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The first in-house Ford diesels to be built in North America will be machined, assembled and tested at the Chihuahua Engine Plant (CHEP) in Mexico from 2009, reports John Mortimer. The 4.4-litre V8 engine will appear in Ford F-Series pick-up trucks as well as other Ford vehicles.

Production is expected to start in late 2009 or early 2010. Volumes are expected to reach 275,000 units a year. The 4.4-litre turbocharged engine with common-rail fuel injection could develop in the region of 242kW (330hp) and 750Nm of torque.

The engine is modelled on the 3.6-litre V8 diesel made at Ford’s Dagenham, UK, diesel centre. It is likely to share some common technologies and its cylinder block will be in compacted graphite iron.

At present, Ford’s F-Series trucks are powered by Navistar International’s 6.4-litre V8 Power Stroke diesel. Ford and Navistar have an exclusivity agreement that expires at the end of 2012.

In 2006, Ford purchased some 275,000 V8 Power Stroke engines from Navistar, but earlier this year there was a dispute between the two companies over payments and warranty costs relating to the 6-litre Power Stroke engine.

The choice of CHEP comes after it was singled out in the Way Forward programme announced by Mark Fields, Ford’s president of the Americas in June 2006. He said new programmes in Mexico “would be announced over the next several years” and that “high quality and low cost” would be keynotes of the plant.

CHEP opened in 1983. A $525 million expansion began in 1998 and finished in 2004.

The new 4.4-litre diesel marks a shift in emphasis for the plant, which up to now has built gasoline engines, including relatively small Zetec and Duratec power units.

Part of the investment in the plant will include at least 100 machining centres that will process main components such as cylinder blocks and heads. In choosing them, flexibility to cater for fluctuations in demand will be crucial – the ability to implement change quickly and maximise uptime are two of Ford’s key requirements.

In the past, CrossHüller, part of MAG Industrial Automation Systems, has supplied machining centres for new Ford engine production facilities.

A second engine line at CHEP is planned for 2010, producing a 373kW (500hp) 6.7-litre V8 diesel.

This engine could bring total annual production of the new manufacturing lines there up to 400,000 units.