Godzilla: Ford’s Big Block V8 is Big, Bad, and Back

It’s been 51 years since Ford designed a Big Block V-8, but it’s back. This past week, Ford launched the new 4.5 generation Super Duty trucks for the ‘20 model year, featuring revised bodywork, a new 10-speed automatic transmission and revised powertrain.

The big showstopper was the announcement of the ‘Godzilla’ 7.3L (427ci) Big Block V-8 that will be placed in-between the current 6.2L ‘BOSS’ V-8, and the new third-generation 6.7L ‘Scorpion’ Power Stroke turbo diesel.

A total clean sheet design, the 7.3L is an iron block medium-duty, pushrod masterpiece. The Big Block design meant that they could space the cylinders further apart for increased wall structure, larger coolant channels, and subsequently a stronger crankshaft capture with main bearing caps featuring six bolts.

How did Ford arrive at the Big Block design amid today’s stringent fuel economy standards and electric vehicle rise? Well, it turned out that big displacement doesn’t necessarily mean big consumption. Ford spoke with their customers and determined that they needed to build a gas engine that was capable of delivering X amount of horsepower (which we won’t know until late this summer). From there they used a measurement called stoichiometry, a measurement of the volume of space needed to deliver that X amount of horsepower at peak efficiency. Through the wonders of science, Ford determined that 427 cubic inches of volume is what made that possible.

While Ford is not ready to disclose the truck’s official output numbers, they were generous enough to say that the engine was built to be mated to the 10-speed automatic as its exclusive transmission. The electronics were designed around that mating, and the VCT (Variable Cam Timing), ignition and fueling are all deeply in sync with the ratios available from the 10-speed.

Ford also says this is the highest output gasoline engine the Blue Oval has offered in the F-series, as well as the highest output naturally-aspirated V-8 on the market. Ford is cracking open a new segment in engines that’s placed squarely between the current offerings and the diesels for hauling. As it stands, no one else has a dog in this fight — and Ford has the keys to the castle.

Our estimates place the torque above the outgoing 6.8L Triton V-10 of 460 lb-ft, and horsepower above the third-generation 5.0L Coyote V-8, which puts out 460 hp.

See more with this one-on-one interview by TFL Trucks with Ford’s lead engineer on the 7.3L project.