I am currently toying with the idea of building a serious performance engine for my F150.

Although I have a number of ideas, I would like to know what others are doing.

Who is making a decent:
1. Crank shaft
2. Piston
3. Connecting rod
4. Head
5. Cam shaft
6. Bearings
etc.

Right now I would most likely use:
1. A Lightning crank shaft unless someone is making a better one
2. No idea on Pistons at the moment
3. Hanley connecting rods
4. Heads have me stumped. Do you go with 2, 3, or 4 valve heads? After there aftermarket heads that are a better option?
5. No ideas for cam shafts yet.
6. No ideas for bearings yet.

Is the block itself sufficiently strong? I would like to shoot for 500HP and if the block will need to be strengthened, I would prefer to do it ahead of time.

Does anyone have numbers on the different valve arrangements and how they affect torque?

I want to build a solid NA (naturally aspirated) engine before I start adding the supercharger and the nitrous.

Thanks in advance,
-Don

I apologize if this has been asked before. With 10k threads and 80k posts in the engine forum alone, finding the information I am looking for has not been easy. My main concern is getting up to date information whenever possible.

 

This would be a good start without all the shopping...

Lightning engine for sale

If you spend some time looking in the Lightning forum, you will see lots of guys with 500 HP or more.

 

Definitely not a bad idea. The thing is:
a) The lightning engine has additional sensors that my computer will not handle. (Or so I read)
b) I would rather build the engine myself
c) I want to use a screw supercharger and possibly switch to some 3 or 4 valve heads so investing in a Lightning engine would mostly be a waste for me.

-Don