I had a dyno shop here in Aus for 25 years (got out in 09) and we specialised in the Boss 4V engines along with the Turbo Barra and the GM LS engines. Our primary R&D car for Ford was an FPV 290 Ute. With only bolt-ons, tuning, etc, and a well set up car running the factory 4spd auto trans (4500 stall with a Heavy Duty lock-up clutch), at 3700 pounds race weight we ran an 11.6 @ 116.9mph. Completely stock internals (unopened) and Naturally Aspirated. Working with our chosen cylinder head guy, Dave Webb of AFD (Airflow Dynamics), we both thought the intake runners were a bit on the large side for the stock engine, so we reduced the crossectional area throughout by approx 20%. The result was interesting, and we lost no power anywhere whatsoever, right up to the 6700rpm limit we had set, and we made a little gain between 3500 to 4500rpm but only about 3 - 5hp. We never got to try a further reduction but a have a feeling it would have been beneficial on this engine to pull some much-needed power under the curve without sacrificing too much upstairs if anything at all. Another interesting point was that I visited the foundry that cast the prototype and spotted the same manifold in his office on display, and to my surprise, he told me that there was only ever this one prototype/size and configuration created and tested.
I'm in Manor, if you have any parts left or at all for a 2v or feel like tinkering with a 5.4 2v Pi engine or if you ever wanted to play with the Coyote. I have a 2nd gen ready to be built. 🙂
I am glad you spoke about pistons speed. There is still a lot of theory out there that just does not hold water when actually tested physically, but people still tell people you can't do something because of the theories. You bring a lot of important information to the community with your physical testing. Thanks again.👍
We don’t “get” some of the coolest stuff, we “designed” it, we may well ride Kangaroos to work, but we make lots of cool things when we get there, just curious if we didn’t also change our 4V heads as well, fabulous video as usual Richard, luv your work.
Richard Holdener, indeed, and I certainly wasn’t having a go at you, I love the fact that you go to the trouble of even testing our aluminium bits at all, unfortunately most Muricans, think that we get all our go fast bits from the US, most still believe that the Barra is just an old 250 motor from an F150 with a touch of new paint. Our now dead car industry turned out some wonderful things in their go fast departments, look what GMH did with that old 3.8 Buick stinker they ran in the Commodore for years, unfortunately they forget how to make daily drivers that people wanted to buy, again, luv your videos, I have learned so much from them, and even this episode about RPM, I was always told that RPM was limited by conrod speed in Metres per second, regards Mike.
Kermit Stanbach , far from it. Most of our high performance market here in Aus is based around the LS, the Barra Six turbo, the 5.4 Ford and Coyote V8 and a whole range of other stuff, including old school Ford, Chrysler, GM Holden and Japanese performance like Rotaries, Fast Fours and Sixes, etc.
I know this is an old video, but I recently started following this Aussie fella "Gap Sauce". You're spot on with the Boss 290. I guess there's company called Yella Terra that makes a high flow upper plenum. He used the Yella Terra upper plenum with a GT500 twin 60MM throttle body. Seems to work really well.
im running a boss 290 intake manifold on my twin turbo 5.4 4v. I cut and relocated the throttle body to the front. running a LS 90mm throttle body on a holley stand alone setup. Its a great intake setup for sure. I thought about switching to mmr billet coyote intake manifold with adaptors.
Chuck's Truck : It was. The 16 version of Richards made the most power with the least revs: 449 hp at just 6100rpm. I was taught to look only at the rpms required to make peak power, which is called the Hilth Method of data assement. Generally, most bench racers and dynomometer operators understand that carrying another 200 rpm to make another 15 hp is fine, but another 200 rpm extra to make only 2 hp more is not an efficiency win. The trends are more important than the peaks. The power peak Richard made on the second longest of his custom intakes made that 449 hp from a 330 cube engine at just 6100rpm. Not carrying extra revs means VE and BMEP have improved, but Ai is a real quick sanity check. If you take engine cubes, multiply it by the peak power rpm, and divide by indicated gross dyno horsepower, you get a number, 4484 in the 16 runner test case. That is an Aspirations Index (Ai) as defined by two Australians, the late F1 engineer Phil Irving and the still alive touring car engineering guru, Larry Perkins. Richards second longest Rube Runner gives the lowwst Ai of 4484. Revs are traded off against Horsepower. Lowest number Ai constant wins. Always. Mr Holdeners Second Longest 16 inch 'Sub' twin throttle body beast "wins" by that statistical rule.The SMH was 2nd. Boss 290 equal by a narrow margin, about 4714 each. 330 x 6300/ 448 hp for the Boss 290. For those worried about mid range torque losses, Variable valve timing can control that.
