There has been an 'accepted-as-reality' notion around since the late fifties that a chibbie is cheaper to build than anything else. An honest side-by-side comparison will show quite significant parity. Bare blocks cost about the same, cranks ditto, and the same can be said for all the other major pieces.
except for the part where a ford motor has way more parts inside of it... look at a mustang and a camaro, how is buying 4 cams going to cost the same as buying just one? need a valve job? well thats twice the amount of time at the machine shop as there are twice as many valves, springs and everything else... hell you can get LS3 heads for a lot less than half the price of coyote heads, unless of course im crazy and you get all the extra parts inside for free...
The mullett brigade make quite a noise regarding the low-dollar cost for a junk-yard chib LS, but a little shopping will easily turn up comparable prices for many other brands in equivalent condition. And aftermarket aluminum heads for a small-block Ford seem to be selling, ready to bolt on, starting at the mid 300 dollar range. As with all parts, premium stuff costs more without any reference to brand name of the original car manufacturer.
again, even if these cost of each part is about the same, your going to be saving a lot of money by only buying half as many of a lot of the parts...
The AJ engine series is the choice in the Jaguar line, the Land Rovers, and the Aston Martins, as well as the LS, and the Thunderbird in this country.
What's not to like?
well for starters, the one we got... also, pretty safe to say that with in the thunderbird enthusiast community, the AJ motor cars are by far the least popular...
now if all the range rovers and aston martins came with our motor instead of the version they actually came with, they would probably not be anywhere near as fast or powerful nor would you see their cars selling for 100k+
Your opinion of the AJ engine series shows either significant bias or profound ignorance. For example, my original 3.9 has about 160K miles on it. I bought the car new. I've replaced the coils and plugs, although I did so---going to ACCEL Mustang units---when I started the use of the nitrous oxide/methanol mix for land speed racing, not because any had failed. I've never had the cam covers off and the plug wells are not oiled. I got a bit racy on the e-way the other day and found that it pulled past 7K without hesitation. Aside from the NX system and the coils, everything else is original. I do change the oil about every 10K miles and have used Mobil 1 since the free oil changes from the dealer ran out at 40K.
well I guess that goes to show even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while... even you have to be relieved that you havent been bother with all the other problems that plague this board almost daily
The engine has been beat on in a pretty aggressive fashion. My NX system has the flow capacity to add about 450 HP although I've never pushed it that far. The factory pistons and rods might not like it. I've run 150 + of nitrous oxide and a parallel amount of methanol in the car constantly since 2007. It's a tough engine and you might make note that back in 1998 or -9 the AJ design was voted one of the ten best of the time on a worldwide basis.
come on, you know darn well that by an extremely large margin that most of those miles have been in daily driven fashion, without any spray being used... and of course it doesn t matter how much potential your spray system has if you know darn well that you cant take it that high unless you want to pop your motor. yes everybody is aware of the AJ being one of Wards 10 best motors in 2000, besides than the 2 other ford and toyota V8s, all were all 6 cylinders and a 4 banger... stiff competition there.
all that aside, you really going to sit there and tell us that you could build an AJ based lincoln LS that could match what a LS powered Cadillac (and we'll be nice and just count the non supercharged versions) can do for the same or less money? not a chance... you can make a 12 second car with just a cam and heads with the early LS caddies, you're not doing that with an AJ LS for anywhere near that cheap. its also nice that you can pretty much go to a local store and get anything you need, or order forged internals, or a stroker kit and have them/it here by the end of the week. instead of calling 30 different people trying to figure out where and how you can get your hands on something or waiting for it to get shipped from england and having to take a decade to build it up...
you have been around the hotrod scene long enough... can you please remind me what they always say about what there is no replacement for? there is no way you're going to be able to make the same kind of power that a motor that is 50% bigger makes for less money... youre always going to be playing catch up!
but I'm sure you're so right, what a terrible and expensive motor the LS(or even current LT) is, you would have to be a fool to want such a thing.