[Ultrajetboat]

I dunno if anyone on here has much tuning experience, or boat experience for that matter. But it has become more popular recently to rig jet boats with chevy 5.3 liter engines because they are light, cheap, and can produce good power very easily. I was planning on swapping out the 454 in my boat for a 5.3 in the next few years, it's getting easier and easier to do. But now that I'm a mustang owner, I can't help but wonder how hard it would be to drop a 5.0 into a jet boat and tune it to run correctly. I could see 500hp at the crank being an easy goal with straight headers and a boss intake. Or maybe even fab up in intake manifold that will allow you to run a carburetor.

[101fng]

Originally Posted by Ultrajetboat I dunno if anyone on here has much tuning experience, or boat experience for that matter. But it has become more popular recently to rig jet boats with chevy 5.3 liter engines because they are light, cheap, and can produce good power very easily. I was planning on swapping out the 454 in my boat for a 5.3 in the next few years, it's getting easier and easier to do. But now that I'm a mustang owner, I can't help but wonder how hard it would be to drop a 5.0 into a jet boat and tune it to run correctly. I could see 500hp at the crank being an easy goal with straight headers and a boss intake. Or maybe even fab up in intake manifold that will allow you to run a carburetor.

A new 4v 5.0? Like 2011 5.0? Sure, you can ditch the fuel injection, but that means you have to scrap the copperhead ECM which means the TiVCT is worthless which is the main reason the new 5.0 is such a success. I'd keep it fuel injected. If you have the money, you can do anything. A sheet metal intake like the old EFI conversion intakes wouldn't be too hard to fab up for a savvy fabricator but I'd recommend keeping the stock throttle body which might limit what you can do with intakes. I honestly wouldn't even know where to start with something like this. I know I'd keep the ECM though. I remember an article in Hot Rod magazine where they dropped a new 5.0 into some rod and used ITB's and a stand alone ECU, they ended up making only about 300-some horsepower, all because of the stand alone ECU and ITBs. A carb would do the same thing. You won't achieve 500~hp without maintaining EFI. You can lock out the cams and basically ditch the TiVCT, but you'll have pretty shitty low end power and torque but that's probably not an issue for a boat. Idk. Interesting topic though.

And any mustang tuning shop will be able to tune it for you as long as you keep the stock ECM. If you switch to a stand alone, I'd say that anyone can tune it as long as the cams are locked.

[Ultrajetboat]

Yeah I considered the locked out cams idea, I only care about power from about 3500rpm and up. But to get everything out of it I would need to keep it as is, no carb setup. In a boat there would be nothing but an alternator pulley. Straight headers and whatever intake setup could be fabricated. It's just a fun idea, I have no time to do it now. But in the future it would be cool to drop this in I stead of rebuilding the 454. Would be a lot cheaper to get 500hp out of a 454, but it would be something that would turn some heads.

[101fng]

You can do ITBs. It'd be pretty easy, you'd just have to fabricate some adapters and run a stand alone ECU. Adjustable cam sprockets and I don't think you'd have any trouble getting ~500fwhp (flywheel not front wheel lol). Ford rates the engine output with full FEAD (front engine accessory drive) so with nothing but an alternator, plus ITBs, locked and degrees cams, open LT headers, and an aggressive tune, you should get damn close to 500hp.