You are incorrect when you state that "Variable valve timing can control that." as the 5.4L DOHC modular V8 has absolutely no variable valve timing, nor have any models of the Modular DOHC 5.4 ever had that feature. It is not something that can be added into the engine either, obviously.
I've had a BOSS 290 in my FG XR8.. but I crashed it unfortunately 🥺😫... I currently have a 2008 BFII XR8 with only 55,000km in the clock with the BOSS 260 and I love it 🤤🤤😍
All the boss motors in aus have these intakes. alot of us put a forward facing intake plenum with twin throttle bodies on it. seems to work the best :) loved your video mate.
Richard the the boss 315 engine on the series one fg falcon GT had a twin blade throttle body from factory if you are looking for one . In Australia you could get the 5.4 in 260,290,302 and 315 kw
Yella Terra also do an aftermarket upper plenum for the BOSS manifold adding a twin 60mm TB. It also adds a bit extra plenum volume and fixes some cylinder to cylinder fill mismatches the factory plenum lids have. In the aussie location the TB is on the left side of the car (as you look at it, passenger side for us, drivers side for the US) meaning teh rear cylinder on that side has the least air flow. some people have also tried the front TB input (used as an OTR style from a intercooler), and twin TB's one on each side (seen done for both n/a and twin turbo setups).
The upper plenum on the Aus Boss manifold can be improved quite a bit with Yella Terra swap or modified for front entry dual throttle body. The front and dual throttle body mods have all been done before. You can buy them on ebay.
You did all the dyno work for ford mag back in the day .seen alot of pics out of the mag in the videos .this engine did a 1000 way back then on twins .back then that was amazing .
The SuperRichie(TM) variable length manifold is sick. It would be cool to see that one with the injectors mounted up high on the runners to answer the charge cooling question.
I've got 3 of these intakes in my garage. Funny how stuff so rare and desirable in one country is just excess car parts in garage in another. My little unmodified Boss 260 runs a Vortech V3 side mounted blower at a mere 6psi at the top end, and a water to air intercooler, sitting pretty with a nearly 480hp :)
Once again, looks like those guys at Ford knows how to design a intake manifold for the 4v engines!!!! For the money, can’t beat that stock intake and my choice if I had unlimited money, would definitely be the boss!!! Or maybe Richard’s custom made intake!!!!
I bought a 290 off ebay here in America. Absolutely badass intake. Paid 500$ for mine. Also rpm on these engines arent limited to the valve train, its the terminal piston speed due to the long stroke of the 5.4. The piston becomes unstable, and the skirt starts smacking the walls with some brutal force.
Richard I have a Shaun Hyland aluminum 6.0l block with a ford 5.4 racing crank (5.8l total),running a Boss 290 intake with a custom upper 1000cfm oval throttle body. It also has custom cams and long tube tri y headers. The chassis dyno indicated 580 hp and similar torque at the flywheel. I think a greater plenum volume might help and would like to see what a 1 in space would do. I also like your twin inlet idea. Btw there is an Aussie company that makes a front inlet upper. There is also an individual throttle body intake. I would live to see that dyno'd!!!
I have an example of piston speed limit... I run a rover 1.4l K-series (an engine found in the MK1 lotus elise but probably completely unknown in the USA) at 8000rpm I could run the engine all day every day. When racing, due to gearing I used to run it to 8400rpm so I didnt have to change to 5th. after aprx 5 passes (1/4 mile) it would push the gudgeon pin out into the cylinder wall, it would run fine but obv itd burn oil fur fun. yes technically its a conrod issue(press fit pin) but was directly related to piston speed. The reason I cite this example, is the pistons jsut a slug, I suppose so long as it doesnt seperate into two it has no reall limit, the limits always whats around it, rods, pin, rings etc.
