Windsor 5.0 vs Modular 4.6 V8 - What exactly is the difference?

"K-Roll-PorscheTamer" (k-roll390) 07/22/2014 at 22:45 • Filed to: Ford

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So Ford switched from the original 302 5.0(actually 4.9L) V8 back in '96 to the Modular 4.6L. Exactly why did they do that? What changed? Pros and cons to both? Which is better? Oppinions?

norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 22:47

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They switched back at somepoint recently but I don't know enough about them although my dads gf Mustang has a 302 and my dads SUV has the 4.6

DrJohannVegas > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 22:49

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Pushrods to OHC, bore spacing changes, casting material changes, the lot. The Modular is a very different engine from the Windsor.

Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 22:51

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The 5.0 is better for tuning. More aftermarket, really cheap, more performance.

the Modular 4.6 wasn't so good performance-wise, but it did power the Panther platform, so I'm guessing it's more reliable and cheaper to maintain.

Brian, The Life of > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 22:53

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One of the biggest benefits was to Ford in the form of production efficiencies. They could change a line over from one Modular motor to the next in no time. Of course, the motors themselves were also more modern and efficient than the Windsor and contemporaries.

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback 07/22/2014 at 22:54

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What year is that Stang?

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > DrJohannVegas 07/22/2014 at 22:54

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How much different?

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy 07/22/2014 at 22:55

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Can you tune a 4.6 even slightly?

norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 22:56

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94

Brian, The Life of > Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy 07/22/2014 at 22:57

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The 5.4 and Coyote are both members of Ford's Modular family of motors. They do just fine with regards to performance and tuning support. Just look at the Ford Racing catalogue.

Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 22:57

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Of course you can, there aren't as many options as the 5.0 in the foxbody cars though.

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback 07/22/2014 at 22:57

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The the before the final year of the original 5.0

I want a '94 or '95 so bad! -_-

Brian, The Life of > norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback 07/22/2014 at 22:59

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What do you mean by "switched back?" Do you mean the new vs old 5.0? Because those are entirely different animals.

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy 07/22/2014 at 22:59

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I always here that it's not very popular because it's not a 5.0

Is it just because it's not a 5.0?? Even the original 5.0 wasn't actually a 5.0; because 'Muricans like to round up their numbers. :P

norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 23:00

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I can tell you that car rides beautifully. I got great news last weekend though. The next time she gets it out she's going to let me drive it! I might be able to on Saturday!

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 23:00

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Well, there is a HUGE difference between the Mod and the old school small block Ford. the 4.6 is SOHC or DOHC and the 5.0 is pushrod. The 5.0 has more aftermarket support because they have been making the Windsor SBF's for a loooooooong time. The Mod motors can be capable of making some serious power, see Saleen and Koenigsegg. They are also damn near indestructible.

MikeP3 > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 23:01

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A friend from long ago that was a Ford powertrain engineer said that the bottom end of the 4.6L (at least the original iteration) was good for about 350lb-ft of torque before if started to have fatigue cracks in the block. That's what I remember him saying anyway!

norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback > Brian, The Life of 07/22/2014 at 23:02

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I know but I meant more they stopped with the 4.6 and started using 5.0 again even though it's a different engine.

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback 07/22/2014 at 23:05

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Lucky!! :)

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 07/22/2014 at 23:06

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Good to know. Any reason why the 4.6 isn't so popular among enthusiasts?

ComradeApexx > Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy 07/22/2014 at 23:10

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The 4.6 is actually a pretty good motor to mod, as long as it's not a 2 valve; which is what you'd find in a panther.

norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 23:10

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I know right, I get excited every time I think about driving that on country roads with the top down. I really wish they'd put after market exhaust on her though. Make the V8 sing. Only 5 more years until you can cut off the cat in NY and slap straight pipes on it.

kevinw > MikeP3 07/22/2014 at 23:10

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You are right. The stock sohc 4.6 isn't good for much more. I'm in process of installing 3rd engine. This time I buying a built motor

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 23:11

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1. smaller aftermarket support.

2. price

3. size

4. amount made

5. stubborn old fucks ho like pushrods.

6. The chevy small block dominates the market more than both Ford motors combined.

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback 07/22/2014 at 23:13

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Now there. You gotta do the exhaust right. Like this one!

DrJohannVegas > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 23:16

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They are both V8 engines, and most share the same firing order. I think the similarities end there.

norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 23:17

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I was kidding about straight pipes. Already sounds nice but it could be a bit louder.

JR1 > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 23:18

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The 5.0 is the big stick with the big number. I'm guessing that has a lot to do with it.

