Classic Ford included our Duratec kits in it's feature on Ultimate Street Engines in the July 2012. An excerpt is shown below with Classic Ford's permission

Big BHP numbers might give you bragging rights but is that really what you need for the street? We find out a lesser-spec may well be much better for point-to-point quickness....

The noise and power of a race-spec motor may well get you all excited, but on the street are you better off with something, dare we say, a bit detuned? And no we are not going soft, quite frankly, race engines are meant for race tracks and with good reason. You have to really consider what race-spec means. Ultimate tuning results in massive horsepower figures, but at the high end of the rpm scale. And that translates amongst other things into cams that don't come on song until 5000rpm and peak at a heady 9000-10000rpm. Coping with those extremes could mean wallet-busting steel components for the majority of classic Ford engines. But it's not just that - your car might even be slower in the short spurt type of road network we now heave. Mid-range power may well be better than ultimate numbers.

So let's look at just how far you can go for top-spec, livable horsepower that won't make you hate your car....

Duratec - Ford's new-school engine can be as wild as you like on the road - with the right combination of parts, naturally.

This engine really represents the new order of thinking. According to specialists SBD Motorsport, you can almost go as wild as you like because their induction and engine management kits virtually smooth the engine out to the point where it's almost a pussycat to live with. SBD's Steve Broughton even reckons that applies to their 300bhp kit!

A completely standard Duratec will easily see 200bhp with merely an induction change - in this case that's almost exclusively throttle bodies. Steve reckons these can be massive and still retain excellent throttle response. They regularly fit 52mm bodies - although they favour their own taper design, helping no-end with response and driveability. With the right exhaust, the basic level of SBD tune is 203bhp and it moves on from there with a set of CM-DUR01 cams, raising the bar up to 215bhp, then beyond to 250-260 with CM-DUR02s. Steve reports that the standard cams are extremely mild to achieve the very low levels of emissions this engine is reowned for - therefore the margin for improvement is huge since this is a naturally excellent breathing engine.

Huge power comes with a CNC-ported head and steel components above 245bhp - and you can go to this with the proper combination of parts and mapping/engine management. Perhaps this then is our cut-off point because revs are needed beyond to get the most amount of power. So with this engine then it seems., it's not so much of what's a pig to live with, rather than how big's your wallet because apparently, virtually any level of tune can be tolerated.