@Will!! My favorite detractor!
Truly! You're one of the VERY FEW people who can back up the negative they say about the cologne engines. Know that even though I ball bust literally every post of yours, that I respect your informed opinion.
So! I cannot publicly agree whti anything you say. Cause. Ya know. You're Will. And I disagree with you. But, it's 2020 and the world is on fire, so **** it.
You and Bobby brought up a very good point that I've been prattling on about for some time -
the 2.9 is NOT suitable as a truck engine to do STRICTLY truck stuff. Yes, it will do some truck stuff with ease because they're impressive for a V6, but it's 177 cubic inches in a oversquare configuration. It's a euro touring and rally engine.
In fairness, the 2.8 (from my very limited experience with them) and especially the 2.9 are meh truck engines for doing truck stuff. Towing heavy, hauling, crawling rocks.... 2.9 and 2.8 are good enough for both in a light duty sense. They are NOT comparable to the truly truck engines I have experience with - namely the Mopar 383, 440, and 360 (NOT a Ford guy). Even the Ford 4.0 ohv in stock configuration does better off road than a 2.9 or 2.8 in stock form - they developed the 2.9 into the 4.0 for that exact reason - purpose built for light truck stuff.
What the 2.9 IS good at is what it was designed to do - run highways, track, dirt roads, etc. and to do it very, very well for their era.
:-X Hi ..i'm a new member and any help or advise would be welcome :) I have a rare Granada Scorpio 2.9i V6 12V 94 L-reg ... just covered 56K ... stripped off the Plenum and throttle body ...r
forum.retro-rides.org
Lots of good info in a very small thread - and some sincere discussion of the
advantages of the 2.9 12 valve over the 24 valve.
On to pruett....
So, you have a point about his book - it discusses the 2.6 and 2.8 far more than the 2.9. The 4.0 is barely a footnote. At times, it's been difficult to tease out the info that I need. I did find a satisfactory amount after almost
two years invested. Yes, it's taken far too long and way more hours than I'd like to count in order to make it this far into piecing the info together to build the engine I want.
In the end, Pruett provided less than half of it. Most came from the euro guys that have been working with these engines for 30 years. Most of his parts references are useless, and I strongly disagree with his recommendations on carburetors. Granted, that's mostly due to the fact that carbs are ****ing terrible when compared to modern tuning technology.
I will somewhat disagree with you (big surprise) on his recommendations on ports, etc. He gives you enough to get started, but not enough to get a set of 2.9 or 4.0 heads performance ready. 2.8, sure. So, I've been doing my own research on how to handle the ports and flow design:
I've had to go as far as taking silicone molds of the ports to get a glimpse of where I can pick up flow. Pruett provides one cutaway shot, and one recommendation on bowl hogs, but that's about it. So my strategy is to mold the ports, then cut a head into profile slices and determine bias, shape, etc. Pruett left me high and dry on this one, so I went the Sagan route - if you want to bake a cake from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
Another huge shortfall in his writing is his complete lack of detail concerning manifolds available. In the back of that shot is a Merkur 2.9 intake (top) and Sierra (bottom). Radically different from one another in terms of design and cross-manifold balance.
He neglected to leave out that there's at least three RBV upper intakes, four euro style ones, and at least half a dozen different lower intake configurations, some with dual cooling setups that allow for crossflow cooling.
He also neglected to mention things like turbo exhaust manifolds that were available at his time of publication.
I've done my best to get the info that he left out, including flow testing via volumetric efficiency mapping of different intake combinations to see which will give me the characteristics I want out of the engine, and to let others read and use as they see fit.
After all of this, I've asked myself many, many times if what I am doing is useful. Best answer I can come up with is a strong maybe. The moment I'll know is my first dyno run. But, I've kept track on here for those like me that can't (and would NEVER) drop the $6700 (or whatever the **** ludicrous price Ford charges) on a Ford 2.3 ecoboost crate engine to dump into a 30 year old pickup. My work has been for those like me that can junkyard together a 30 year old mouse motor on a budget that can hold its own in the modern world; once someone has cut a path, the rest of it gets cheaper and easier. Edelbrock is evidence enough.
In a sense, it comes down to cost and time versus reward. Yes, my path has been stoopid difficult and at times more expensive than I'd like, but that's because from what I can tell I'm the first to do this in the USA in 20+ years.
Yes, the colognes are antiques now. So are 350 chebbys, 383 mopars, and 302 ford's. And that doesn't matter to folks that want that old school V8 feel. They'll build whatever gas guzzling carbureted big block theyve always wanted and drive the **** out of it. True, a modern four banger may eat them alive. But who cares? This is a hobby.
For me, I wanted the euro V6 that I watched hand a Lamborghini it's own ass in Bern, Switzerland in 2009-ish. So, when I figured out i had the bones of that engine in the cancered out shitbox rotting in my driveway, I decided to make it happen. Yes, it's been difficult, but I'm chasing a sound I remember hearing echo through the Swiss Alps when I was 21. And to me, that has been its own reward.
Tl;dr:
@Will, I disagree! Well, somewhat.
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