You can lower piston *Acceleration* with longer con rod and lower height piston (higher rod ratio), which is also improving the crank angles which reduces wear and force from the cylinder wall, and makes the same displacement engine to be able to rev higher without exploding it, and in some cases even gives you lighter rotating assembly, and also makes the compression stroke just a slightly “longer” like an half degree or so but anyways it theoretically helps with detonation issue 😁😅 So there is much “pros” in longer rods. 😁
@@beardbuilds5140 if you could post pictures in youtue comments id show you, yes driving 300 miles home from an event with the gudgeon pin riding the cylinder wall left an impression (but she always made it home) the pin was very wide, so even when it was contacting the wall on one side, it was still in the piston on the other, there was a slight little end knock but the tell-tale was the horrific oil consumption on that cylinder.
@@Jubr123 Id love to see richard actually test this, ive no knowledge of "domestic" v8's cause in the UK they just dont exist in decent numbers, but off the top of my head the subaru EJ25 and the nissan RB26 are both engines I know intimately and they both rev hard and both have very short rods. Now the EJ is famous for piston slap but id say thats more due to the tiny height slipper style pistons than the short rod. I agree from an engineering point of view, but interesting how it plays out in the real world.
Longer the stroke the better torque and the less rpm needed. This for a production engine. 302, 327 350 Chev 302 351W 340 360 LA 351 400M. The 5.4 here in Oz has very little available simply to overhaul, or at least a few years ago. Huge heavy lump. And overshadowed by the 4 litre turbo 6.
Please correct me if I am wrong. They run less than a 4 " bore. To me, that is less piston surface area and increased valve shrouding and less low rpm torque? I wonder if the reason was to control detonation? They are known for timing chain adjuster o ring blow out, leading to dire problems for the valve train. The 3V 5.4 at 80 mph, in a 35 mph{ 110'} cross wind and air con on full; delivered 24.5 mpg. An imperial gallon is 4.5 liters. I thought that was great going. Cheers.
Interesting. A 5.4 has a higher piston speed than my 521 (8.5L) BBF. I have played around with a 5.4 Lightning motor. A couple of nice things about these engines is the stout bottom end assembly and the very stable “small bore” piston. 4V heads, small bore and long stroke can be an excellent combo.
Jon Kaase was asked about the liabilities of his IHRA Mountain Motors. He said that although very undersquare, those engines got down the track pretty good. I guess.
Would have been cool if during the weird ford years where they made a million different v8s if they just made the 5.4 for that time period. I am glad that they’re basically making coyotes now instead of two valve coyote three valve coyote and four valve coyote. Glad they just make coyote.
Plenty of cool stuff down here that’s still for the most part unknown beyond our shores. Pretty sure we also had the 351 in new cars for many years after everyone else stopped.
I'm with Mr Holdener. I turned an all motor D16 honda 9500rpm over and over. It did wear out rings. New rings, and output would come back to the baseline. 3.54 stroke
Hey Richard. As an Aussie, I feel a big pang of Aussie pride with your positive comments about the stuff our Ford skunkworks have put out over the years. No doubt you've heard about the Miami version of the Coyote V8 and the Barra 6 needs no introduction. It saddens me that the Australian car building industry is dead in the water which will undoubtedly affect the innovation our factory performance divisions have managed down here-including the great work Holden/HSV have done as well. We are a small nation of serious car nuts and we punched well above our weight for many years. I'd love for you to have an in-depth look at the Miami version of the Coyote and the later versions of the Barra. Love your content and the scientific way you approach it.
@@MadLadMartyMcFly85 the Miami is a supercharged variant of the Coyote built in Australia by Ford. All Miamis are Coyotes but not many Coyotes are Miamis.
We need another of these with coyote intakes on it. I run a boss 260 in my falcon with a coyote boss 302 on it. Surprisingly I picked up quite a bit of torque
Love it! I’m an Aussie with a boss 260 5.4 (lower comp than the 290) but with the same intake manifold. Cool to see it tested! I was also worried about everyone saying “piston speed” is a big worry with it. I’ve revved mine to 6500 for minutes at a time, occasionally seen 7000 and nothing’s ever broken!
@@robsearles3875 sorry mate it most certainly is not. The boss 260 has 9.5:1 compression ratio and the boss 290 is 10.5:1. I also have a bottom end from an FG GT boss 315 which has 11:1 comp ratio that I hopefully can put to use soon. The differences in compression are achieved by a different height flat top piston that comes up closer to the deck height for each higher compression engine combo.
