8,500 rpm's, able to support 1,500 HP in F/I applications, everything from the OEM engine bolts up, same height of engine, everything. This thing sounds insane!
Quote:
Coyote Short Block
Andrew Wolf
by Andrew Wolf on June 1, 2011
When the Ford Motor Company re-introduced the fabled 5.0L in 2010 with the new 2011 Mustang GT, the Ford faithful were practically beside themselves to get their hands on one. This wasn’t just a nostalgic return of the “5.0″ namesake, but the unveiling of an engine unlike any other in Ford’s history – one that just might top the original. Capable of producing the power to run in the tens naturally aspirated and structurally sound enough to handle copious amount of boost – this was horsepower nirvana for Mustang fans.
But for the extremists among us, how exactly do you improve upon an already stout piece of machinery? The good folks at Wiseco and K1 Technologies have an answer to that, and in doing so, they’ve brought the likewise well-revered “351″ name back to the Mustang.
Sister companies Wiseco and K1 plus development partner ERL Performance have joined efforts to produce a stroked and bored 5.0L-based 351 short block, which is expected to handle upwards of 2,000 horsepower and nearly 8,000 RPM on the stock heads. These will almost certainly appeal to the heads-up drag racing and high-end street car market.
During last year’s Performance Racing Industry show down in Orlando, Wiseco pulled the wraps off of their brand new, stroked 5.0L Coyote-based DOHC V8 short block assembly, displacing an increased 351 cubic inches. Needless to say, the Wiseco group was just as excited to show off their new piece as Blue Oval fans were to get a glimpse of it.
In short, this all-new stroker package from Wiseco and its sister brand, K1 Technologies, features K1′s 4340 billet crankshaft and 4340 billet H-beam steel connecting rods, housed within a 95mm sleeved OEM block finished in conjunction with ERL Performance. Several options also exist from within Wiseco’s extensive lineup of high performance pistons to meet the compression ratio needs of one’s particular combination.
But such an offering, especially being the first of its kind, deserves a much closer look at just what Wiseco has developed here and what their new short block offering provides to the Ford high performance market. To do so, we went to Wiseco’s Brian Nutter to pick his brain a little on the story behind their latest and greatest project.
What Wiseco has essentially done is taken what many widely consider to be the greatest V8 engine that FoMoCo has ever produced and made it bigger, better, and and stronger; and in doing so, they’ve also incorporated an element of tradition. “Anytime that someone does a stroker short block, they always aim for those traditional numbers: 427, or 454, or 468,” explains Wiseco’s Brian Nutter. “We started putting the numbers together and knew that if the crankcase was somewhat the same as the 4.6L, we could get a four inch crankshaft in it. And that made it easy for us to get 95mm on the bore size with proper sleeving, which ERL does. And so in the end, we ended up with the magic 351 number.”
Wiseco and ERL found that the bottom end was going to be easy – requiring no machining of the block itself to fit the larger crank, other than notching of the sleeves for clearance.
Naturally, the appeal of a short block assembly such as this is directed at the high-end market and racing in particular. What Wiseco has on their hands is a setup designed for power from the ground up, and it’s this market segment where the factory Coyote engine crosses its threshold of viability. Said Nutter, “We’ve designed this engine for both boosted and naturally-aspirated combinations. The boosted assembly has a piston that’s tall enough and a rod just short enough to get some really massive ring lands, so if a guy wants to make 1,500 to 1,600 horsepower, he’ll have that capability in the future.”
The Block
The heart of Wiseco’s short block assembly is an OE-based 5.0L Coyote engine block that retains the factory deck height, making it a direct bolt-in replacement for the OEM 5.0L. “That was a big thing – we didn’t want to do something goofy that made it hard for people to install,” ERL Performance’s Sean Ragains said. ERL Performance, a highly regarded engine building and machining corporation, performs the sleeving and boring of the original Coyote block and outfits it with an optional billet main cap option.
ERL, based in Indiana, is among Wiseco and K1′s noted development partners, with the two parties having previously collaborated to build the first 500 cubic inch LS1 on the market in 2005. Said Nutter, “They’re very good at block sleeving – the best in the country I believe. When we develop a new combination, we need to know that it’s not only structurally sound, but that everything is modeled properly to avoid issues. We work closely with ERL and the combination always turns out as a pretty well ‘bolt-together’ package.”
Strength and durability aside, perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the design of this block that Wiseco and ERL have developed is its ability to bolt up directly to every single component found on the factory Coyote engine. This includes the cylinder heads and all – making the swap a simple and more importantly, affordable, process. “This was our absolute goal,” said Nutter. “We wanted this thing to be completely invisible to the user with the exception of the added cubic inches. Everything just bolts right up. The displacement has increased from 5.0 to 5.8 liters, but otherwise, they’d never know it by looking at it.”
The Rotating Assembly
The K1 crankshaft is chiseled from 4340 billet steel and counter-weighted, and the K1 4340 H-beam connecting rods have been designed specifically for this stroker combination. Once in production, the rods are expected to ship with 7/16″ bolts, which is overkill, but the added strength offsets the rather minute weight difference of smaller bolts.
The Wiseco pistons are a dedicated forging made specially for the 5.0L/5.8L and are constructed from 2618 alloy with skirt coatings and use a .200 wall wrist pin. Wiseco has designed the piston for use with camshafts with a lot of lift, boasting very deep valve pockets, allowing for a lot of freedom of movement for tuners to work on the cam facing. Rounding out the package are premium quality heads studs and other hardware from ARP.
I'm hoping that in 2013 they come out with a fully revised trans cause i am tired of having all this hype about how great the 5.0 is, and whenever i talk to someone about it, the tran always comes into play and is a total buzz kill.
I like the nostalgia of the 351. Thats about as big as i'd imagine these motors will get thanks to CAFE. But then again, this new 5.0 makes how much more power and gets how much more MPG then the older motors? Tech is great, it just comes with a heftier price tag
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