BrianNutter > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 23:20

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302 stock had terrible heads and couldnt make 250 whp without juice or boost on pumpgas with a streetable idle. They do have the smallest package size and a huge aftermarket. Available intakes for a 5.0 sucked in the 90's. Aftermarket afr and tfs heads went a long way to fix it, but 5.0 guys were given s good selection of blowers and thats the direction most went to be fast. Factory Blocks split at 500hp, so everyone learned and went with ford racing blocks. A ford racing block with yates or cleveland c302b/chi heads are a different animal entirely and the latest heads by the aftermarket makes the sbf the best factory based small block. The. 4.6 is even more of a turd naturally aspirated, more expensive, heavier, and larger to boot. Superchargers available on the 03 Cobra made it a player again for a guy looking for 480-500whp and whipples took it up from there. The Ford Gt was given the best heads and made good power with a shortblock built for aftermarket boost. The Coyote 5.0 was given honda k20 airflow rivaling heads and valetrain and makes a respectable 411-440 horsepower stock. Boost still plays a big part with the market and they can make great numbers on relatively low boost. There is a lot of asterisks to the story, but this gives you an overview.

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback 07/22/2014 at 23:23

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I see. But that one does sound nice :)

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > JR1 07/22/2014 at 23:24

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Does it come with a Great White Fleet too? :P

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > BrianNutter 07/22/2014 at 23:25

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Best answer right here! Thanks so much! :)

norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 23:25

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It does. They still have a nice stock sound. If you're near the pipes you can hear it other than that not so much.

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > norskracer98-ExploringTheOutback 07/22/2014 at 23:26

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Next you need to cam it to hell! :D

JR1 > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 23:27

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But of course

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > JR1 07/22/2014 at 23:28

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I shall commandeer the blue beauty! :D

OttoMaddox > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 23:38

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An early, pre-'99 4.6 has flat-top pistons. Add the '99-up PI heads and you'll bump up the compression to about 10:1. They have smaller chambers and they breathe better and have more aggressive cams.

I had a '96 Mustang GT and the best bang for the buck was just adding 3.73 gears to the rear end. It still ran like a watch at 180,000 miles and got an honest 27 MPG at 70 mph on the freeway. That's the real strength of these engines-they run forever and produce adequate power and decent fuel economy-great for a trouble-free daily driver.

BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 23:44

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The Windsor pushrod V8 dates back to the 1960s, and is similar to, but not exactly the same as the Cleveland pushrod ford V8. They are named for the towns in which the factories produced each engine.

289 cu. in., 302 (5.0L), and 351 Windsor pushrod V8s are a family variation of the same block design.

The engine family was used through the 70s, although de-tuned during the gas crisis, made a comeback in the 1980s, gaining port fuel injection with the 1986 Mustang GT, and later models across the lineup, and continued on through the change over from Fox Mustang to SN95 mustang for 1994 and 1995.

1996 Mustang was the first model year of the modular V8 in the Mustang, although it's first application was the panther-platform 1991 Lincoln Town Car.

The modular engine family is often thought to be named for the similarity and scalability of the engine design, but it is actually named for the factory methodology that allows toolings to be changed out easily to produce any of the engine variants within hours of factory re-configuration.

All modular Ford V8 engines are over-head cam, meaning that the camshafts are located in the top of the cylinder heads, above the valves. It is more efficient, but does increase the width of the heads, and the size of the engine overall.

The older pushrod Windsor, Cleveland, and FE ford V8s, as well as pushrod vee-engines from other brands, like GM's small blocks, big-blocks, and LS-series engines have a single cam in the valley of the V-shaped engine block, with rods that reach up and actuate the valves in the cylinder heads.

The modular engine family replaced the pushrod windsor engines across the whole Ford lineup, including Panther platform, (Town Car, Grand Marquis, and Crown Victoria), premium coupes (Lincoln Mark VIII, Cougar, Thunderbird), Mustang, and Ford Trucks and vans.

The modular engine family comes in many displacements, from 4.6L (281 cubic inch), 5.4L (330 cu.in.), 5.8L, and more recently, a new generation of 302/5.0L called Coyote. It also has been adapted to a newer, larger block design for Ford's 6.2L-7+ liter truck V8s, such as the SVT Raptor's engine. The Modular V8 is also directly related to the modular 5.8L and 6.8L Triton V10 engines.

Koeniggsegg also used Ford modular V8s early on, and it is rumored that their in-house built engines now are adapted from that design.

Ford Modular engines have variants with single-overhead cams (SOHC) that have one camshaft per cylinder head, for both intake and exhaust valves together, with either two valves per cylinder (one intake, one exhaust), or some with three valves per cylinder, two intake, one exhaust.

