What a short, strange journey it was with Ford’s 7.3-litre Godzilla V8 gas engine. The automaker debuted the new heart of the Super Duty range at the 2019 Chicago Auto Show, admitting the engine would fit the F-150 pickup and Mustang, but saying there was virtually no chance they would. would be put into both products. Ford has made tuners the gigantic solid to offer Godzilla as a crate engine that works with a 10-speed automatic. Less than a year later, YouTuber Evan Smith, known as REVan Evan, followed a drag racer and tuner who collaborated on a Mustang dragster built using the 7.3-liter. The Drive realized that the same YouTuber just showed up to solve a mystery from earlier this year. In March, spy photographers caught a Mustang prototype with a bizarre bulge on the hood. Scrutineers posited every theory of what it could be, including the assumption of a Godzilla-powered Mustang. Revan Evan reveals that those guesses were correct.
There’s a 540-pound iron nugget in the engine bay, but no factory Mustang is slated to get out. As Ford engineers explain in the video, they are working on a crate engine and transmission package that Godzilla would combine with a manual gearbox. The Mustang GT350 mule selected for testing duties is one of the prototype fleet available to use that was “just lying around,” so engineers used it. The polygonal hood protrusion is intended to clear the intake, as the throttle body at the front of the engine, as designed for the Super Duty trucks, is angled up. This requires gas pipelines that rise further before being tilted 90 degrees and descending to a cold air inlet. The final crate package will include changes such as a horizontal throttle body that can slide under a Mustang’s natural lines, as well as slightly shorter runners that bump into the red line and a larger throttle valve flange that works with the Mustang GT500.
Right now, the 7.3-liter and 10-speed automatic combo costs $19,995. Ford Performance plans to put the new powertrain on sale before the end of the year, “very competitively priced”.
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