Originally Posted by
Rick Kirchner
Because you have to start somewhere and backward compatibility is a huge requirement - because there is no "let's make this manufacture happy and they'll give us contingency and a ladder system" requirement. Nothing says you have to copy every aspect of the old designs. But you do have constraints - bolt pattern at the back, motor mount locations (sides for older, some aspects of the front and pans for newer). Some intake and exhaust considerations.
Overstressed? Maybe for Atlantic. 250hp out of the Kent bottom end is kind of putting 10 pounds of crap into a 5 pound bag. Put a YAC in it and be happier and wealthier. Kents aren't really overstressed, and neither are Pintos.
But you're kind of free to play around with bore, stroke, and spacing within those constraints, but the more you play around with it the more expensive it's likely to get. One could use the bore, stroke, and rod ratio of the Zetec in a strengthened Pinto block. There's already an aluminum pinto head solution. Twin-cam packaging limits the use of that to just the later cars, so why bother? No doubt a variety of oiling and cooling improvements could be considered. Maybe someone could get really creative with 2.3L Ranger or SBC roller rockers. Maybe someone could design it like the old twin cam ford indy motor where you could just flip the head around and put intake/exhaust where you need them.
But Alan, a brand new motor from any builder is something like $12K now, and the only "original" component needed is the block. How much more expensive is it going to get? 15%?
A better question might be "what does the Honda give us over a Kent built from the newer parts?" Now just address that question. Evidently people were never able to address that in the past.
If you were able to go back in time, a better solution for all of this would have been a single custom engine architecture suitable for varying displacements from 1600 to 2.3 L and maybe a single cam and twin cam head that was adaptable across all classes. Let any manufacture who wants to pay contingencies spec the valve covers....But that wasn't an option in '68 really, not at any reasonable price. They didn't even use the term "architecture" back then.