Ford hints at a high-performance version of its 7.3-liter Godzilla crate engine
Much of the automotive industry is focusing on downsizing its engines for better fuel economy and packaging. However, Ford is flying in the face of that idea with the 7.3-liter truck engine that it’s fitted to the current Super Duty trucks.
The engine — nicknamed Godzilla — is also available from Ford Performance as a crate engine. This is exciting for performance enthusiasts for several reasons, but the Godzilla is still a standard truck engine at the end of the day. Ford’s working on something that could change that, and it’s called Megazilla, according to a video published by Performance Racing Industry in November.
Ford isn’t giving up any details on the Megazilla project, but based on what we know about the standard version, we can guess how the engineers at Ford Performance will improve upon it. The first area we’d expect to see changed would be the cast-iron block. Sure, that’s great for longevity, but it also weighs a lot (the engine by itself is a porcine 580 pounds).
An aluminum-blocked Megazilla makes more sense from a performance perspective and would certainly give GM’s LS-series of engines a run for their money. We wouldn’t be surprised to see Ford add forced induction in the form of a supercharger to the motor. This would be a great answer to FCA’s wild Hellephant crate engine and its 1,000 horsepower out of the box.
Aside from the Megazilla news, Ford is also working on a manual transmission version of Godzilla’s control pack that would allow you to run whatever transmission you saw fit behind the engine, rather than be stuck with the truck’s automatic transmission, as it is now.
We asked Ford Performance for more details but didn’t hear back in time for publication.
Ford’s standard Godzilla engine is available for sale now from Ford Performance for a surprisingly reasonable $8,150 (not including the control pack that makes all the electronics work).
What would you put a Godzilla engine in if you had your druthers?
Hauling and rock crawling with the 2020 Ford F-Series Super Duty
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