Someone, please, enlighten my as to WHY parts prices for these mod motors are so insane?!?!?!

I have a 5.4 DOHC Nav motor that I am building. I have a complete pull, all accs, brackets, harness, tranny, computer, even gauges and dash wiring.

While I am not "new" to mods, this is my first soup-to-nuts build on a mod motor. I already have an FI S88 turbo head, custom DOHC turbo headers, and an intercooler. The rest of it will be custom, not too many F150 5.4 DOHC turbo kits running around. I am only looking to put about 1000-1100hp to the wheels. Any more and I would worry about the block, though I am aware of more than a couple who are pushing well into the 2000's with the stock 5.4 DOHC block!

Anyway, back on topic. Every single little cotton-picking thing I look at STARTS at a grand! Heads? 4x-6x the money. Cams? For a DOHC, they START at $1100 for a box grind. I am seriously spending well over 2k just on cams! To me, that is positively, absolutely, without a doubt crazy! They are CAMS!!!!!!! 4 piece of steel cut on a machine! WTH can be so expensive about that? You spend 500 on a cam for a pushrod motor and it's a DAMN NICE cam! Having my heads done, that is sending off MY heads, having the porting done, valves done, new rockers, cams, etc. is costing about $7,000. Do you have ANY idea what kind of heads you can get with 7k for a 351? You're up there with hand ported Brodix heads with titanium valves. You're talking heads for a 6 second car! Pistons, rods, you name it. EVERYTHING is just INSANELY expensive! I am used to building Stangs. A nice built short block will run you, what, 5k? A nice, built mod motor, double that and you MIGHT be close to having a grenade, triple that and you MIGHT have a motor that will run through a few traps. But to have a really tough DOHC that can handle a hard life, you're getting close to 20k. And that's no turbo, no fuel system, no electronics, no tranny and converter, that's just basically a ready to run long block. AND you're looking at a sheetmetal intake because there's no kind of aftermarket solution.

Geez, just look at the headers! A plain-o set of long tubes for a Mustang with a 302 is $200? A set for a mod motor F150 is $700? WTH?

You could build a fox-stang to push the same power for less than half the money. And that's what I keep asking myself. Why am I doing this? Sure, there's hot Mustangs at every street light, and you RARELY see a really hot F150. But come on! There has to be a limit! Are they just putting us over the barrel because we HAVE to pay what they ask if we want the parts? There just doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to what they want!

To be honest, I almost wish I never started on this project. I "knew" to some small extent what kind of money I was looking at but it has FAR exceeded what I had expected. And honestly? I feel like I am getting screwed at every turn. $2000 cams? There is NOTHING that special about any cam/s that should cost 2k, EVER. If God himself came down from heaven and gave you magic cams, they wouldn't be worth 2k IMO.

Anyway, that's my rant. Hopfully, with some luck, I will have this up and running for next season. So if any of you visit any tracks in North Texas and you see a F150 with a turbo DOHC motor tearing up the place, stop by and say hi! I will be easy to spot because I will likley be the only extended cab on the track. I see L's and wanna be L's all over the place, so I had to go with the extended cab. hehe

 

I am not quite sure who you have doing your heads, or for that matter what you are getting done to your block, but it appears that you may be exagerating a little bit on the pricing. First of you can have a very well built short block for around 5-7k. That would be an aluminum block with gt crank and cobra oil pump. As so far as head. You gotta remember. There are a lot mre parts on a 4v than a 2v or even a pushrod. You just cant make that comparison anymore on pushrod vs. modular.

You might want to do a little more research on some mustang sites.

i.e www.modularmisfits.com or www.modulardepot.com before you start investing all your hard earned money.

Just my $.02

 

The research is done, this is an active project. I was considering a SHM race block, but couldn't justify the cost for what I was looking to do with it. So I just went with the stock 05 GT block. The full race block is almost 5k by itself.

Billet crank, $2000
Rods $2200
05 GT Block $2700
JE pistons and rings $850
Cryo $700
CNC head porting $2500
+Ferrea valve $550
+hardened seats $650
+Crower springs with titanium retainers $700
+Custom grind cams, $1000 per pair, $2000

Right there you are looking at $15,000 without ANY machining (except head), coatings, shipping costs, no balancing, no balancer or flexplate, no bearings, no anything. Just parts for a long block.

I don't think you have any idea what building a serious motor really costs. The old Pro 5.0 cars would have 100-150,000 in their turbo motors. Granted, your talking >2000hp cars. But the motor I'm building should be happy to at least 1,500hp and I'm looking to be at about 1,100.

My ONLY point is, to build this same motor with pushrods would not cost ANYWHERE near as much.

 

Because there are people like yourself that will pay it.

It's called profit. Free enterprise. Supply and demand.

It's what makes this country second to none.

 

It's just like anything in life....you have to pay to play.

 

Modular engines haven't had the luxury of being around for 40+ years like 302s, 351s and the like.

And with all due respect, you're out to turbocharge a 5.4 4V...did you expect this be a cheap or affordable project?

 

Yea generally speaking, I have this all mapped out and a close estimated total cost per engine BEFORE I purchase the block....... this way I have a comparison of dollars to HP on each before I make a decsion on which one that I want to build.

If cost seems to high.... then I would have choosen another block or engine design to build........

 

With this statement you obviously need to do some more research. Do a few searches on SHM and you will see why they are more into the import scene now more than the Mustang building scene.