The thing that may worry us most is how much HP is left in this engine after you here how well this car already breathes. Exhaust / CAI / Tune may add nothing as it already does this well and already tuned for 91 octane. Is there much left NA? or will this car like the 4.6 really need some low boost to make any substantial HP gains? Will be interesting to see what happens in the near future.

 

Answered in the other post you talked about those concerns in.

 

There may not be much more you can squeeze out of the 5.0 in NA form, but that shouldn't be viewed as a negative. It's because it's already such a good engine. Should Ford have made a bigger engine? They did! It's 5.0, up from 4.6.

 

You seriously think they busted it all out in the first tune/year?
Comeon now....

 

If I were a betting man, which I am indeed, I'd say the numerical value for how much power left in this motor to be gained is exactly....

hella

 

I'd say at least 500hp, i.e., 100hp/L which, for a modern engine like the 5.0, is hardly an outrageous specific output. Heck, my decade old M3 S54 motor cranks out something like 104hp/L, so this even newer (and actually rather similar in the basic technology used) ought to be capable of as much. This might require some internal work -- higher CR pistons, porting and polishing, more aggressive cams, other mechanical mods to handle a higher redline, reflash the ECU, etc. -- but this is all fairly basic stuff.

The 5.0 already comes out the factory door with a whole boatload of good performance design and stuff, so you don't need to do a lot to get big numbers out of it, it already has them, warranty included. I would expect the Boss version to pump out north of 450hp at least, and this would just be year one or two of its existence.

 

those M motors were sick in the early/mid 2000s, individual throttle bodies for each cylinder, crazy tech

 

How much came out of the 3v 4.6L from 2005 to 2010? 15 whole HP. So, yes, I do believe Ford would bust 95% of it out the first year on the GT. SE's are a different story. Having read how hard Ford worked to get the 412 HP, I don't think there is a whole lot left in the engine N/A while meeting emissions standards. Built for boost, of course the wallet is the limit.

 

it gained 15hp... from the factory. thee 4.6 3v is capable of vastly larger amounts of power with simple aftermarket add-ons

 

TiVCT helps them tease a lot out of the top end without compromising emissions. But like the 3V, the bottom end is the limit.

 

Actually, the 315ish HP was already out in 2008 when the Bullitt was out.
Ford wasn't exactly going to throw a tonne of R/D money into an engine on life support.
They were too busy throwing money into the next engine...which changed over and over.
Things look more fluid lately....

WRT the 5L
There's more there, just depends on whether we are talking factory tune, aftermarket tune, internal part swap here/there, power adder here or there...

So to all of the above, there's more available, in all configurations we'll see over the next bunch of years.
If you want to tune the 2011 GT and get more power, you will be able to.

 

No matter what, the Ford engineers are not going to stretch the power to the absolute limit, there will always be some in reserve above the factory tune as a safety margin. If they tuned it on the ragged edge then it would never hold up to the longevity testing regimine. They have to have something they can be confident in warrantying.

 

I think there is certainly a consensus on here that there is additional power to be had with the new 5.0. Seems the question will be which route will Ford take, as the options are somewhat limited given the substantial output of the engine as-built from the line. I see perhaps two options. 1) Simple bolt ons such as those on the Bullitt and Shelby GT; problem is it seems a given that this engine isn't going to respond as well to bolt ons like the 4.6 3v did, so I don't know how likely this is, or 2) Internal engine work or blower; past few years, however the only ones who did such a thing is SVT, which if they go that route could be a significant cost driver depending on what else is done to the rest of the car. All of this while meeting the typical stuff required to put a car on a showroom floor like emissions standards, etc like eci mentioned. Dunno. Guess we shall see.

 

I'm talking factory.

 

I am confident that the 5.0 will respond very well to bolt ons, there just will not be the huge gains the 4.6 showed because of the far superior stock parts employed. A tune will be by far the best bang for the buck with this motor.

 

It looks like the original question was for after market mods, I'd guess 30 HP or so at the wheels is possible with exhaust, tune, CAI. The article in 5.0 magazine was great but it did highlight compromises made for cost and emissions. If you believe long tubes get you power up top, there might be another 10 HP. The 2012 Boss intake manifold might be worth another 10 HP. A CAI/tune should be worth the other 10 HP. It could be higher but until we see more info that's all I'd be willing to sign off on.

 

tuning the TI-VCT for an aftermarket shop cant be easy because of how the system independantly adapts timing to exhaust and intake based on load, throttle, etc. im excited to see what they can do especially with an aftermarket intake that can suck even more air into that thing

 

The aftermarket tuners still haven't figured out how to incorporate Adaptive Spark Ignition for different octane fuel... and that was just ignition timing not cam timing/overlap.

 

Agreed, in fact my 04 M3 with SS headers, 100cpi metallic cats/midpipe and Borlas' made 302rwhp or close to 355hp or 117hp/Litre. BTW, the new E92 M3 V8's also have individual throttle bodies. I saw a modded E92 M3 put down 390rwhp!

Pic of the E92 M3 motor..





As far as to the OP...I think 450hp is probably in the range of the 5.0L V8 or 90hp/litre. The only way you get near 100hp/litre is if you rev the **** out of it ala M Motors which don't make very much low end torque. To be honest I have been driving high revving engines the last 10 years and I don't miss the low end torque that much as I find that gearing can make up a lot of the torque loss. My E46 M3 had 4.10's in the car and it pulled like a scalded dog.

Dave

 

Factory, not factory...
At the end of the day, there isn't just one configuration. It's not like there is just 'the 5L'

Stock GT engine, yes, aftermarket you'll be able to make power.

Ford future engines on this block, yes you'll be able to make power.