GETTING HAMMERED DEFENDING ECOBOOST & COYOTE

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Sometimes Truth With Speedzzter thinks that Ford Motor Company simply doesn't care about its reputation in the hot rod community. Even though Ford has some brilliantly innovative engines, the "word on the message boards" often remains anti-Ford.

Take for example this recent exchange regarding the EcoBoost V6 at Bangshift.com Even though the EcoBoost engine has huge apparent advantages over the antique Buick v6 of the 1980s, the average hot rodder apparently does not believe EcoBoost engines have more potential.

This is consistent with Ford's lagging reputation in the hot rodding and grassroots motorsports community. As one poster opined:

[W]hat it will NOT do, and what either does not concern Ford, or they figure they are so far behind on as to not compete, is find it's way into the garages and engine bays of the aftermarket and hot rod community. At this point, I think they've punted on that market.

As Zora Arkus-Duntov's famous 1953 memo accurately stated:

Like all people, hot rodders are attracted by novelty, However, bitter experience has taught them that new development is costly and long, and therefore they are extremely conservative. From my observation, it takes an advanced hot rodder some three years to stumble toward the successful development of a new design. . . . [B]ut to let things run their normal course . . . not too many hot rodders will pick Chevrolet for development.

Of course, history shows that GM took Zora's advice and dethroned Ford in hot rodding and most forms of grassroots motorsports.

With the modern high-tech engines (which are much harder for the grassroots to develop) and nearly a decade and a half wasted by insufficient factory aftermarket development and promotion of the Modular V8, Ford is facing a "Mount Everest" of skepticism and resistance to adoption of its EcoBoost, Boss 6.2 and Coyote engines by hot rodders. Moreover, rules bias against DOHC in NASCAR and other "stock-based" racing series also hampers "trickle-down" adoption of Ford's more advanced engine designs for repower and retrofit projects.

Truth With Speedzzter wonders if Ford Motor Company even monitors how its reputation is being damaged by the vocal skepticism of a majority of the hot rodding community. While it is fine to concentrate on Mustang as Ford's primary American grassroots motorsports vehicle, Can Ford just ignore the overwhelming pro-GM bias that has infected the important, opinion-leading segments represented by hot rodding and the aftermarket.

Clearly, Ford must do more to gain competitiveness. High horsepower demonstration projects with the Coyote and the EcoBoost engines in older vehicles would be a start. Emissions-legal crate engines, along the lines of GM's E-Rod would also spur a sea change in the "street/strip" scuttlebutt about Ford. For Ford to be successful in shifting public opinion, Ford engines need to be perceived as a superior alternative to GM's LS V8. Ford Performance Group and Ford Racing Performance Parts clearly have not done enough to get this message across.

But for now, a relatively few of us pro-Ford "shock troops" will continue to be overwhelmed by the anti-Ford tidal waves that saturate most venues where hot rodding ideas are exchanged.