PLENTY of aftermarket hot-shops have stroked the venerable cast-iron pushrod Windsor V8 over the years, but none have backed their work with a three-year Ford warranty. So when the time came to silence the critics, who pointed to a lack of engine performance relative to HSV, Ford enlisted the help of Tickford. The Windsor V8 has been the staple diet of Ford V8 customers since its inception in the late 1960s, receiving improvements over the years until it offered 220kW of peak power for the previous generation T-Series range. But it still was not enough to match its opposite number at HSV and when XR8 was blessed with the best Windsor Tickford could muster, in May, 2001, increasing the Windsor's capacity for T-Series cars became the only way to go. In effect, then, the 5605cc V8 is a hand-built, longer-stroke version of the highly developed 220kW Windsor engine, producing 250kW at 5250rpm and an impressive 500Nm of torque at 4250rpm.