Oldshool motors vs newschool
 

This is going to probably be a dumb question but.... I hear guys talking about all the mods they do older motors. How come you never hear about people getting like a new F-150 and boring it, putting on headers, doing a stroker kit, putting in different heads and valve covers etc? I worked at ford for 5 years in sales never heard people talk about any of that stuff that I heard the oldshool guys talking about what changed? Are the motors just that much different now?

Yes. Pick a current motor and look at the power output compared to any old school motor.

New stuff has computer engine management and emissions equipment. It's difficult and expensive to fiddle with such an engine for the modest gains you might get. Fiddle enough and it's not going to start and as smooth and easy as stock.

Then there's the 465HP Mustangs and Dodge Challengers that can run into the 10s easily.

My 2.7 F150 has 325/375 HP/torque. It will light the tires easily. It starts easily, runs smoothly and quietly, gets 18.1 MPG overall and is under warranty. Why would I touch it?

Right
They pay those engineers millions of dollars to come up with the technology
Beating it is expensive and only for the chosen few
I have a buddy with 2 Raptors, a Platinum and a Bronco (gave me his '96)
He is always upgrading something
He is up to 700 or so horses now with one of his Raptors with some mods
I do not talk to him much about it because I can't even do it
You need the WDS software at the dealer for starters and it gets worse with a tune and swapping proms

There’s not a lot left to do on these newer engines. “The People” wanted more power and fuel efficiency and automakers had to step up.

Boring? These days, most engines aren’t built with enough “meat” to bore. They’ve been out of the limelight for some time now, but those Cadillac Northstar 4.6 aluminum engines were literally built with zero overbore tolerance. You score up a cylinder, you win a boat anchor. These newer, more precise fuel injection systems allows for that. No more washing fuel off cylinder walls like carbs would do.

Headers? Exhausts flow pretty good nowadays. Even my ‘03 F150, with a v6 that’s nothing compared to what’s out now, has a factory-issued pair of shorty headers of sorts.

Heads flow insanely well now. That’s part of the reason you get engines with near 7000 RPM redlines, yet provide pretty good punch from just off idle. Old school engines couldn’t do all that. An old 300 I6 had okay punch from idle, but they choked out by the time the tach touched 3000 RPMs. Any v6 Ford made since then has surpassed that incrementally.

I doubt the tuning is still readily available if I wanted to do more than a cam on my 4.2 if I need to do major work on it. Even then, my other truck has a Hemi in it along with VVT and has a wider powerband. Heck, the 6.4 Hemi intake flows even better and is a 20 horsepower and 20 ft/lbs of torque bump with that alone. So, there are tricks out there, some just cost a bit more green than others.

So I'm nit mechanical thats why i joined here and am asking these questions. But my f150 has 400hp and friends 83 chevy has 400hp after he built up the motor. That 83 will rum circles around my 2023. Why does his 400 hp feel soo much more powerfull and faster than mine?

Weight. I'd bet the '83 is a regular cab pickup while your F50 is a crew cab, am I correct?

Plenty of performance upgrades for the 5.0 V8 and the 6.7 Powerstroke.

A lot of it is just because the engines are still quite new. It takes a while for the aftermarket to catch up/know the strengths and weaknesses of the platform and then come up with modifications that are popular and effective. There's always junk like the later model Ford Coyote blocks that can only tolerate .010 overbore and it takes time for the word to get out.

Modern engine controls with millions of calculations per second. Most factory stuff, especially Ford stuff, is tough to beat!

This brings up an interesting point though... what could a person do on a 351W with a solid 400HP build and THEN add every possible electronic engine control. Mostly timing and fuel mapping, I have no idea how the LS variable valve timing works or if it might be adaptable to another engine. It would be an interesting project I'm sure.

Variable camshaft timing setups were available for hot rodding back in the 1960's, Cam-a-go is one that I can think of. It was cable operated and something like that could be built today.

I know a guy who had a boss 302 motor in a Maverick and was drag racing it
He left his distributor loose and had a choke cable on it to add timing at the end of the track