Rkreigh

I liked the old thunder hydroplane racers on the potomac many years ago. The boats revving out sounded great. The pylon racers are cool too. Nothing like an old merlin with a gaggle of hairdryers feeding it.

I'm not understanding the comment motor trend made (ya consider the source that v8s with a standard crank doesn't work nearly as well as a flat plane crank.

I'm a simple guy but don't get it. the pistons still are going to fire and produce exh to power the turbo, does changing the firing order really make that much difference?

to me the exh is like water flowing into a stream and will produce back pressure to spool the turbo pretty much either way. Something I'm not understanding

my TT old LS motor seems to work ok, and I'm not debating a FPC. The lotus team played with a FPC short stroke LT5 engine with calliope stacks and made very good power up around 8500 or so.

the chains in that design didn't have a big enough cam sproket due to gm limitations on size and fitting the c4 vette so above 8k they didn't do so well.

Rinaldo Catria

from above.
“to me the exh is like water flowing into a stream and will produce back pressure to spool the turbo pretty much either way. Something I'm not understanding”... I agree... additionally, what about the often stated comment that turbos use “free power” (vs crank turned super charger). The turbo gets its power from the engine “pumping” exhaust past impellers which create resistance... how is that free? Besides any scavenging at all is negated. There is back pressure all the time the turbo is functioning. Even when its not, scavenging has to be all messed up. Just my 2 cents. But I have an open mind, if someone out there has a convincing argument for why turbos are turned with “free power”, I’m all ears.

SpeedyVette

Ford's FPC engine is worthless blows far too much oil and I haven't heard that it is not just normal.

Rkreigh

no sir, no free lunch. but turbos load the crank less and create less "burden" to drive in terms of HP to turn the blower vs backpressure to drive the turbos

Modern turbos spool a bit better and exact less of a penalty but there is NO free power so please don't quote me there as I didn't say it. Scavenging is indeed different but the turbos definitely are worth it.

I have a very mildly build LS6 that puts 800 hp and trq to the ground by 3200 rpms and is "all in"

the trick is to correctly setup the turbos in their sweet spot of the efficiency map and size them for response without choking off top end.

tricks like boost by speed, massive torq swell, and ability to tune for consistent and reliable hp makes turbos attractive.

they are not cheap, easy to package, or mange the heat damage so no, there is no free lunch.

hit the throttle and go over 20 psi in a big v8 with good flowing system up around 1100 or so and I think you'll agree.

the new LT5 uncorked and tuned goes up over 1200 too, with a very efficient blower. up around that level the drive train better be beefed or you'll have a short trip to the jersey wall

ask me how I know

NineVettes

My comments are made from a viewpoint that most of you don't have - from the viewpoint of a former Shelby GT350 owner, I bought a '17 GT350, new off the lot at MSRP. Positives were the incredible exhaust sound and suitability for high RPM track use. On the street, pretty gutless until about 3500 RPM or so. If you like the off idle power of a Chevy small block , you won't find it with an N/A FPC. A mustang GT could smoke me off the line for a bit.

Kudos for Ford to daring to step out of the box and try something new - the largest displacement FPC engine built for public sale. And that's where it ends and why I kept my car for only a year before swapping to a '19 M7 Z06. Two of my 5 friends who used to own a lot of Vettes (like me) and who are track rats, blew their VooDoo motors. A number of failures have been reported when just starting these engines up, or just street cruising. Lots of excuses made - one being that owners are letting the oil levels get too low. maybe, sometimes - but too much smoke for there not to be other issues IMO. My own '17 saw a little track time, but after several thousand miles, began to creep up with its oil consumption. Got steadily worse and to the point that sometimes it seemed like I was going to gas stations to fill up the oil and check the gas. Certainly not all of these VooDoos are having these problems, but too many are, There is a reason (beyond Euro regulations) why you don't see FPCs over 5 liters. Ford stopped using the FPC in its GT4 cars years ago and the new GT500 is not an FPC. Lots of message traffic on some Ford forums about VooDoo problems - not hard to find them. Running an FPC in the C8 R is a different issue - they just have to last for one race at a time and they can pour extra bucks into the highest quality internal components running the most optimal clearances. Production vehicles are another matter

alangordon

Ford has a flat plane crank in the new gt 500.it has re enforced parts that come from a cross plane crank.saw it on utube.

the lark

Everything I seen about the gt500 says its a cross plane crank.
Can you post the link to that video on you tube. I would really like to see it.

NineVettes

Incorrect. My friend has a GT500 and it is definitely NOT FPC.

tt 383

its “free” in that you are in part using wasted heat to drive them. The thing with flat plane is the even pulsing on each bank of cylinders. That in NA form is great for exhaust/intake tuning, however in a turbo application it seems in my mind to not be a big deal however it would help from crowding the turbine housing with back to back pulses. Scavenging wouldn’t be very important though since their would be little if any overlap for scavenging to occur where it would be useful, turbos are ramming the air in so no need. That’s not to say it isn’t present at least in the intake.