Cosworth

engine block Cosworth DFV on a Ligier JS11]]
**Cosworth** is a high performance engineering company. It was founded in London in 1958. It builds engines and electronics for automobile racing, mainstream automotive and defence industries. Cosworth is based in Northampton, England. It has North American facilities in Torrance, California; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Mooresville, North Carolina. It also has a facility in Pune, India.

Cosworth has had a long and well respected career in Formula One, beginning in 1963. Cosworth stepped away from Formula One for three years when no team decided to use their engines for . Cosworth returned to F1 in , suppling engines to Williams, HRT, Lotus, and Virgin. The first Formula One engines shipped in January. Cosworth's 176 wins make it the second most successful engine manufacturers in F1, after Ferrari.

## Corporate history 
The company was founded as a British racing internal combustion engine maker in 1958 by Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth (1933-2005) The name Cosworth came by combining their last names. (COStin and duckWORTH). Even thought it was an independent company, it was supported by the Ford Motor Company for many years. Most of the Cosworth engines were named Ford engines.

The company went through a several ownership changes. The business was growing. Keith Duckworth did not want to run the day-to-day business.

Cosworth was sold to United Engineering Industries (UEI) in 1980. Duckworth remained as president for life, and technical involvement with Cosworth. He became a UEI board director. UEI was a group of small to medium-sized technology companies.

UEI was taken over by Carlton Communications in 1988. Carlton wanted some of the audio-visual companies that were part of UEI. Cosworth was a poor fit, so Carlton sold the Cosworth part off.

In 1990, Cosworth was sold to Vickers, a British engineering company. Hours later, Audi sold the Cosworth Racing division to Ford.

In September, 2004 Ford announced that it was selling Cosworth, along with Cosworth Racing Ltd and its Jaguar Formula One team. On 15 November 2004, the sale of Cosworth was completed to Champ Car World Series owners Gerald Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven They are the current owners of the Cosworth Group.

## Engines 
### Association with Ford 
Cosworth has had a long relationship with the Ford Motor Company. This started when Cosworth started building racing engines in 1959. These engines were modified versions of the  Inline-four Ford Kent engine for Formula Junior. Cosworth built a  engine for the Lotus 7.  and  engines were built use in Formula B, sports car racing, and the Lotus Cortina. The final version of the Cosworth-Kent, in 1965, was the MAE. It was used in Formula 3 when  engines were allowed. This was the dominate engine.

### The FVA series 
The Cortina engine was also the basis for the FVA, a Formula Two engine introduced in 1966. This engine featured dual overhead camshafts with 16 valves. It produced at least  at 9000&nbsp;rpm. This engine dominated the category until 1971. It was also used in sports car racing as the FVC. The FVA was part of the same Ford contract that gave rise to the DFV.

A larger engine was built for endurance racing in the mid 1970s. The FVC displaced .  The FVC produced only .

### The DFV (Double Four Valve) 
In 1966, Colin Chapman of Lotus Cars was the founder and principal of Team Lotus. He got Ford to finance Keith Duckworth's design for a new lightweight 3.0&nbsp;litre Formula One engine. The first engines were shipped to teams in mid-January, 2 weeks prior to first track testing for the year. The final US version produced 110&nbsp;bhp. Cosworth's EA racing version was not successful due to engine block structural failures. Projected sales of the Cosworth Vega had been 5,000. The 1500 unused hand-built Cosworth Vega engines were simply scrapped for lack of demand.

Cosworth became involved with Mercedes-Benz in the mid-1980s. Mercedes-Benz wanted to create a Group B rally car. They turned to Cosworth to development the engine.

Mercedes wanted a 320&nbsp;bhp engine based on the 136&nbsp;bhp Mercedes M102 2.3 litre 4-cylinder engine. The task was given to Mike Hall, who design the famed DFV and BDA engines. Designed around the existing M102 engine, its valves set a 45° angle, rather than the 40° of the BDA. engine also was Cosworth’s first one-piece head. The camshaft carrier was cast with the head itself.

## Cosworth F1 car 
Cosworth tried to design a full Formula One Grand Prix car in 1969. The car was designed by Robin Herd. It used a new design of a 4WD transmission designed by Keith Duckworth. This transmission was different from the Ferguson transmission used by all other 4WD F1 cars of the 1960s. It was powered by a version of the DFV engine built out of magnesium. The plan was to drive the car at the  British Grand Prix. Cosworth withdrew the car without any explanation. Herd left Cosworth to form March Engineering. The F1 car project was canceled. The external design of the car was Herd's use of Mallite sheeting. Mallite is a product made from layers of wood and aluminum. The Mallite was for the main structural monocoque (car body) sections. This is a procedure he developed on the first McLaren single-seat race cars, including the McLaren M2B of 1966.

## Summary of F1 engine use 
## References 
* List of F1 engines by year

## Literature 
* Bernd Tuchen, Ford in der Formel 1 1965 bis 1994.  Die Geschichte des legendären Ford Cosworth DFV Motors.  Seine Entstehung, seine Rennställe, seine Siege und Weltmeister (Büchenbach 2006/Verlag Dr. Faustus) (www.Verlag-Dr-Faustus.de) 
* Graham Robson, *Cosworth: The Search For Power*, 4th ed, Haynes, 1999, 

## Other websites 
* Cosworth
* Cosworth Performance Parts 
* List of Cosworth engine types