Ford Essex V4 engine

The Essex V4 was a 60° V4 petrol engine from Ford Motor Company made between 1961 and 1977 at the plant in Essex. The engine was available in two capacities, 1.7 L (1663 cc) and 2.0 L (1996 cc), differing only in stroke. This engine was used in the Ford Corsair, Capri Mk I, Consul/Granada Mk I, Ford Zephyr Mk IV and the Mk I Ford Transit van. The Essex V4 was designed to be used in the Transit to fit into its extremely short nose.

A 60° V4 engine is inherently unbalanced, and the Ford Essex motor used a balance shaft to add a modicum of smoothness. The smoothest angle for a V4 engine is 90°.^[1] Because of this, and unlike their "bigger brother" the Ford Essex V6, these engines were infamous for their rough running characteristics and reliability problems such as the tendency for these engines to have head gasket leaks.

Application

The MK1 Transit (1965 to 1978), with its flat front and short bonnet, was designed to use this engine. The bore on each engine was the same at 93.67 mm but strokes of 60.35 and 72.42 mm gave the different capacities as a result the pistons and crankshafts are different on the two engines. Both engines were available in low compression ratio form (7.7:1) and high 9.1:1 for the smaller unit and 8.9:1 for the larger. Power output varied from 73 bhp (Low compression 1.7) to 93 bhp on high compression 2.0 litre and torque from 100 lb/ft to 123.5, hence the Essex V4 and V6 engine's Heron cylinder head design. Different compression ratios were achieved with different cylinder heads, low compression cylinder heads such as the ones fitted to Ford Transits had shallow combustion chambers in them unlike the high compressions heads which were completely flat.

Originally it was fueled by a single barrel carburetor, later the engine was available with a twin choke carburetor and other modifications to increase its power. This variant was fitted in the 2000E version of the Corsair and the GT 2000 version of the Capri and Granada, in the Ford Capri this engine was fitted to the 2000GT and 1700GT Variants from 1969 to 1973 with the 2.0 L producing 92 hp (94 PS) at 5500 rpm and 141 Nm (100 - 123 lb/ft) of torque at 3600 rpm. In 1974, with the Introduction of the Capri II, it was replaced completely by the 2.0 litre TL20 OHC I4 commonly referred to as the "Ford Pinto engine" and the 2.0 L Ford Cologne V6 engine.^[2] The most powerful version of the Essex V4 was in the Ford Corsair 2000E Deluxe with 103 hp. Between 1971 and 1972 the Essex V4 & V6 engines were upgraded and the power output increased by using a different camshaft, changing the shape of the inlet ports from an O shape to a D shape and increasing the compression ratio slightly from 8.9:1 to 9.0:1, other things were also changed, the oil dipstick was moved from the front to the left side of the engine, and the camshaft drive gear was made stronger by using steel construction with fibre teeth instead of being made completely from fibre like earlier versions many companies provide steel and alloy gears which are more dependable in high performance applications.

It was related to the Essex V6 engine (3.0 L) as that was directly designed from the design of the 2.0 L Essex V4. Both engines share many parts and share the bore of 93.6 mm and stroke of 72.4 mm,^[2] and used the same flat, Heron type cylinder heads, and dished pistons and also shared the same valve diameters, spark plugs and so forth. The engine was an option in Marcos sports cars, which had previously adopted the Essex V6 for their wooden-chassis cars. Some 60 to 80 cars with the V4, called the Marcos 2 litre, are reported to have been produced between 1969 and 1971, by which time the production was changed to steel chassis.^[3]

See also

• List of Ford engines
• Ford Taunus V4 engine
• Ford Essex V6 engine

References

External links

• Construction and design features