Richard, it would be worth measuring the restriction that the throttle body causes. You may find that increasing the plenum size gives a bigger gain than increasing throttle body size.
Just bought a boss 260 BA XR8. Stock makes a good sound. I think a dual throttle either side of the boss manifold would be best for air to each bank of cross flow manifold. Might look at fab shop for new ideas...
Lol the 290 intake rare in Australia. I threw one in the scrap bin recently. Checkout the Yella Terra intake plenum for the boss 290 intake. It can take a monoblade or twin 65mm. The boss 315 came out standard with twin 65mm
I know this is an older test but it'd be nice to see different coyote intakes ran on a Navi motor with the MMR adapter plates.. Especially since you mentioned the last test adapter plates hurt power.
Make a variable sliding intake that can be manually shortened as the RPM goes up, it would be revolutionary. Then design a servo system with controller to auto vary the length using RPM and throttle input. Maybe can be integrated into ECU, maybe Holly would work with you to design it.
Want a bigger throttle opening on a BOSS intake? Check out Yella Terra’s website. They offer a revised top half that accepts a twin blade (used on some Shelby cars I believe) or oval single blade TB. Furthermore, they offer a supercharger kit that lives in the valley and doesn’t add any size to the factory intake!
That 290 is cool. I think the navigator intake is going to work best for a daily driver. I'm putting one of these motors in a 2000 f150 single cab stepside.
Thank you very much for testing this engine, it's a true junkyard gem! One question for you though, was the Navi intake run with the crossover open or closed? I've also run across a rumor that the supercharger from the Mercedes AMG M113k 5.4L can be mounted on the Ford 5.4 with a spacer. If anyone has any information on that I'd love to hear it.
Yella Terra down here in Australia do a plenum lid for the boss intake that is higher (more volume) and has a bigger throttle opening with two different TB designs to suit.
If you want a bigger throttle body opening for the boss 260/290 upper plenium find a boss 315 plenium from a fg 5.4 gt. They have a twin 60mm throttle body. Or u can buy aftermarket higher volume pleniums from aussie relatively cheap
Piston speed affects engine life. That's why OE manufacturers have a self imposed limit on it. It is of no consequence to hot rodders, so long as the rods don't break.
If I can say one thing about the piston speed thing, which is truly pedantic, also depends on the engine life. Bearings and cranks can only take so much, but definitely valve train is the limiting factor, unless your using Nitrogen sprung valves, but that is in a different realm of engine building. Just my $0.02 Awesome video man, ive been waiting to see the factory gator intake test. I have one waiting for a project, just didnt know where to go form a stock gator intake
Yella Terra make a plenum lid for the Boss 290 intake with twin 68mm throttle bodies. Would be interesting to see if it makes any difference N/A because I think the lid is more so used for boosted applications
I have a 5.4 2v lightning motor swap. Have zero deck height piston from weisco. K1 rods, tfs heads and a gt500 blower adapted to it. Running 10.4:1 and stage 3 crower cams. I hope to put 650 to 750 to the ground. Its running about 21 lbs of boost
Hi Richard we have another intake you guys didnt get and its for the L36/L67. It was fitted to VS through to VY commodores with the ecotec 3.8l v6 and is fitted to the L67 when going turbo instead of the m90. when you do your Big Bang test on the L67 I can organise to send one over for you to play with and it will be yours to modify as you please
Yes but the f1 engines that reved to 20000rpm only had 42mm stroke with 90mm bore Needed the bigger bore to get bigger valves in so it would actually breath at that rpm
Boss 290 the world 🇦🇺. Great video Richard, there are a few different options of top section (plenum) for the aussie boss manifolds. All expensive to. I run a yella terra plenum lid that allows larger dual or ovel throttle bodies. Only running twin 60mm. Definitely noticeable gains. A carbon r is a front entry lid and there was a lid made at one time in history that had throttle body wither side... Any chance of future vids on best 5.4 NA setup. Loved the boosted 5.4 vid. 👌
@@MadLadMartyMcFly85 G'day Josh, yeah mate some 3.23 diff gears and some tramp rods just gone in.. looking and flex fuel system with a retune and going to see how it goes down the 1/4mi
@@MadLadMartyMcFly85 yeah better for boost but if i can squeeze alittle more out NA just for 1/4mi then it'll help. Then i suppose i could go boost 🤔🤣. I would have to give the intake cam the flick but i have options.
