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I read somewhere that the factory they are made in is a modular setup. They can easily change out some tooling and make all the mod motors in the same place.
In my industry, modular means that you can take apart a section of the engine/motor without pulling everything else apart. Best example I can think of that would make sense in this case would be if you could pull the engine and split it in two. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense to me either.
I read somewhere that the factory they are made in is a modular setup. They can easily change out some tooling and make all the mod motors in the same place.
Correct they are all based off the 4.6L, 5.4L has a longer stroke and a bigger block to accommodate it, the 6.8L is just a 5.4L with 2 more cylinders. The V8 heads interchange if made in the same plant. Bore is the same on all 3. All cost cutting moves, there was supposedly also going to be a V6 that would be a 4.6L minus 2 cylinders that never quite happened. Not like they haven't done it before but this time they just named them what they are and tried to share as much as possible. 390 is a stroked 360, 351M is a de-stroked 400, 460 is a stroked 429 etc etc.
Since these are theoretically, basically the same engine, are they interchangeable with one another. In other words is a 4.6 a bolt in for the 5.4? Are the trannies a direct swap between the two engines?
"The Ford Modular engine is Ford Motor Company's overhead camshaft (OHC) V8 and V10 engine family, which has been produced in 4.6L, 5.0L (Cammer, Coyote), 5.4L, 5.8L and 6.8L variations. Contrary to popular belief, the Modular engine did not get its name from its design or sharing of certain parts among the engine family. Instead, the name was derived from a manufacturing plant protocol, "Modular", where the plant and its tooling could be changed out in a matter of hours to manufacture different versions of the engine family.<sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference">[1]</sup> The Modular engines are used in various Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles. Modular engines used in Ford trucks were marketed under the Triton name from 1997–2010 while the InTech name was used for a time at Lincoln for vehicles equipped with DOHC versions of the engines.