For more than 40 years, Jay Ivey has followed the fortunes of Formula Ford, from portal to professional racing, through serious decline—and on to rebirth as a popular vintage class, thanks largely to parts that Ivey supplies.
 

Ivey Engines of Portland, Oregon, is a major force in Formula Ford and has been since Jay Ivey opened the shop in 1983. Consider the Historic Motor Sports Association (HMSA) season opener at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, which included the first Crossflow Cup race of 2025. The event was still about a week in the future when we spoke to Ivey in March. "I think they'll get another five to eight entries," he predicted, "but right now there are 30 Formula Fords—Club Ford and Historic Ford—and with the other classes that we build engines for, the Lotus twin-cam and Coventry Climax, we'll probably have 45 engines there." That's out of 200 cars, he estimated. "Here on the West Coast, usually about 25% of the entries will be running our engines."

And it's not just engines. Ivey also supplies parts for the Ford "Kent" 1600 and its Cosworth and Lotus derivatives—brand new parts, re-engineered for dramatically improved reliability and longevity. "Over in Europe and the UK, they rebuild their engines every 15 hours," said Ivey. "With our parts over here, we rebuild our engines every 50 hours." 

Now Ivey hopes to expand into the UK. "Historic Formula Ford is really strong," he added. "It's probably one of the strongest classes worldwide."
That's true now—but the class, and Ivey, have seen and survived some very hard times.

OPPORTUNITY IN ADVERSITY

The first time Jay Ivey moved to Portland, he was 17 years old, and it was his 11th cross-country move. As he tells it, he grew up with the nation's infrastructure: "The I-5 corridor, the San Luis Obispo Reservoir, the California Aqueduct. My dad did prototype testing and accelerated-wear testing for Detroit Diesel, and he was sent to these projects."

The 1970s found Sam Ivey at Bonneville with Bill Snyder and his diesel-powered Thermo King Streamliner, which would ultimately reach a record 235.765 mph. Jay met Snyder on the salt, "and one year he sent me tickets to the Indy 500. That was something I always wanted to do. So I was cruising around the little garages, and I met AJ Foyt and talked to him a bit, and I just kind of got the bug.

"I was 20, and I had a street car shop on the Washington Peninsula, but I wanted to get involved in racing. I did a little research and came back to Portland and worked for Arnie Loyning [who sadly passed away in April during production of this magazine], back when he was just getting going building engines in Formula Ford. I was with him for about 16 months, and then I started building engines for Mike Gue and Phil Creighton"—the East Coast importers for Van Diemen—" and I just kind of went on from there."

(Left image) In the 1990s, Jay Ivey developed Formula Ford parts that improved reliability without affecting horsepower, primarily by improving materials: "Going from a cast piston to a forged piston, or a gray iron cast crankshaft to a ductile iron cast crankshaft," Ivey said. Dane Dennison is pictured here working on the crankshaft polisher. (Right image) Ivey Engines builds some 70 engines a year for Formula Fords, plus Lotus twin-cam and Coventry Climax engines for other classes. "Here on the West Coast, usually about 25% of the entries [at a race] will be running our engines," said Jay Ivey. Sebastian Westfall is seen here on the DCM.

Ivey built his business by "working to be good and competitive and to win races—and to get engines into the right cars with the right drivers." 

In the 1980s, as salvage parts for the Kent 1600 became increasingly scarce, he compensated by building 2-liter Fords for Formula Atlantic and Sports 2000. By 1989 he had 10 employees and a new, 7,000-square-foot shop under construction. He built 257 engines that year. "Then with one stroke of a pen, it took a nosedive, and we were down to 60 engines in 1990."

That fateful pen stroke came from the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), changing the rules to allow newer engines and newer technology into traditional Ford 2-liter territory. "They went to an Oldsmobile engine in one part of the country and a Cosworth in another," said Ivey. "It got to be a jumbled-up mess, and they lost lots of competitors. I had just finished the building that I am in now, and it was a struggle. I almost lost it a couple of times. But I had good customers who kept doing business and supported us, while we just kept plugging away."

