8 OF THE BEST… FORD TWIN CAMS

LOTUS TWIN CAM

Ford’s first foray into a production twin-cam engine, the Lotus-designed eightvalver was based on the Cortina’s 1500 Pre-Crossflow bottom end, but with a cast alloy head. Blocks were bored to 82.5 mm from the standard 80.96 mm, and like the BDA there have been many derivatives so you need to know your stuff. For instance, the Mk2 versions had a thicker casting to more reliably carry the increased capacity that allowed 1558cc. These later engines also had square mains caps — the same as 711M-block Crossflows’ proper oil seals as opposed