Higher performance variants of the Modular engine family have dual-overhead camshafts, (DOHC), with two separate cams per cylinder head, with four valves per cylinder, two each for intake and exhaust. Lincoln Intech V8 for Mark VIII, and the 1996 and later SVT Cobra used DOHC 4-valve engines.... as do the 302/5.0L Coyote engine, and the 5.8L V8s in the Shelby GT500, and Ford GT, which were supercharged.

Newer variants of the SOHC and DOHC engines have variable valve timing, to further increase power efficiency.

The modular engine design, being developed in the 80s and 90s, is more efficient than the earlier pushrod engines... especially the multi-valve variants. Being more efficient to run, easier to manufacture, and with the economies of scale of being used across the whole brand, and being able to meet modern emissions and fuel economy standards, the modular engine is more advanced than the older pushrod engines that came before it.

GM and Chrysler did similar efficiency revisions, and displacements between 5 and 7 liters, but kept the pushrod type valve-train for the LS-series engines, and the modern Hemi engines, respectively.

However, Ford did not "go back", with the 5.0L/302 engine... the new 'Coyote' 5.0L engine in the 21st century Mustangs is a fully modern, second-generation modular family engine that just happens to have the same displacement as the old Windsor 302, to resurrect the famous moniker, technically, the engines are nothing alike.

BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/22/2014 at 23:51

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4.9L just doesn't have the same ring to it... even if it isn't a 305 cubic inch engine.

BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. > Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy 07/23/2014 at 00:05

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half a century of pushrod engine development will do that... not to mention that some of the same tricks apply to all pushrod engines, not just Ford, or GM, or Chrysler... even if the parts aren't absolutely interchangeable between them.

tuning modular engines has come a long way in the last 20 years, as well as the fact that the engines are much more power efficient to start with.

The 1993 Mustang SVT Cobra 5.0 had 225 horsepower. My 1992 SVX 3.3 liter DOHC 4-valve flat 6 makes more peak horsepower than that, 230hp, stock for stock.

The 1996 SVT Cobra's then-new 4-valve DOHC 4.6L modular engine made a healthier 305 horsepower, right out of the gate.

The new Coyote 5.0 Mustang GT makes around 420 horsepower, stock, in a new car with a full warranty, for barely over $30K to start, and next year's car will have even a couple more horses with some tricks learned from the recent Boss 302... and finally a properly articulating suspension to go with it, properly engineered and designed into the chassis, rather than added on afterward.

Things have come a long way since the early 1990s... and much further than the Windsor's 1960s origins, the first Overhead Valve pushrod engines of the 1950s, and the flat-head side-valve V8s of the 1930s.

The Transporter > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/23/2014 at 00:58

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They weren't popular at first because of a total lack of aftermarket compared to the Windsor. These days the playing field is a little bit more level. In particular, there are two words you should learn when talking about performance mods for the Modular: Trick Flow.

04sneaky - Boxers. Blowers. Bikes. And bitches. > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/23/2014 at 01:17

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Mod motor is best motor. People just have this belief that they can't be built, or handle the power. The support is there, just have to look.

I'll just leave this here for reference....the top three were all mod motor 4.6s. This is a test for who can make the most horsepower per cube basically.

http://www.popularhotrodding.com/enginemasters/…

Captain_Spadaro > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/25/2014 at 22:34

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>Exactly why did they do that?
I don't think anyone has a clear answer to that. Some might say because pushrod engines were coming to be viewed as a symbol of Detroit's wrongs. Others might it was a desire to be different.
>What changed?
Gonna have to be more specific here, guy. Besides the locations (and number) or cams? Power didn't change much if at all, at first. The Modulars were hamstrung by two problems: the early SOHC engines (pre-99) had heads that flowed well but had shit intake valves that were shrouded by the port design (luckily, this can be remdied rather easily). The DOHC engines made respectable power but were lighter in the torque department than the OHV engines (and the competition).
>Pros and cons to both?
The pushrod engines have a much larger aftermarket, but the Modulars have slowly but surely developed one of their own. It depends more on your budget, it seems. Ford small block go-fast parts, while not quite as numerous as their Chevy counterparts, are still more easily had than Modular go-fast parts.
>Which is better?
That's a subjective question. It's pretty easy to buy a head, cam, and intake kit for a pushrod 5.0 and get respectable power, but the new Coyote engine (which is basically the Modular 2.0) is easily one of the best V8s built today. It depends on your own preferences (and your budget).

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 08/01/2014 at 15:06

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Being an OHC engine, the Mod motors are wider than the Windsors. Also, 351W. Much easier to find superchargers, and truck blocks for the giggles.

Disclaimer: I have a 1995 F-150 with the 351 Windsor in it. Stock, it has practically no power, but as soon as I become exempt from emissions, it's off to the Ford Racing catalog.