Ivey didn't give up on Formula Ford, either. "There was an opportunity, I felt, to step in and develop some good parts and keep the class strong, and to keep it at a reasonable price." He partnered with top racing component manufacturers to develop new, bolt-in parts that would improve reliability without affecting horsepower. "Everything we did was with a blessing from Ford and approved by SCCA. The deal was they would let me develop the parts as long as they didn't develop any more horsepower. They didn't want to create 'must-have' parts that would ultimately increase the cost of racing."

With weights and dimensions fixed, improvements came mostly from better materials—"say, going from a cast piston to a forged piston, or from a cast rod to a forged rod, or a gray iron cast crankshaft to a ductile iron cast crankshaft." A critical piece fell into place in 2009–2010, when Ford re-started production of the Kent engine block, similarly upgraded for reliability, and available in different deck heights to accommodate cross-flow and pre-cross-flow applications.

That same winter, however, Jay's wife Susan, who had managed the office from the beginning, needed surgery for cancer. "My wife and I had to leave for a month," said Ivey. "I was just going to pack it in—but my two sons have been working here since they were 10 or 12 years old, and they said, 'We can do this,' and they did, and they have been doing the day-to-day ever since. Cameron is in the office and Colin is in charge of the shop. He builds all the engines, and he knows how every piece of machinery works." Additionally, "we have Sebastian Westfall, who does cylinder head porting and freshening," and Mark Viskov "who's been with the shop a long time," and whose many skills include machining blocks.

Today, Ivey builds 70-plus engines a year. Those engines, plus part sales, more than sustain the business. In fact, Ivey supplies every component in a 1,600cc Kent cross-flow except the rocker arms. 

And why not the rocker arms?

"I'm working on it," Ivey replied.

Aside from the occasional bushing or similarly simple component, however, Ivey doesn't actually make any parts. "We have all the general automotive machine shop equipment to build engines," he explained. "We do valve seat and guide work, and we can hone and surface a block, but we don't have the time or personnel to make parts. So we go to someone who does runs of maybe 500 pieces. For pistons, we go to someone like CP Pistons, or we go to Scat for a crankshaft or rods. We give them the specs, or a drawing, or even a part to reverse-engineer, and start the development process from there.

"It's been good for the competitors. It's why the class is having a resurgence, because the parts are there, and they are reliable, and we always keep a good inventory."

THE FUTURE IS VINTAGE

In four decades, of course, Formula Ford has changed. So have Ivey's customers. "Years ago," Ivey recalled, "Formula Ford was an entry-level class, the bottom rung of the ladder to IndyCar. We were dealing with 18-year-old kids like Jimmy Vasser, Paul Tracy, Greg Moore, Bryan Herta—lots of really talented young drivers who all had aspirations of driving Indy cars or F1. It was more professional, and it was super-competitive.

"Some of our customers are still the same people, who have kept their cars from 40 years ago, and they are still racing, or their sons or daughters are driving.
"There are new people coming in," he added, but they tend to be hobbyists rather than aspiring professionals, "people in their mid-30s or 40s or 50s, who always wanted to do it, and now they can afford to do it." 

A self-described "longtime customer," Ethan Shippert was working for vintage engine builder Dave Vegher when he traded his Formula Vee for a Formula Ford. "Dave was extremely experienced with Cosworth, the Lotus twin-cam, and the BMW M12," but "'Formula Fords are very nuanced,'" he told Shippert. "'You need to look for the last little bit of this, the last little bit of that. You should call Jay Ivey.'

"So I sent my engine up there, and they took good care of me and made sure I had good equipment." Ivey offered Shippert some life advice as well. "I was in the middle of my second or third season, and I was racing and living off my credit cards. Jay pulled me aside and said, 'This will still be here. You need to be smart. You can't just go through all your money.'"

