The whole point of the 2023 Ford F-150 Raptor R is the engine. It’s a 5.2-liter supercharged V8 that Ford snagged out of its Mustang Shelby GT500, then modified it for off-road truck duty. In this interview, we get Brian Lizotte, engine product design supervisor, to give us a rundown of what Ford had to do to get this sports car engine ready for the Raptor. He talks us through the changes made to the supercharger, oiling system, intake and exhaust. It all results in a motor that makes 700 horsepower and 640 pound-feet of torque. That’s less horsepower but more torque than it makes in the Mustang.
TranscriptZAC PALMER: Hey, guys. So we're here with product design supervisor for this engine right here that goes in the 2023 Ford F-150 Raptor. Brian Lizotte. So was hoping to pick his brain here to see what was different between this new engine for the truck and what was in the Shelby GT500. I know that they made a few changes, so if you could run through some of them for us, that'd be awesome.
BRIAN LIZOTTE: Yeah, definitely, definitely. We can start, kind of, at the top of the unit and, kind of, work our way down, maybe that'd be the easiest. So there is unique badging and Raptor designation on the supercharger lid for this specific application, fairly straightforward from, you know, differentiation perspective.
The main functional difference in the supercharger assembly is we did change the pulley to a smaller diameter to get better torque curve and performance response for the Raptor truck application and to better match the powertrain line up with the automatic transmission, right. So that's a big change for this application.
I guess staying on the front of the engine here, the crankshaft damper has also been modified. This is an aluminum viscous damper that's been tuned for the driveline as well to improve the NVH in the engine for this application.
Staying on the front, we also change the engine oil cooler system in a conventional FL 500 S filter, which is used on many of our applications to improve the cooling efficiency of the engine oil. We can go a little bit lower and the-- maybe come around to the side here. And we have a deep sump oil pan to address the off-road maneuvers and gradeability requirements for the truck. So we've added-- took advantage of the truck package and we're able to go with the deep sump pan.
Another big change is the exhaust manifolds just above that. These are the cast stainless steel exhaust manifolds for durability. And they have heat shielding to protect the under hood environment from the temperatures and mass flows from the truck durability point of view.
ZAC PALMER: One other thing I wanted to look at because I saw that you guys made some changes to it-- but the intake as well, there are some changes made there?
BRIAN LIZOTTE: Yeah, on the air induction system for the vehicle--
ZAC PALMER: Yeah.
BRIAN LIZOTTE: --and on the exhaust side of the vehicle system, improvements were made to improve airflow, right? You got to feed this engine in order to make the 700 horsepower and deliver the torque curve that we wanted. So the AIS is a larger volume, better inlet feeding error into the engine. And then similarly on the exhaust, it was optimized to get the exhaust back pressure that we needed.
ZAC PALMER: Got you. Yeah and then on that torque curve as well-- of course, this has 700 horsepower versus the Shelby GT500 760, But this has considerably more torque at a lower speed. I don't know if you could speak to your guys' goals there.
BRIAN LIZOTTE: Yeah, well, that was a big part of the pulley change, right. We wanted to fill in the mid-range of the torque curve to better match the driver or customer demand--
ZAC PALMER: Yeah.
BRIAN LIZOTTE: --in this off-road, sand running truck. So that was the main driver behind the pulley chain.
ZAC PALMER: Awesome. Well, that's all really great stuff. Thank you for running through all of this for us and, yeah--
BRIAN LIZOTTE: My pleasure. Appreciate it.
ZAC PALMER: Awesome.
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