Форд Кент қозғалтқышы: Тарихы мен дамуы

The Ford Kent is an internal combustion engine from Ford of Europe. Originally developed in 1959 for the Ford Anglia, it is an in line four cylinder overhead valve–type pushrod engine with a cast iron cylinder head and block. The Kent family can be divided into three basic sub families; the original pre Crossflow Kent, the Crossflow (the most prolific of all versions of the Kent), and the transverse mounted Valencia variants. The arrival of the Duratec E engine in the fifth generation Fiesta range in 2002 signalled the end of the engine's use in production vehicles after a 44 year career, although the Valencia derivative remained in limited production in Brazil, as an industrial use engine by Ford's Power Products division, where it is known as the VSG 411 and VSG 413. Since 2010, it has been actively produced in the United States factories for Formula Ford globally because of its popularity in motorsport.

This series of engines became known as the Kent engine because Alan Worters, the company's Executive Engineer (Power Units), lived across the river from Ford's Dagenham plant in the English county of Kent. Originally within Ford, it is said that the Kent name was actually born with the A711 and A711M blocks (commonly called the 711M block) with square main bearing caps for the Crossflow series, which represented a vast improvement in the durability of the engines. However, the name caught on to be used outside the company to include pre 711M engines as well.

The original OHV three main bearing Kent engine appeared in the 1959 Anglia with a capacity of developing at 5,000 rpm – unusually high for the time. With a bore and stroke, combined with independent (non siamesed) four intake and four exhaust ports, it was a departure from traditional undersquare English engine design. The same engine, with its bore unchanged, but with longer stroke and thus larger capacities were subsequently used in the Ford Consul Classic and Consul Capri ( the latter with five main bearings), the Mk1 and early Mk2 Cortinas ( stroke stroke five main bearing ), and the early Corsairs. In addition to its 'over square' cylinder dimensions, a further unusual feature of the Kent engine at its introduction was an externally mounted combined oil filter/pump unit designed to facilitate low cost production and easy maintenance. The substantial redesign of the engine included an all new cylinder head with reshaped combustion chambers and inlet ports for 'lean burn' operation, hardened valve seats and valves for operation on unleaded fuel, and the Ford EDIS fully electronic ignition system, with the option of single point fuel injection for use with a catalytic converter Weber carburettors were specified to replace the unreliable Ford Variable Venturi (VV) unit. The engine was renamed the Ford HCS (standing for High Compression Swirl), although some internal Ford service publications call it the Valencia HCS in reference to its heritage. This engine used a much leaner fuel to air mix than a typical engine, at a 1:19 ratio. In addition to lowered emissions, Ford claimed that fuel economy increased by 11 to 18 percent while power was up from 5 to 8 percent, depending on the model. As it was nearly impossible to succeed in motorsport without some activities in Formula 2, 3 or Formula Ford, most of the well known racing drivers in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s owe their careers to Ford Kent to some extent, and the current historic motor racing depends heavily on the Kent based engines. On 16 October 2009, Ford announced that it would be putting the Kent block back into production in order to supply the historic racing community and active Formula Ford series that use the Kent engine with spares. According to a Ford press release, engineering work began at Ford Racing's Performance Parts division in the US, with sales scheduled to start in 2010. This coincided with a Sports Car Club of America rule change allowing the Honda L15A7 engine to be used in Formula Ford events in that country, which uses the Ford Kent engine (SCCA does not sanction Duratec or Ecoboost classes). Link to Kent block in Ford Motorsports Parts online catalog

The 1300 cc was the engine of choice for BriSCA Formula 2 Stock Cars until a rule change about carburettors pushed people towards the 2000 cc Ford Pinto engine. Harry Mundy designed the Lotus TwinCam engine for Colin Chapman, who needed the replacement for the Coventry Climax FWE engine used in Lotus Elite. As Keith Duckworth and Mike Costin, the co founders of Cosworth, used to be Lotus Development Ltd employees, the initial racing adaptation of Lotus TwinCam was carried out by Cosworth, and the Kent block Cosworth SCA was designed using the basic SOHC reverse flow cylinder head configuration of the FWE. Due to Mundy being also the co designer of the FWE, the Kent block Lotus TwinCam initially used the cam profile of the FWE, and shared the same valve clearance adjustment shims with Coventry Climax FWA, FWB, and FWE in production.