John, I hear you about the Z06 engine. What I meant is that Ford has this lame-arse excuse for poor design choices as "keeping performance affordable". Yet builds a 4-cam crazy engine design that is quite possibly the largest package they can fit so few cubes into; just dumb. The single cam in block design is compact and works well.
Imagine if Ford, instead, just once pulled its head out of its rear and built a Windsor-based small block that was 9.5" deck, 4.125" bore/4.2" stroke with aluminum block and six bolt caps (basically build the LS engine block with the Windsor deck), took any number of the inline, stock valve angle aftermarket cylinder head designs flowing 320-340cfm, and built a 450 cube small block with a hyd roller cam. Don't even bother with the ti rods like the Z06, which are a waste of money at 6500rpm redlines. That motor would hurdle 500HP/500 torque on the motor. Then, take the transaxle out of the GT, put it in the rear of the Mustang, build a torque tube, set that engine back, etc and frankly more or less copy the Vette with the exception that you would still retain a back seat with the gears behind the diff. I would rather see money spent on that than four cams and an almost 3 foot wide engine. Save money by not dry sumping maybe, tho' I like the idea of a lower engine cg.
You would have a 4-passenger monster, maybe it would cost about the same as the Vette, but isn't the Vette how GM competes in the car enthusiast market? Ford doesn't really compete with that car, they think they do, but they are clueless. The GT doesn't compete with this car cuz it was double the money and not viewed by Joe Public as a daily driver kinda car. Best bang for the buck is pretty much unanimously the Vette from all automotive sources. The Mustang could be just a good (probably not better due to weight of a car that carries four v. two) and for similar money...
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