About those Cosworth engines: rumor had it back then that Cosworth built heads and oil pumps, then used Ford bottom ends. Everything seemed to fit like it, anyway!
Mainly correct Mark
Cosworth used to be an independent engineering company, designing and building mainly competition engines (their - Ford backed - DFV V8 is the most successful F1 engine ever). The 16V cylinder head was originally intended to be an aftermarket product for use on the 2.0L pinto block, which at that point in time (early '80s) was probably the most modified and tuned engine in Europe (to this day people are still tuning and using them, archaic boat anchors though they may be
).
Around that time Ford were getting creamed by both BL/Rover and BMW in the British and European saloon car championships, and their head honchos were looking for payback. Whilst on a tour of Cosworth's facilities following a meeting about the DFV's successor, Ford's head honchos recognised block sitting under the new head on a dyno, and asked what it was.
A plan was hatched there and then. It was determined that a turbo would be needed to generate the sort of power the Rovers and Beemers were achieving with their 3.5L V8 and straight 6 respectively, and this combined with the fact that to even enter, 2000 road cars needed to be produced (and warranted), meant that the old (even then) Pinto block would need to be redesigned and strengthened.
Ford set Cosworth a target of 100bhp/L for the road car engine, and eventually, after an epic struggle, they managed to get the output down to 204bhp at the flywheel, the first thing almost every owner did as soon as they'd left the showroom though was to swap the ECU's program chip for one that would liberate the 300+bhp Cosworth struggled so much to reduce
Ford achieved their aim too, Sierra Cosworth RS500s dominated both championships (and also the Aussie equivalent) right into the early nineties, when turbos were banned from all saloon car series
The naturally aspirated twin cam heads (both 8V & 16V types) found on pinto blocks were entirely of Ford Germany design, with no input from Cosworth.
Simultaneously (and probably co-incidentally), Cosworth had also been contracted by GM (Vauxhall/Opel) to design a 16V cylinder head for their production 2 Litre four. Because the GM block was a far better starting point, the result became probably the greatest 4 cylinder road car engine ever, it was listed as having 150bhp at the flywheel, I personally have never seen one generate less than 160, and I've seen more than a few kick out over 170 in stock form
When modified for competition use they are capable of up to 280bhp, all the while using the stock crank
Cosworth Engineering are now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Valkswagen Audi group, although they still undertake consultancy work for other manufacturers
