Cosworth reliability?
Alez - 2/2/04 at 05:21 PM
Hi!
What is your experience on the above subject? Hicost? How does the engine compare to the classic Pinto in terms of reliability?
I'm asking because I was thinking what the real options were for a high performance, but daily driver, cheap Locost. Bike engined Locosts are
cheap and great reliability, but useless as daily drivers. Maybe the next step, cheaper than those V8 beasts, would be a Cosworth but I don't
know if they are generally reliable or just very expensive as daily drivers?
Cheers,
Alex
200mph - 2/2/04 at 06:04 PM
One of my mates has two cossies, so I'll let you know what he thinks.
Kept standard, around 200-220 bhp, they are reliable motors. It's difficult to compare them with a standard pinto, as they have different
purposes.
Neither of his are standard, and as such things start getting really expensive, a rebuild every couple of years, new clutches every few months, brakes
and tyres. Everything really suffers as a result.
However, you can pick up a decent cossie engine for under a grand. To get 200bhp from a pinto would be much much more expensive than this.
I heard a saying once, which was make sure you have in the bank at least as much as your cossie cost you, for when the engine goes!!
Personally, I would say stuff reliability, and get a cossie lump
Mark
[Edited on 2/2/04 by 9904169]
zetec - 2/2/04 at 07:29 PM
If you are looking around for a 200bhp engine you could go for mild tune Vx XE or Zetec. Both would use almost standard bottom ends and modified heads
and are reliable, and more important cheap to sort out if they go bang, a new Ford bottom end is about £500 or get a s/h unit and swap heads. Cossie
good for big BHP but with big £££.
200mph - 2/2/04 at 07:35 PM
yeah, I'd agree with that. An untuned cossie is a contradiction in terms
Mark
cosworth - 2/2/04 at 07:39 PM
I have owned cosworths since 1989 and have not had many engine problems. Keep them well serviced and they will go forever. The only major problems I
had were 2 headgaskets, one due to a faulty fan switch in the radiator not cutting the fans in. I have had a number of experiences both with my own
car and rallies cars which I have run where the coolant temp went upto 119 degrees but the engine survived in both cases. I sprinted a 380bhp which
had the rev limit set at 7600 rpm car for a number of years and used the car everyday, it never missed a beat the only downside was the fuel bills! It
also killed a standard turbo because I was using ALS. With a group A turbo fitted there were no problems.
ned - 3/2/04 at 09:52 AM
I'm building a vx xe to 200-220bhp which I expect to be reliable (they normally are in our race car).
I'm opting at the moment for a 2.1 bottom end (88mm bore) with a ported head, uprated cams (still using standard hydraulic lifters) with vernier
pulleys and a pair of 45's. (most of which i already have)
This should be cheaper than building a cosworth to the same spec and just as reliable/similar performance imho.
Ned.
steve m - 6/2/04 at 10:40 PM
And I thought this was a locost site!!!!
And I have had the pleasure of several rides in James "hicost" beast, this car is awsome, the power is out of this world
and very surprising (for me) was how smooth the power delivery is, even at warp speed!!
my little 1700 xflow is in a different world
i still like my car and what it does tho
steve
craig1410 - 7/2/04 at 03:07 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Alez
Hi!
Maybe the next step, cheaper than those V8 beasts, would be a Cosworth but I don't know if they are generally reliable or just very expensive as
daily drivers?
Alex,
I know very little about cosworth engines but I know a great deal about Rover V8's and I would like to correct you on the "expensive"
nature of V8 engines.
The V8 engine is just about the simplest and least expensive way to get serious power in my opinion as it uses none of the turbochargers and fancy
electronics and 16valve heads and variable valve timing that many of the more "modern" engines use. All a V8 is, is 2 4 cylinder engines
strapped together at usually 90 degrees to each other, sharing the same crank and in the case of the RV8, the same camshaft. In carburettor form they
are simplicity itself and have virtually no electronics to go wrong. The distributors don't use points (unlike very early models) so no worries
with constant maintenance either. All you really need to do on a typical V8 is change the oil every 5 or 6k miles (just good quality mineral oil, not
fancy synthetic stuff either) and it will burble on for thousands of miles.
I seem to recall something about an american V8 (Chevvy I think) which could travel across the Arizona desert with no water in the engine and not come
to any harm!
Hicost has given you a cost for a pretty decent Cossie engine and you could probably spend a similar amount of cash on a Rover V8 but I suspect that
you don't want to spend £10k on your engine. If so then you can pick up a Rover V8 3.5 litre with around 175BHP as standard for anything from
£175 to £350 depending on specifics. You could then spend maybe another £1000 and have a very reliable 250BHP with the lovely V8 sound and masses of
torque (and hence street drivability) Okay, this isn't 500BHP but if you then want to move towards this sort of power output then you can turbo
or supercharge the V8 too. A 3.5 litre Rove V8 can produce over 300BHP without turbocharging and I have heard figures of 480BHP and even more if you
increase capacity to 5.2 litres.
As I said, you can spend megabucks on any engine but the reason I chose the Rover V8 for my Locost is because you can also spend next to nothing and
get 90% of the fun!!
Hope this helps,
Craig.
Alez - 13/2/04 at 12:32 PM
Hi guys,
Your posts are much appreciated, I've just learned quite a lot of things by reading them.
I was asking because I quite fancy a car engined Locost, but after driving a bike engined one I'm quite sure that the standard Pinto
wouldn't do for me. What I liked from the bike engined one is the reliability, everybody says they never go and that's a big plus for me.
Many thanks.