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Who is Rob Herrod?
Rob Herrod is the owner/manager of Herrod Motorsport in Melbourne, Victoria. The business is most recognised for its high-performance work on Ford vehicles.
Rob started a mechanical apprenticeship with his father in 1975. Back in those days, Rob and his father ran a Bob Jane T-Mart tyre outlet from a service station. When self-serve servos were phased in, however, Rob and his father moved on to a dedicated mechanical workshop that was alongside a professional panel beater and spray painter. Rob learnt a lot about paint and panel during this time and, about two years later, they progressed into a nicer workshop in Coburg. "That was home until about three years ago' says Rob, "we just outgrew it".
Not long after moving into the Coburg workshop, Rob really started getting into hot Fords. "I bought an XD Fairmont Ghia from the auctions, put a set of Globes on it and lowered it. People told me I had the touch and started coming in with these new Fords. We lowered them, put on new exhausts and all sorts of things" - that's really how the current face of the business started. "From there I bought wrecked Falcons - total write-offs - picked up a new shell from Ford and re-shelled it. To cut a long story short, I'd buy these cars, do all this work and drive them for 6 or 12 months. Someone would come along and offer me stupid money for it and I'd do another one. I loved it - I learnt heaps about how cars were built - and it was great for promoting the business as well."
The next phase came about when the EB-series Falcon was released with a V8; Simmons Wheels (who Rob had already built up a relationship with) came in and said they wanted something flash as their delivery van. "I grabbed an injected 5.0-litre from Ford and put it into a XH, I think, panel van. That was grouse; it ended up just like a factory set-up. That made me decide I should build myself a ute, so I bought a blue XG - a 5.0-litre factory one - and then work simply exploded. On the other hand, I couldn't really grow because the workshop wasn't big enough." About this time, Rob's father became ill and Rob took over the business on his own.
"After that, I moved into a larger building here at Thomastown and it's been going great guns. I mean, when Howard Marsden left Tickford to go to Ford Racing he came to me and offered a few bits and pieces and, hence, we started doing all this Ford Racing work. Howard got us building a little Laser Panther and a few other cars that showed marketing people how to do it. All that stuff is great."
These days, Rob specialises in 'individualised' cars - "I suppose you can say a Corsa kind of thing". Herrod now has extensive distributorship throughout Australia and overseas - "we've got two main dealers in New Zealand" explains Rob, "and we get along well with the people at Ford, so if a customer wants something special they're often pointed here."
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What mods are effective on injected 5.0-litre Windsor V8s?
"My advice is just to do a set of extractors, an exhaust - a 3 or 2 ½-inch system - and maybe a UniChip or something. At the moment the UniChip is what I use. That's about as far you can go and still get good value for money. If you put a cam in, at the end of the day it's a two or three thousand dollar job by the time you put upgrade valve springs in it - and it doesn't even go that much better because the heads and intake manifold are restrictive. We don't really advise people to go down that route."
"The biggest problem is people coming in with EB, ED, EF and EL V8s and they've got crappy cylinder heads and crappy intake manifolds. You tell people they've got to spend seven or eight grand replacing all that junk and they ask why. Some people reckon I'm ripping them off when I say that, but I'm not - it's just that other people talk rubbish. We sell our own throttle bodies for the Windsor purely because the stock ones are so restrictive."
"Really, I'd recommend drawing the line with just an exhaust and maybe some sort of programmable computer to lean it out. There's too much that needs changing to make those early injected Windsors competitive - I don't think they're very cost effective to get lots of power out of. The EL Series 2 V8 wasn't as bad - it had ceramic-coated extractors, an Explorer type intake manifold, a 60mm throttle body and standard heads. They didn't get the GT40B heads though."
"On EB to EF V8s I find their airflow meter is prone to failure - they drive fine, with plenty of punch and economy but they're running about 15:1 air-fuel at wide open throttle. As lean as buggery. A new airflow meter from Ford is now $1200-1300 and you've also got to make sure it has the right calibration to suit the EEC."
"When someone comes in with an AU V8 it's great - they've already got decent cylinder heads, a good intake manifold a 65 or 70mm throttle body. The AU-onward V8 is a good thing to work with. We make 170 kilowatts at the wheels with a cam, exhaust and computer upgrade and - for about five or six grand - our customers think its grouse."
And what about the XR6 4.0-litre DOHC turbo engine that everyone's raving about?
"Yeah, look they're a real nice engine and I reckon - once the ECU is sorted out - we'll see some big power numbers. We've already fabricated a bolt-on exhaust upgrade - we've designed a 3 and 3 ½-inch mandrel bent system. All we're waiting on is to crack the engine management - it's extremely intelligent. I'm working with Lachlan Riddel of ChipTorque and I think we're getting pretty close; once it's sorted out he'll be selling our kits in the Gold Coast area. In addition to the exhaust, we've already got an upgrade intercooler fabricated and, yep, it's raring to go. These cars are going to be big - I get ten or fifteen emails a day on them and we've already got about eighty booked in."
"We've also got a mandrel exhaust system fabricated for the atmo 6-cylinder but we're yet to crack that ECU as well - I think it's pretty much the same as the XR6 Turbo's."
And how much potential do the new 3-valve and 4-valve 5.4-litre V8s have?
"Look, I'm a V8 man and I think Ford have hit it on the head with that engine - it drives like people want a V8 to. I've driven a Gen 3 Holden V8 and I thought it was gutless - no torque."
"In terms of development, we've already done quite a lot. We've developed a range of exhaust systems and, as far as I know, we're the only people that currently have a set of headers to suit. The engine has to come out to fit those.
While we're still to fully remap the ECU, we're currently picking up around 10 percent with an extractor and exhaust package - a standard BA XR8 makes about 190kW at the wheels standard and about 220 with our exhaust. There is always a car-to-car variation though. The standard 3-valve 5.4, as fitted to the Fairmont, makes about 160kW at the wheels and about 180 with an exhaust - so it's not a bad gain. I mean, you put an exhaust on an early injected Windsor V8 and you'd pick up about 10 kilowatts at the wheels."
"But, look, I was talking to my dad about the power of the 6-cylinder turbo and the 5.4-litre V8s the other day - he said how stupid it is that one company is promoting 'Wipe Off Five', and on the other hand new cars have all this power and speed. Holden has had powerful engines for a while and, only now, Ford is coming back to avenge them in the power war; everybody loves power but at the end of the day there are limits."
Where do you think Ford Australia will be in the future?
"I think we'll see Ford back on top by the end of this year. I don't believe the Commodore is the car they reckon it is, and I reckon the Ford has always had a better chassis and a better seating position. I think the Ford is a better car, I really do. Of course, the new range of engines is fantastic as well."
Contact:
Herrod Motorsport
+61 3 9464 5100
