1971 Road Race Pinto....1.6L 4 speed

falconwagon62 wrote:had a 2.8L V6 Wagon....it sucked...rebuilt from ground up, those V6, rattled, made lots of noise, no power and sucked gas like a V8....if this was a 4cly, 4 speed...I would still be driving it today......

Interesting.  The Cologne V6 has a decent rep world wide.  My personal experience with them is limited, but I had no complaints that were the engine's fault.

My experience with the 2.8 in modified form is limited to 2nd hand in a friend's Capri and later doing a swap for the same friend into a TVR 2500M...no complaints in either case.  One thing I do remember is that the performance key for those little engines is the heads.  Most of them world wide had siamesed exhaust ports.  The 3 exhaust port heads are a must for any kind of performance.

In stock form, my mother-in-law had one in an Aerostar that I drove occasionally.  My biggest complaint was that engine was undersized for the vehicle, and the transmission shift points were horribly mismatched to the engine.  The transmission shift point issue was so bad that she demanded the transmission be replaced when the van was only a couple months old...to no avail.  The shift points required more revving than the engine was comfortable supplying.

Back in the day when I considered the swap, it had the advantage of being the only game in town short of a SBF.   At least in this country Ford had no other V6s.  Today the only reason I would use one in a Pinto swap is the ease of doing the swap for a minimum cost...and then I'd plan on eventually adding turbo/super charging.