Zetec
| Ford Zetec engine | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Overview | |
| Manufacturer | Ford Motor Company |
| Production | 1991–present |
| Combustion chamber | |
| Configuration |
Straight-4 DOHC 16V/SOHC 8V |
| Cylinder block alloy | cast iron |
| Cylinder head alloy | aluminium |
| Combustion | |
| Fuel type | petrol |
| Chronology | |
| Predecessor |
Ford Kent engine Ford CVH engine Ford Pinto engine |
| Successor | Ford Duratec engine |
Ford Motor Company used the Zetec name on a variety of Inline-4-cylinder automobile engines. It was coined to replace "Zeta" on a range of 1.6 L to 2.0 L multi-valve engines introduced in 1991 because Ford was threatened with legal action by Lancia who owned the Zeta trademark. The company used the name widely in European advertising and later introduced it to the North American market with the Contour.
The Zetec name was so recognized that Ford decided to apply it to other high-tech four-cylinder engines. It is used across many engine types in Europe today even though the original Zeta design ended production in 2004. Ford also used the "Zetec" name for a trim level designation in certain markets.
A Formula One engine was produced for Ford by Cosworth in 1993; the 3.5 litre Zetec R V8) was used by the Benetton team in 1994, and powered Michael Schumacher to his first World Championship title.
The Zetec name has been used on many different engines:
The first Zetec-branded engine was the Zeta family, introduced for the 1992 model year powering the fifth generation of the European Ford Escort, the third generation Orion and the Mk.3 Fiesta. The engine was originally available in 1.6 and 1.8 liter versions with a 2.0 liter version appearing in 1993 in the all-new Mondeo. The "Zeta" name was dropped in favour of "Zetec" when Italian car maker Lancia threatened to sue Ford for trademark infringement. The codename "Zeta" was originally used for the design of the cylinder head. A number of different systems were evaluated, and each one had a different codename using the Greek alphabet. The Zeta concept was the winner and the 4-valve-per-cylinder, DOHC design was used for the head of the replacement for the CVH in Europe and the US. The original manufacturing plan involved replacing the Dearborn manufactured CVH with Zeta. This resulted in the need to retain much of the architecture of the US CVH block. However, later in the development process, the plan was changed and the Chihuahua engine plant in Mexico was rebuilt to allow manufacture of the US engines. For Europe the decision was taken to build Zetas in Bridgend (Replacing CVH) and in Cologne. The US (2.0L) and European base engines were almost identical. However, crucially, the US management insisted that the US engines had to be "freewheeling", or a non-interference engine design. The fuel economy penalty with the freewheeling system (around 1–2%) was considered to be too great for European engines. The result was that the engines used different pistons. Another difference was that the US engines featured sinter forged connecting rods versus conventional cast rods in Europe.
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Wikipedia