Rudemustang300

Is it possible to put a lightning engine in a 05-06 mustang gt. isnt that basiclly what a cobra is. a supercharged lightning engine?
or is the front end in a cobra slightly bigger.

mustangman02232

its the same motor with just a longer stroke, you should be able to find a stroker kit out there, but one of the big things i would do is i would switch over to forged internals

spyder7724

the lightning engine is a 2valve 5.4L with weak internals. the GT and shelby/ cobra engines are all 4V and have really good rotating parts. the lightning engine is nothing more than a p/u truck motor with a blower slapped on it. you could accompolish the same and with less hassle by putting a s/c on yours now. if you really want to get freaky then try putting a 03-04 cobra, shelby 500 or ford GT engine in there. ......or just pull yours out and rebuild it with some decent parts and install a turbo or s/c kit.

yellowjacket01

as with putting a cobra motor in the car,would it bolt right up,anyone who has done this already what is required to do this?...besides the motor.

CrazyAl

The 5.4 motors are NOT a direct bolt in to our cars. The motor mounts are different, the exhaust is different, the intake manifolds are different, etc.

It could be done, but it would be a major custom job. You'd better have some $$$ up.

It would be far less expensive to build up a 3V 4.6 with a blower or turbo.

yellowjacket01

i wasnt talking about a 5.4 i was asking about a cobra motor,say 4.6

cekim

Still not a bolt-in. headers, mounts, tune and random other stuff...

Based on the performance numbers I have seen you can accomplish the same thing by building up a 3V 4.6 with less money and FAR less modifications to your car...

You won't get any power just from the replacing the engine with a 4V 4.6 - so the only reason to do that is a strong bottom end which you can get in the form of a built/rebuilt short block for the 3V. ($1-5K in parts depending on how you buy it, then add installation if you don't do it). When you do this you can stroke it at the same time (though be careful with that - long-term reliability results are still coming on from stroked 3Vs).

Then add PSI as needed to get more power...

yellowjacket01

would it be cheaper to just go supercharged?

cekim

Depends on your end-goal...

up to 450RWHP - you can add an S/C or turbo for ~$4-7K without changing the bottom-end (depending on which SC/TC kit you use).

The trouble with your question is that the reasons for digging up the old blocks is not HP, but strength. The cheap/strong teksid blocks from the lincolns and the Cobra bottom end are what people are after there...

So, that process (engine swap or build-up) should not be viewed as a power adder, but rather a means to get a stronger engine to handle boost of some form...

You can add some power while you are at it, in the form of head porting, compression, stroke etc... but that swap (4.6 for 4.6) is only for insurance which you can get by building up your 4.6 or just buy a short-block for ~$2.5-5K with the better crank/rods/pistons (which again is only needed for 450RWHP and up which translates to over 500 at the crank).

yellowjacket01

thanks