The Ford 4.6 engine has been used by many small volume sports car manufacturers worldwide since 1996, so it's natural, that as the pre-eminent builder of these engines, Sean Hyland Motorsport has been asked to provide engineering solutions for several manufacturers using this engine around the world.
 

  
  
Sean Hyland Motorsport was approached be MG-Rover of the UK in 2002, to supply a prototype 4.6 based V8 engine for a planned sports car, the SV-R. The first prototype engine was a 465ph bored and stroked version of the DOHC 4.6 engine. This engine was fitted to the XP1 as the first prototype was known, and eventually taken to Nardo Italy, where sports car racer John Neilson lapped the car at over 192mph around the 8 mile test track. 
  

  
Following the initial prototype, SHM was contracted to develop a production version engine, based on the 4.6 DOHC engine. The production engine would have to meet all applicable car regulations, including EPA LEV emissions requirements, and mandatory EU drive by noise regulations as well. Following a short 6 month development program, the naturally aspirated 5 liter version of the engine produced 385hp in full emissions trim. Testing of the emissions was Roush laboratory in Detroit, attended by a UK government representative. Next stop was durability testing at the Nardo test track in southern Italy. This 8 mile round track is used by every European car manufacturer, and MG was no exception. Prototype cars were driven non-stop, 24 hours per day, coming off the track only to add fuel, check fluid levels and change drivers. 15,000 miles of continuous driving at speeds up to 150 mph were required in order to achieve engineering sign off.
 
 
 
Sean Hyland Motorsport was contracted to produce 400 engine drop kits to ISO TS14969 manufacturing standards, for the MG SV-R, in both manual transmission and automatic transmission versions, following the testing and approvals of the drivetrain package. Unfortunately, less than 100 of these packages were produced before MG fell into receivership in early 2005. It remains a high point in SHM history however, as only a handful of companies in North America have ever produced fully certified drivetrain packages meeting all the requirements of a major car manufacturer. The lessons learned from such a program have since been applied to every engine we produce today. 

MG Press Video

Koenigsegg, the well known Swedish manufacturer of supercars, first contacted Sean Hyland to arrange an engine for their pre-production prototype in 2000. This engine was a Vortech supercharged version of the 4.6 DOHC engine, uprated to over 600 hp. The engine was supplied complete with Motec management system, and dry sump oiling system, in order to package into the mid engined supercar prototype. Engineer support was provided to get the prototype engine up and running in Sweden following some further development over the years. Later on Koenigsegg started their inhouse engine development.

 
The Qvale Mangusta as a specialty Italian sports car company produced in Modena Italy by Shell Qvale and his son Bruce, importers on many European sports and luxury cars into the US. The Mangusta was produced between 1999 and 2001, and used the Ford 4.6 DOHC engine from the mustang Cobra of the time. Sean Hyland Motorsport were contracted to provide several supercharged intercooled packages, including engineering support, and these were supplied and tested at the Qvale factory in Modena. SHM also produced an automatic transmission prototype for Qvale in the Woodstock location, for evaluation purposes. Qvale produced about 350 cars in total, and many of the cars sold in the US have since found their way to SHM for upgrades. 

 


The Panoz Esperante, built in Atlanta, Georgia, is one of few small volume sports car manufacturers in North America. Since 2001, working in conjunction with JRD Tuning, the official aftermarket tuning arm of Panoz, Sean Hyland Motorsport have created several powertrain upgrades for use with the Esperante, including a 5.2 liter naturally aspirated engine package and supercharged engine packages for both the RS and the RSR versions of the Esperante. SHM worked with JRD to package the supercharger and intercooler into an extremely small area, creating a factory appearance to the upgrades.

 


As Panoz began to use the 2003 Cobra engines for their cars, SHM provided yet again, complete upgrade solutions for customers desiring even more power from their Esperante. 

 
Marcos is a small sports car manufacturer based in the UK, with a history that goes back to the early 1960's. The Marcos Mantis used a 4.6 Cobra engine, and when the factory created a race series for the Mantis, Sean Hyland Motorsport was contacted to provide upgrades to the engine which could be used for racing. Ultimately, we provided exhaust headers, and systems plus tuning and cold air packages for some 30 plus cars running in the series. We were also the main provider of service parts from North America to keep these cars running on the track. 

The initial work extended into development of supercharged engine packages for road going Marcos cars, and development of 3 race engine packages for a Marcos GT3 FIA race car. Since the close of the factory in 2001, we have continued to supply many engines and parts to individual teams racing Marcos cars in the British GT Championship, Britcar, Belcar and others.