interested in building rotary engines for their racing programs; and I don't know how feasible a 3.5 liter Wankel would be. Personally, I think it would be kinda cool if Pontiac got into the IRL, since they are leaving the WWF after this year.

If Mazda was allowed to run a 3.5 litre Wankel, the howls from the other manufacturers would drown out the sound of the Wankel. If you've ever heard one, even the little 1.3 litre are about 3 decibels overthe threshold of pain so the protest from Toyota, Honda and Chevy would be loud indeed.

Mazda already has a 2.6 litre that they used to win LeMans in 1991. Normally aspirated, it put out 700 hp at 9000 rpm on gasoline with better than 3000 mile reliability. On methanol, it would make over 750 hp. It also had 448 ft lb of torque at 6500 rpm. Of course it was penalized out of existance. Such is the price of success.

[AlJRFAN]

Mazda entering the IRL would basically be FORD, werent they recently aqquried or atleast "major" partners nowadays.

[Rob In Indy]

Ford's relationship with Mazda is basically a "hands-off" one, that's why Mazda can manage to make a decent car. It's sorta like the Jeep and Chrysler relationship.

[Bombardier R142]

Originally posted by Rob In Indy
Ford's relationship with Mazda is basically a "hands-off" one, that's why Mazda can manage to make a decent car. It's sorta like the Jeep and Chrysler relationship.

My last car was a Jeep Wrangler, it had a Chrysler 4.0L straight 6. Suprisingly good engine. Much better than the Mazda 1.6L engine in the 323 it replaced.

The last Chrysler product I had the pleasure of dealing with before that was my moms '72 Valient. Appropriately named for its valient attempts to restart after stalling at every red light during winter. So, I had low expectations going in. I thought the Mazda would be a better car, though.

[mbilek]

Actually Ford owns Mazda and dictates nearly everything they do. Mazda does have their own engineering staff, but they do use a lot of part bin Ford stuff. Tribute is a Ford Escape. The Mazda 6 will be the basis for the 2005 Ford Futura. The new Mazda 3 will be the basis for the next Ford Focus. Seems like Ford is letting Mazda do the engineering leg work a lot lately, but there is absolutly NO way that Mazda would be able to badge an IRL engine.

[sf-indy-fan]

I thought I read a press release from Chevy saying that they would continue to use the Cosworth/Gen IV, but there would be significant input from Joe Negri's group. Not quite the "joining of hands" that tbyars suggests, but not too far from it, either.

[vegasduo]

Originally posted by mbilek
Actually Ford owns Mazda and dictates nearly everything they do. Mazda does have their own engineering staff, but they do use a lot of part bin Ford stuff. Tribute is a Ford Escape. The Mazda 6 will be the basis for the 2005 Ford Futura. The new Mazda 3 will be the basis for the next Ford Focus. Seems like Ford is letting Mazda do the engineering leg work a lot lately, but there is absolutly NO way that Mazda would be able to badge an IRL engine.

Japanese law limits foreign ownership of a domestic company to 49%. But if Ford owns the limit or close to it then they should have the single largest share.

[Professor Joe]

Originally posted by Bombardier R142
My last car was a Jeep Wrangler, it had a Chrysler 4.0L straight 6. Suprisingly good engine. Much better than the Mazda 1.6L engine in the 323 it replaced.

IIRC, the design of the 4.0L Jeep engine predated the aquisition by Chrysler.