For the later produced AC vehicles, owners like myself have their cars powered by the superb 302ci Ford V8 engine. This came in either a carburetted form or with Electronic Fuel Injection [EFI]
The carb version is most desired by the enthusiasts as it offers 60's looks and ease of tuning and upgrading. However, carb engines especially when tuned can be very poor at passing English MOT standard emission tests. As the car gets younger, manufacturing date wise, the more stringent the emission tests. The emission limits are especially tight with post 1991 vehicles, where catalytic convertors are required to be fitted within the exhaust system. This is the case on my own vehicle where I cannot convert to a carb engine and be truely road legal.
The best solution is EFI. A properly designed/tuned and developed EFI engine will provide just as much horsepower and torque as its carb equivalent, but offers better driveability/fuel consumption and very importantly low emission levels. However to appeal to to many owners an EFI engine needs to look visually like its sixties forebears. With these parameters in mind, I put together a basic set of suitable components and along with my ideas went to see my good friend and V8 expert Peter Knight. [Knight Racing Servies 01327-871177] I asked Pete if he could develop my ideas into a specific Cobra orientated working engine, which would make excellent power, look great and above all be clean.
With his expertise, the first of these new engines has just been run on his in-house dynamometer, with it going to be installed to a Lightweight. I believe the results are fantastic and worthy of installation in any AC and I have ordered one for my own CRS.
On testing, the engine developed 386bhp @ 5600rpm and 388 lbs/ft of torque @ 4700rpm. There was 361 lbs/ft of torque avaialble from 3000rpm.
The basic engine build specification is as follows;
302ci Roller cam block, blue print assembled and fitted with a stroker kit to increase capacity to 331ci.
Fully balanced internals with Wiseco forged pistons
Ford Motorsport aluminium cylinder heads with special camshaft and roller rockers.
TWM throttle bodies on special intake manifold assembly.
EFI Technologies ECU with Bevan Technologies wiring harness.
What makes this engine stand out from all other EFI motors is the TWM Induction set-up. This uses throttle bodies which look like 60's period down-draught Weber carbs. Also with the sofisticated ECU the engine is easliy tunable via a lap-top for both power and emissions.
If any AC owners has interest in the above spec. engine thay can call Peter direct and he will be happy to discuss the finer details with them.
Finally, thank you again to Bruce Classen for kindly uploading pictures of the engine plus a copy of the power dyno sheet.
Alan Faulkner-Stevens
