Photo: PSP Images, Mountune Racing

Ford backed 1.6T Global Racing Engine for WTCC and CTCC

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Ford have commissioned Mountune Racing to provide a Global Racing Engine for Arena Motorsport and Chang’an Ford FRD Motorsports in the 2012 WTCC and CTCC seasons respectively, with both teams planning to field three car teams.

The engine has already been tested by Arena Motorsport with Tom Chilton at the wheel just before Christmas. The beginnings of the engine are based on that of the Ford World Rally Championship engine, though only the engine block, sump and head castings of the original engine are kept, with Mountune having redesigned everything else to suit the engine for the track, with a new steel crank, steel rods, forged pistons, sputter bearings, steel flywheel and torsional vibration damper.

“We have been working closely with Ford and its rally partner, M-Sport, over the past nine months to design and develop this engine and we are extremely pleased with the results that we have achieved in terms of power, performance and reliability,” said Mountune Technical Director David Mountain.

Arena’s new Global Ford Focus, built to Super 2000 regulations for the WTCC, has recently undergone evaluation from the FIA with the team filing homologation paperwork with the FIA, and the team have confirmed they will be fielding three cars in this year’s Championship with the Ford Global Racing Engine, with the drivers yet to be announced.

“The aspiration from Arena and from our part and from Ford’s part is to get into the World Touring Car Championship,” said Mountune General Manager Roger Allen to TouringCarTimes.

“There have been veiled references from Mike Earle (Arena Motorsport Team Principal) for the past six months, but of course they needed an engine. A 1.6 Ford based engine, using the EcoBoost. The initial move was to use the rally engine which competed last year and use that as the basis. We did a feasibility study on that engine, with help from Ford and from M-Sport, and it transpired that for the circuit application that engine needed a major rethink in a lot of areas.”

“We sat down with Ford, with Arena, and the end result was that Ford wanted to develop that engine for other applications as well including China in the Chinese Touring Car Championship, so Ford funded the development of the engine which is a complete rewrite of the whole unit.”

“The first engine ran in November; the car first ran at Ford before Christmas and the concept is that Ford will develop the engine but then the teams must run the engine, so we’re supplying engines this year to Arena for their programme and we’re supplying engines to the Chinese Touring Car Championship with a three car team in that series which kicks off in May.”