The increase in stroke with these stroker cranks to get to 5.0 is only .2", so you have to figure half of that as the change in compression height of the piston. I don't see that as drastic enough to alter piston design to the point of being problematic in a daily driver. Not having seen the stock piston, I could be wrong, but it would have to be drastic departure from most OEM pistons. Seems the new 5.0 only increased stroke by .1" with the same deck height as the 4.6, along with a larger bore. Still square.

But one thing is sure. There's no replacement for displacement.

 

Doing this next time I see Troyer! We are also doing an all out 3rd gear pull. Just put 4.11's in her this past weekend, up from 3.55. Amazing difference and only 200 rpm more at 70. My rears are 32". Something to think about JMC. Especially since rebuilding or replacing the rear end anyway. She's a different beast now and its a good thing. Sorry to have gotten off the subject.

 

I realize the increase in length of the stroke is not much but these are still factors to consider.

 

The idea of stroking the 4.6 is a waste...the Ford engineers already did it, 5.4.
MMR has 900 hp 5.4 short blocks for $ 3K, looks like the way to me.

 

 

Actually, I like getting the feedback. My truck has only been dyno-ed for the sake of tuning it, and the max numbers were all I got. I dont see how JMC is pushing 15psi through the stock heads though, and my tuner told me that he wouldnt recommend running any more than 10 or 12 on a stock engine I was going to run every day. He also said that he wouldnt put a blower on anything that had upwards of 60k, but my engine has 192 . His daily driver is a 98 gt with a MMR built block in it, and he is running a D1SC that he said is running 20#. I have no idea what he has done with his heads, but I do know that he knows his way around the Ford 2vs. His stang is putting down a little over 600 to the wheels with his set-up and I have seen the dyno sheets that prove it.

I guess I dont give the stock 5.4 the credit that it deserves. If a low mileage engine can handle the boost(which obviously it can as JMC proves) then I see no reason why I wouldnt be happy with just putting a 5.4 in it. Im honestly tempted to just go spend the money on a low mileage 5.4 and some headers and use the rest on maybe something else. I dont necessarily want to have 6k in an engine that I am going to be daily driving right now, although it would be nice to have a 3k shortblock. I realize the importance of having a lot of torque, and from the sound of it JMC your truck sounds like it would be hard to keep on the road. My truck can roast the 35s I have, but I have 4:56s and a limited slip.

I dont mind you getting off subject twinskrewd. I envy you guys with the 3vs that make crazy hp just by putting blowers on. Unfortunately, my heads are failing in comparison to just the PIs, not even going to consider the 3vs. I will definitely be updating that though as soon as possible. I am searching around the lowest mileage 99 5.4 that I can find, because I hear they already have forged cranks. I guess I could either buy a low mileage one, or a high mileage one and re-use the crank and put a nice set of rods and pistons in it. Who knows? I am waiting around for my 4.6 to decide that it has had enough. Knock on wood, it doesnt seem like it plans on giving up any time soon. My cousin has a crown vic that has a 4.6 in it with 331k and its on the original engine and 2nd tranny. Like the title says... built ford tough.

 

^^^^ All good.
If you want the best useful life from an engine, use it as it was designed to be used and get 331k out of it. Or, push it beyond what it was designed for and keep some cash handy for the inevitable. Your tuner may be safer at 20 psi on his built bottom end than some of us are at 8-10 psi on the stockers?

 

dont go with mmr, alot of the lightning guys are having problems with their engines.

 

I feel like maybe I am not getting my point across to you guys. I want to be making atleast 100+ on either side of the 251hp/296tq I am making now. You guys are proving to me that I dont need a $3,000 dollar short block or cammed out, ported heads to do so. Keeping in my mind that my engine is mostly stock, I would say that going from 158hp to the wheels is pretty good so far (which was what my truck was making before it was procharged with 35" tires). If I can just buy a 5.4 and slap some headers on it whilst running more PSI and make that 350+/400+ mark then I will be more than happy with that. I am not necessarily trying to make a race truck, because honestly I would rather have a nicer paint job on it or something else rather than be able to drive a truck around (that stands well over 7 foot tall) like its a hot rod and trying to smoke out mustangs. I have no problem dropping money into the thing if the engine takes a dump, and I can barely keep myself from wanting to drop in another engine while an perfectly fine running engine is already in there. I am just looking at more less will get me what I want out of whatever engine I put into this truck. Sorry for the book

And as far as your safer on 20psi statement... I honestly have no clue. I dont have much experience when it comes to tuning vehicles or even modding engines in them. The only vehicle that I have ever dumped money into is this truck, and so this is more less my first go-around. He bragged on his twisted flow heads and MMR built block like it meant everything to him, but racing/building cars is something he is passionate about. Maybe he was just offering safe advice to the guy with a dinky stock 4.6 to scare me into trying to up the PSI? He offered to help build me a 4.6 that could "handle 15-20PSI all day" but I would have spent nearly 10k by the time I put the engine back into the truck. I dont need anything crazy like that-all I want is some respectable hp/tq output.