Longtime Ivey Engines customer Ethan Shippert said Formula Ford car counts "are up all over the country. The normal weekend club race will get 25 to 30 cars. That's because of the Ivey's efforts." Here is a group of vintage and club Formula Fords at Pacific Raceways.

Today Shippert Racing Services of Sonoma, California, maintains a fleet of 28 vintage race cars, mostly Formula Atlantics but also a few Formula Fords and 2-liter sports racers. "We probably send 40% of our engines up to Ivey," said Shippert, while crediting "massive" improvements in longevity to Ivey's parts. "When I first started club racing, a Formula Ford was a 10- or 12-hour engine. Now they're in the neighborhood of 50 to 60 hours on the bottom end, and we pull the cylinder head every 15 to 20 hours. It used to be that Saturday night you pulled the head, and every Formula Ford racer went to the track with a head gasket." 

Ted Guenther of Paradise Valley, Arizona, first "ran into Jay at the races in the mid-1980s, and he was very helpful. I was running Sports 2000, and then Formula Atlantic. I did a lot of my own engine building, but I would call him and say, 'Hey, Jay, what about this?' And later on, when I got real serious about Sports 2000, he did all my head work, and he'd dyno engines for me. And same thing when I ran Continental, back when they allowed the 2-liter Pinto motor.

"There was a big discussion back in the day about oil pumps on the 2-liters," he continued. One prominent engine builder "was running a 5/8-inch pressure section, to save like an eighth of a horsepower, and you'd come off the track with hot oil at 5 psi. Jay said that was a little over the top, and that's interesting because now when Fast Forward [Components of Sand City, California] builds a 2-liter pump, they are up to an inch on the pressure section."

These days, Guenther restores vintage race cars, currently a Lola Sports 2000 and a Swift DB6. "I source all my Formula Ford parts through Ivey. I've probably bought six or seven sets of pistons, and they have probably done 10 heads for me this year."

Formula Ford, Guenther added, "is a very healthy class. The SVRA people get 20 to 30 cars at a major event, and there's a big contingent of cars down in Mexico that run a Toyo street tire." Additionally, "there's a lot of action now on the West Coast. It's semi-vintage—old DB1s and DB6s running on Hoosier cantilever slicks. In our little series, which is Thunderhill down to Willow Springs, we're getting maybe 15 to 20 cars, and in Phoenix they get 10 to 15. A lot of the guys who run down here have Jay do all their engines. 

"It's a great time to be racing a Formula Ford," Shippert added. "Car counts are up all over the country. The normal weekend club race will get 25 to 30 cars. That's because of the Ivey's efforts." 

WIN ON SUNDAY

Ivey helped set up the Formula Ford series in Mexico City. He and Susan spend winters in La Paz, where he provides technical assistance to a marine biology research center. "I also help the schools down there, because they've realized that not all kids go to college, and some kids don't know how to write code. I help teach them how to use tools and show them that there are opportunities to be passionate about that aren't on your iPhone or computer." 
He returns north for the US racing season and still provides most of Ivey Engines' on-track support. "At some races we might have 50 engines, and a small problem on Friday becomes a big problem on Monday if I wasn't there to fix it," he explained. "So if there's an issue, I don't have a problem jumping on a plane and going to help somebody." 

More often, however, Ivey sends parts and tools "in somebody's trailer" and deals mostly with minor adjustments—"carburetion and ignition, wiring issues, a misfire. It's nagging stuff, never anything catastrophic. The engines are pretty bulletproof. Because we do the job right here, we don't have to do a lot of work at the track. Honestly, when I'm at the races I work more on engines I didn't build than I work on my own."

While he's there, he hands out some swag: "T-shirts, hats, and other stuff that I [also] send off with the engines." Even so, Ivey said that his best promotions are "our engines, our reputation, and how we service our people. If you win races, you sell engines."

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