Hot Rod bans Ford's 4-cam mod motors from E-M competition again!

[machoneman]

http://www.enginelabs.com/news/amsoil-engine-masters-rules-released-ford-mod-motors-need-not-apply/

                

They even have a spec. LS engine division now. Yikes, how foolish. Time for all and any Ford fans to drop their subscriptions.....like I did years ago. Unbelievable as to how a Ford production engine can be banned yet a Chevy LS production engine can compete in multiple classes.

[babybolt]

Competitors now have only seven months to get an engine together.  Pontiacs can compete in two categories, but FE's can't.   The small blocks in the "4X4" class have to use Edelbrock heads.   Well, at least the same two engine builders who win year after year can't win all five classes.

[jayb]

I emailed Hot Rod about the Engine Masters rules, wondering why an FE can't compete in the small block class, while a Pontiac can.  The engines are very dimensionally similar.  No response on that one. 

They were originally planning to have the Mod motors and the LS engines compete in the same class.  Their implementation was fouled up, though, because they wanted to provide a "spec" shortblock and have the engine builders add their heads and the rest of the top end at the competition.  You could probably do this with the LS, but the Mod motors would take way too long to assemble in a case like that.  I don't know why they just didn't specify compression ratio and have the builders bring the complete engines.  Must get down to the fact that the general design of the Mod motors is far superior to the LS, and it wouldn't be much of a contest...

[machoneman]

I emailed Hot Rod about the Engine Masters rules, wondering why an FE can't compete in the small block class, while a Pontiac can.  The engines are very dimensionally similar.  No response on that one. 

They were originally planning to have the Mod motors and the LS engines compete in the same class.  Their implementation was fouled up, though, because they wanted to provide a "spec" shortblock and have the engine builders add their heads and the rest of the top end at the competition.  You could probably do this with the LS, but the Mod motors would take way too long to assemble in a case like that.  I don't know why they just didn't specify compression ratio and have the builders bring the complete engines.  Must get down to the fact that the general design of the Mod motors is far superior to the LS, and it wouldn't be much of a contest...

And methinks that was the point: the Ford mod motors are superior to anything GM has available. I get that fact but wonder: why not a Mod Motor only class?

Admittedly the non-Ford engines that are OHC have far fewer speed parts available yet these same Ford engines are killing the GM and Dodge entries, in particularly NHRA's S & SS classes. Even I'm amazed that the modern Stang's have far eclipsed even the once almighty 426 model Hemi cars in both e.t. and speed in the top SS classes. That has also got to hurt GM in particular as the LS entries in SS can't come within 1 second of Ford's fastest, this after years of NHRA's favoritism to GM entries in S and SS classes. It's gotta bite them to see Ford finally coming out on top with cars once can actually buy right from the factory, given very limited availability and very high prices.

Interesting too that HR has ignored the impact of the entire Asian car market, ALL of which are OHC equipped cars! 'Course these folks don't read HR nor buy parts from their advertisers (mostly not) but I'm quite sure the shunning of all things OHC  cannot help HR in the future.     

[Lenz]

Must get down to the fact that the general design of the Mod motors is far superior to the LS, and it wouldn't be much of a contest...

I think that's nail on the head stuff right there.  HR and many others have spent a great deal of time promoting everything LS, rightly claiming availability and affordability of used engines, a ton of aftermarket support and the ability to make decent power as reasons.

Problem is, none of that should matter when it comes to the Engine Masters series IMO.  None of that stuff is budget build junkyard material, and kicking any production engine series clear out of the sandbox is just plain wrong, even if allowing it results in the "wailing and gnashing of teeth" by certain camps.  You can bet your bottom dollar that there was some serious lobbying going on behind the scenes to get this result.

Remember when (I know we all do) the Mustang 5.0 LX notchbacks came out and were spanking the best Camaros of the day?  The Camaro faithful whined "don't pick on us, we're 700 lbs. heavy".  So suck it up, go on a diet and get faster.  They're still trying to this day and are still too heavy.  It's the same deal with the LS series, they just don't want to share the spotlight with superior equipment.

[RJP]

Time and again HRM proves it's bias against Ford. For the last 5-6 years [or more] HRM features very few Fords or Ford specific articles but Chevy, Mopar are well represented in both features and technical articles. Count how many Camaros are on the cover and let them tell us that Fords are well represented, how many "How to make XXX horsepower with the LS engine" has been printed? We've had the LS engine shoved up our asses for years...HRM is a joke, a bad joke at that.  HRM and NHRA must use the same playbook, I've never seen a more brand specific bias against Ford as I've seen over the years in NHRA, To prove my point why did NHRA ban the 385 series engine in T/F, fuel/funnycar, and in the Alcohol classes? They simply changed the rules that no engine with a bore center more that 4.84" can compete. Is it just a co-incidence that the 4.84" B/C is a BBC specific size? All of Walt Austin's work with the Boss 429 Hemi was wasted as he found a few things with the B-429 that were superior to the 426 style Mopar, like stronger cylinders due to a bigger bore center, better breathing heads, higher cam tunnel for bigger cam lobes, better rocker ratios, smaller combustion chambers for a given C/R so a lighter piston could be used. A stronger crank by design with the 3.00" main journals and greater journal overlap for the rod journals. Their bias is so blatant and extreme I'm surprised that any engine painted blue would be kicked out of an event.

[LuxurySportCoupe]

All of the above posts sum up why I let my HRM subscription expire a few years ago. I even sent them a letter as to why, and I included something along the lines of "if I wanted to subscribe to Super Chevy magazine, I would have done so."

[fe66comet]

Well every hot rod has a smog block chubbie in it so that is all they speak there. I also killed my susceiption to the mags like 4WD and off road, Car Craft and Hot rod as I can only look at so many Chevy small blocks and 5.0 Fords in one life time.