Fox T-Bird/Cougar Forums  

Might be a dumb question, but what constitutes a built AOD? I need to work that in to the plans for the XR-7.... Either that or swap in a C-4. Don't think I really want to go that route though...

the bellhousings are the same? never knew that

The 232 is basically a 302 with two cylinders cut off.

internally or externally?

The Canadian Esshag's origins are somewhat controversial. A common, but erroneous, belief is that the Esshag was based on the 5.0 L Windsor V8 engine,  because they both have a 90° vee configuration, are OHV, and that a  5.0 L V8 less two cylinders would make a V6 displacing around 3.8  liters. Though the practice of deriving a V6 from a V8 was not unheard  of (auto manufacturers have derived V6s from V8 designs before, such as  GM making the Vortec 4300 from the Vortec 5700 and Chrysler making the Magnum 3.9  from the 5.2), several important differences between the Windsor's  design and the Esshag's, such as their considerably different bore and  stroke, made a common design lineage implausible.
 One source states that the Esshag is instead a reverse engineered Buick V6 engine.  Toward the end of the 1970s, Ford needed a new six cylinder engine that  was powerful and compact enough to be used in a mid-size car while  meeting increasingly stricter emissions and fuel efficiency standards.  Since Ford did not have an engine available that could be readily made  to meet these requirements, one needed to be developed. The quickest and  least expensive approach in accomplishing this was to copy an existing  engine from a competitor, which ended up being the Buick V6 from General  Motors. Ford's resulting V6 was very similar to that of the original  Buick engine — down to an unusual external oil pump design that was  common in Buick engines and without precedent in modern Fords — and had a  nearly identical displacement. In fact, one of the only major  differences between the two engines early on was Ford's use of aluminum  heads as opposed to the cast-iron ones used in the original Buick  design. However, in the years since the Esshag V6's debut, design  revisions from both Ford and GM to their respective V6 designs have  differentiated their engines from each other to a point that any  relationship between the two designs is not as obvious as it once was.