On April 9th Chris Schroeder, my engine builder, and I visited Cosworth in Torrance CA. A few weeks before that my wife and I were spending some time on the coast in central California. During that time we toured Hearst Castle. The tour guide mentioned several times that "it is nice to be a Hearst! ". Well, touring Cosworth I said several times "it is nice to be Cosworth!"
When we arrived we waited at the reception area for about 15 minutes. Apparently Eric Hsu is a very busy guy as he is as hard to see in person as he is to get on the phone. When Eric finally appeared he escorted us to the conference room and then went off to find Ken Anderson. Both Chris and I have considerable experience with Cosworth produced engines so the 10 minutes we waited for Eric and Ken was well spent perusing the display engines that ring the conference room. I love history and museums so looking at those 20 or so engines would have been worth an admission price.
When Ken and Eric returned they were carrying the sample internal components of their new 3.8 liter VQ kit. These pieces were pure automotive art. It is clear that when Cosworth decides to do a project they produce parts that are simply the best in existance.
Chris and I studied the parts, asked a few questions, and both knew right away that using Cosworth components was in our immediate future. We spent a few more minutes discussing the business side of things. It is interesting to note how much Cosworth has embraced the Time Attack model as a place to showcase and sell their performance line of parts.
Ken had a meeting so Eric gave us a tour of the facility. As I said before, it is nice to be Cosworth. The 23,500 sq ft. facility contains everything a proper engine shop should contain. In fact, it contains several of everything a proper engine shop should contain. During the tour it became obvious that the resources that Cosworth has and the experience that Cosworth has enable them to simply be the "best".
It will be strange to be using a "kit" from a supplier. I have not built an engine in years that did not contain parts, especially pistons, of our own design.
We finished our tour, asked a few more questions that would be answered by the "UK", and left the facility a little starstruck by our experience. We then set off to meet with Jason from Mine's to start on the GTR project. More on that later.
Jackson
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