new TT Taurus
 

James: Great news, everyone!

Richard: What's that?

James: Ford has unveiled the new Taurus saloon!

Jeremy: That's brilliant!

Richard: Wait, what?

Jeremy: Right, moving on then...

http://img32.picoodle.com/img/img32/...sm_fc2aef9.jpg

Do not want.
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well, it's the best looking taurus to date. but that isn't saying much.

365hp 3.5L v6 stock = Win. I say this might be a step in the right direction for ford. The old SHO Taurus's were fucking badass back then.

Yeah, deffinately nice numbers but I didn't see anywhere in that article (unless I missed) how much that thing is going to way and I suspect alot. GM isn't doing as well as they hoped they would with the G8 and it's IMO a MUCH better looking car and probably more fun to drive being rwd Vs awd.

We need more lite weight sports cars, not overweight pigs.
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It's not a light weight sports car I'm sure. It probably weighs 3200-3400 pounds. But for what it is, a 4 door sedan, that's badass. We all might like light weight haul-ass cars, but most people in the real world have to drive a 4 door and haul their kids around, get groceries, and etc. For a DD, I'd drive one. I've actually ALWAYS wanted to find an old SHO taurus that wasn't beat to death for a dd. The old ones were VERY fun to drive, don't know if you ever drove one before. They were not a heavy slow pig.

But look at the torque curve!

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/image...ower-Curve.jpg

2010 Ford Taurus SHO: Live And With A Ridiculous Torque Curve

Compared to a E39 5 series which is in the same weight range or higher, I would say they ARE a heavy slow pig. Of course, they are way cheaper, but there is no reason why Ford shouldn't have had the dynamics tuned as well.

Good god! Dammmmn.

Its also has a 6speed and AWD. Not bad at all.

Vash-

Come on people, this is the best thing with the blue oval put out in the last few decades this side of the Atlantic.

Wasn't the original SHO engine sourced from Yamaha? I never got to drive one, but I understand it was a fun 'revving' car. I see they threw in an ecotec into the new taurus, good engine.

NOT ecotec. That's GM.

EcoBoost is Ford's thing, and they plan on putting a turbo engine in every car they make. Yay Ford.

Oh, and GM just announced that they are not designing any more performance cars effective immediately.

LOL, yea, ecotec is definitely GM. The "eco" in ecoboost threw me off. This shows my lack of knowledge to domestics.

Yes, it was a quad cam V6 yamaha built, and they detuned it for the old SHO. With a set of cams and a tune, those motors will make power to 7-8K. Yamaha also designed their original modular V8 as well. At the time Yamaha needed money and Ford needed a good engine, and they made a trade. Kept yamaha alive and ford got a few fantastic engines out of it.

As mentioned, this new motor is all Ford's. Go ford if they really make a turbo motor for every ford they sell.

The early v6 SHO motors loved being supercharged, I have seen them with close to 450whp on the stock block.

I was going to say sign me up for the AWD wagon, but then I saw the price. $40K for a Taurus is .... a lot.

no way i'd pay $40k for a ford either. it looks a lot better than the new mustang though.

Hate to say it Pat, but Yamaha didn't need the money and their building engines for Ford did not keep them alive. In fact, during that time they were acquiring other companies and building another assembly plant here in GA.

You sure? I've heard that story from a few different people.

I like the styling and the performance, but the pricepoint is still way off. Ford has been having problems with that lately, e.g. the Flex seems like a nice ute, but the price is batshit crazy.

Yep. I'm one of the Materials Controllers for the assembly plant here.

Ah. Well, sounds like the story got twisted a bit. You might know this, but... Did they put that same yamaha V6 in a ford truck back in the mid to late 90's? I've heard they did, but never seen one.

no, they did not.

there have been some SHO ranger conversions done though.

The word I got from a Ford Master Mechanic in the early-90s was the Yamaha V-6 was built more like a motorcycle engine than an automobile engine. Actual redline was above 10-grand, but electronically limited in the 7K range to prevent cavitation of the water pump and burning up the alternator. (Could be fact, could be fiction, but it is within the realm of possibilities...)

These engines respond well to FI, with both S/C, turbo and TT kits available on the aftermarket.

Using a bellhousing from a Ford Aerostar, you can mate an SHO engine to a Borg-Warner T5 tranny. (Making for an interesting potential TT V-6 Monster Miata...)

Road and Track keeps a charts of costs and performance data in the back of every issue. The month they first tested the SHO I noticed the SHO's numbers *matched* those of the IROC-Z. It's easy to imagine the Ford Engineers did that on purpose...