Good call, I spent a little while researching reviews on their engines earlier and I saw many unhappy mustang customers as well. I guess everyone has their mess ups, because I saw a few guys claiming that they are pushing 1000hp through their MMR engines without error.

 

yeah, apparently they used to make good engines, but not anymore i guess. IDK

you should be able to find a used lightning motor for a swap. here is a guy for short blocks.
http://www.mhpengines.com/54_shortblocks

i wouldnt worry about getting ported heads and such, only if you were going for 500HP+

all you would need is a built bottom end for what you want.

 

Nice link! I really dont think I'll need 500+hp in a daily driver. I think it would be fun, but not in a truck this big. Looks like I will be going to a used engine, or maybe a shortblock with some PI heads in it. Another thing is that my trans is only rated for 600hp, so I dont know how well it would hold up to an engine thats putting down 500 or more hp anyways.

 

it was just an example, if you went with that engine you would never have to worry about blowing it up, unless you have a bad tune of course

there is no reason to just rebuild a engine with stock components if you are going to run boost. a built low end is what you want. the top end isnt going to benefit you when running such low HP anyway. the bottom end is what is keeping you from ever putting a hole in the block.

here is what i suggest.
built short block as posted
stock heads, you could port match them yourself while you are waiting, and the intake manifold also.
i wouldnt worry about cams unless you want the lope, which sounds awesome!

 

Well knowing that I wouldn't be able to blow it up is a nice thing to know. I would love to have a forged block also, but I dont want to spend THAT much money on a really nice block and not do anything to the heads. If I do spend all that money on the block, then I will probably see what modular head shop thinks I should do and probably purchase cams from them. I LOVE the lope sound that cams have,(power increase is nice too) but I hear that you can put some pretty decent sized cams in Non PI heads which actually is an advantage that they have over PI heads. All of these other guys on here make it sound like I would have no problems getting to my desired hp/tq numbers with just a stock 5.4 engine. If thats so, then I will probably just put a nice 5.4 in it and drive it until I am done with school here hopefully next fall until I start making the big $$$. Once I get a really nice job then dropping 5k into a motor wont be anything. And by then, I will probably have something else to daily drive because I wont wanna drive a 500+ hp beast that gets 8mpgs every day. Thats all speculation though of course, I know how hard it is finding jobs these days. Fortunately for me, I should be picking up a couple internships which I am very excited for

 

Overlap is what causes the lope. The more you have the more the lope. On a blown engine overlap allows the pressurized air to blow out the exhaust. Kind of a waste to pressurize the incoming air just to have it blow out the exhaust before it explodes. Make sure the people you talk to know you have a blower.

 

I'm sad I just stumbled across this article. If I had seen this article sooner, I wouldn't have just spent the past hour reading almost every response. I could have had my thermo homework done by now! Dangit Brad! Oh well, 2 AM here I come!

Food for thought though..Have you ever considered ditching the centrifugal and finding a good twin screw? I mean, the bottom line is, it's a truck. Your rpm range doesn't necessarily support the full potential of you having a centrigual. You even said it yourself, you don't really receive power until you hit about 2000 rpms, which sounds correct considering that's when your boost is finally strong enough to produce more power. Centrifugals run higher boost than twin screws/roots, but only at higher rpms. To put it mathematically, a centrifugal charger runs a boost curve of x^2 where x = airflow, where as a roots/screw charger runs a linear curve "x", 2x, 3x, etc. What this means is, you receive higher boost instantaneously at throttle, unlike centrifugal which delivers EXTREMELY low boost (AKA negligible) at lower rpms. The rpm ranges for our trucks don't exactly support the full effects of a centrifugal (Kind of why Ford puts roots/screws on the mustangs and lightnings, because they're lower rpms engines) IMO, it seems as though you don't have the best options for pulling the full potential out of the engine you have.

Now, I don't normally go out on a limb here and type responses like that, but I'm interested in the article since it will apply to me eventually. Of course, with my luck, I just wasted a lot of space with something you probably already know. I'm also open for corrections, if anyone sees any in my response. Hope it helps!