- L

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i have been around SHOs for awhile, love them and i can't wait to see the new one.

but all of your guys "SHO history" is just flat out wrong. the motor wont rev like a motorcycle, they were not "de-tuned" or any other magic you guys are talking about. but..... i have seen WELL north of 400whp on a stock internal motor.

hooray for performance based business commuter cars.

2008 Taurus AWD 3.5L curb weight 3,930 lbs.
Yes, add turbos and all of the high-line luxury goodies to that and see if you can hit 4,200 lbs.

I'm sure it will be spry. :bang:

Put myself through college working in an auto parts store (and a liquor store), and I remember SHO plug wire sets were $155.

I believe they were also responsible for the motor in the Celica GTS no?

I read a while back that ford was planning on replacing their 500's with Taurus' again.

the 3SGE and 3SGTE motor, yes.

that was the 2.0L in the mr2 and alltrac (turbo and n/a)

I had an alltrac and on the back a "powered by yamaha" sticker with the 3 tuning forks. :)

Yes. Yamaha actually developed the Toyota 2000GT (which shows our long partnership with Toyota) and was a Toyota partner in the design of most Type G heads. Most engines, including the 3SGE/3SGTE, the Previa specific 2TZFE/Z, and the 2ZZGE (GTS, Elise, Exige) were designed and cast by us. And we supply most of the components for the 4AGE and 2JZGE heads. We also make the 4.4L V8 engine for the '05+ Volvo XC90s.

bryantaylor is correct for the most part, like any engine, they were not able to live up to their full-potential in stock trim. No crazy redlines, etc. though. But anything Yamaha builds loves boost. It's why we're supercharging a whole line of WaveRunners now, they're insanely fast. Actually, they're HKS S/C'd 1.8L engines, could fit in a Miata. lol
I don't have a better shot at the moment, but here:
Attachment 208103

Pat, to answer your truck question, yes Ford actually did, but I think it only stayed in the "project truck" category. Spring 1990 issue of MiniTruckin': http://rockledge.home.comcast.net/~r.../SHORanger.pdf
Other than that, therieldeal is right, plenty of SHO engine/T5 tranny swaps into the Rangers.

Oh, and just to kill a myth, SHO did not originally stand for Super High Output, it became that, but it was derived from the engine's code name: Shogun. Ford was trying to keep the fact that they were using a Japanese-built engine in their cars a secret, but that was apparently quickly leaked. Also, you'll hear some arguments that the blocks were built by Ford and only the heads were Yamaha produced. This is also false. Yamaha copied the block design, but built the whole assembly in Japan.

/Yamaha Lesson :)

the shogun cas were awesome, but REALLY hacked up

Talking about the Festivas?

yes sir. there were a handfull actually made. a guy on SHOforum posted pics of a real one, and it looked like something i built in the driveway.

lol Yep. But they put down some impressive numbers.

Jay Leno's with nitrous:
http://www.shotimes.com/images/SHOgun/Leno2.jpg
http://www.shotimes.com/php-bin/images/SHOgun/Leno5.jpg

That's not the point of the Taurus though. It should be a nicely balanced affordable performance sedan if done right.

Light is getting nearly impossible to do now. How do you build a small lightweight car when a car has to have 42 air bags, integrated baby seats, electronic nannies controlling every movement and be able to hit a brick wall at 100mph and walk away.

my my my aren't we as a society becoming shittier drivers :cool:

love all this Yamaha info btw, ever since they have powered my DVD and surround sound system for the past 7 years I have been hooked

Affordable being the operative word. A Ford Taurus should not cost as much as a BMW 335i or a Mercedes C350, both of which will doubtless post faster laptimes, provide a tighter yet more comfortable ride, and do a better job of impressing women at the shallow end of the intellectual pool.


http://www.news-blogs.com/_images/au...elise_2006.jpg

That's funny. I have a 95 SHO (last year of the 'fun' ones). Love the thing, but it's quite the money pit and not fun to work on. Even changing the spark plugs was a bitch.

I actually wanted to buy a miata & throw a SHO engine in it. With an old 87ish Aerostar manual bellhousing you could mount it up to a T-5 tranny( i think that's what it was).

Then I got my miata and decided that was waay to much work.

Still think it would be fun though. But if i was going to throw off the weight distribution like that, I might as well get an LS1 or something.

The old SHO was a great car and the new one looks like a good performer too, but they aren't the same. They make power differently, the original came with a manual transmission, and then there is the weight factor. I like em both but I'd rather have a first gen. I wanted one as a first car but the maintenance costs scared me away, thats why most SHO owners have a driver and a parts car.

I had 96 Garnett and Tan SHO with said Yamaha's 3.4L V8. That car was quick, and sold it and got a 2002 Lincoln LS with a V8. The LS has a sweet sounding motor and exhaust note, nice ride, nice appointments, and unfortunately, my example was a true POS. That was my last Ford product.