I was watching a video of a diesel drag truck where the throttle stuck and the auto shutdown failed so the driver had to put it in neutral and let it eat. It was a 6.7 Cummins and it hit 8200 RPM when the connecting rod bolts reached plastic deformation and all hell broke loose. You can find the video on Power Driven Diesels website. So while I sort of agree with you that piston speed is not as much of a limiting factor as valve train it certainly can be a limiting factor in some situations and for that engine it was roughly 6600 ft/min of piston speed.
@@richardholdener1727 No it wasn't a run away and even so why not? Isn't the piston speed argument that you you can only run an engine so fast before either the rod or the bolts fail? That being the case I think this is a very good example. The valve train was still functioning or the engine wouldn't have been able to keep running, diesel or not it needs oxygen. So the limiting factor in this case was unrelated to valve actuation but was instead related to the ability of the rod bolts to secure the rod to the crankshaft. You asked for an example of piston speed being the limiting factor. I'm not arguing that it is the case very often however in this case it was. This wasn't an old 2 stroke Detroit running away in which case I would agree with you that it isn't a good example since the Detroit's use their valves to get rid of exhaust but this was a 4 valve Cummins which uses 2 intake and 2 exhaust valves has something like 9/16" pushrods and is purposefully built to run at least 5-6k on a regular basis with tool steel piston pins and tons of other racing components. So please explain why this is a poor example of precisely what you asked someone to provide?
I would life to see a long runner intake test using dual 92mm throttle bodies. On a stroked ls with ported factory heads vs after market head. Without and with power adders.
They usually try to keep piston speed below 26 m/s no matter your stroke because the engine has to sustain that speed. It's not so much about valvetrain. You can have a formula one piston speed with a 6,000 rpm redline depending on your stroke. For 1/4 mile application you can do whatever you want because it's only for a couple seconds. The 8250 rpm redline of the 5.2L coyote in the gt350 works out to exactly that, 25.9 m/s the very same as a formula one engine. That's determined to be the limit for an engine that has to run at that speed for hours at a time.
Quad Cam 5.4 liter 03-08 Boss 290 is 378 hp net, Boss 260 is 349 hp net, the 342 factory Stroker 5.0 --->5.6 2002 Tickford T3 250 was 335 hp net. Each were just the Quad Cam Cobra R intake. Its the Trick Flow Box R with some slightly better detailing. The 82 mm MAF was Cobra R for those. The bssic casting became the DJR 320, a 429 hp net engine. The idea was US Dearborn. The application of the idea was Australian. The items go far above those net hp ratings if you linish and flow bench the bellmouths and adjust the upper box. US idea...Aussies did it because they wanted to win the performance war with 5.7, 6.0 and 6.2 Alloytech Chev engined Holdens.( No ER required...just yet).
Piston speed has only been an issue when durability is required with stock parts. If quality aftermarket pistons and rods are used theoretically there really doesn't seem to be an issue. There are limits that shouldn't be exeded if extended road miles are expected with stock parts never designed to operate at increased power levels for extended periods. I have a bit of experience in finite element analysis to destruction too hopefully lend some clarity to this subject.
Would love to see a BXR manifold on 5.6 Windsor on perhaps blown and naturally aspirated applications , particularly 7500 rpm high rev style play things , also down under we also do a boss 260 on our earlier 4 cam 5.4 litre tritons
I’ve got a set of 2000 cobra R heads along with a shortened ,ported and polished intake in the garage for a future high compression TT build. Next 5.4 4v test give me a heads up and I’d be inclined to let you borrow the T intake to see what it would do begins the 260/290 intake variant.
Alright Richard, who's the Aussie who slipped you a 290 intake? 🤔 You gotta ask whoever your contact is down here for the BOSS 315 intake off the FPV before we swapped to the Miami motor. 😎👍
@@chucksgarage7165 From what I'm reading off all the old Aussie forums...none. 😁👍 Not between the 260 & 290 anyway. All internal differences (different comp pistons, different cams, valves). Trying to find the 290 vs 315 comparo. 🤔
This is partially correct..BOSS260 and BOSS290 Upper plenums are the same but...the BOSS315 is built to accept a larger throttle body. We also have an aftermarket fabricated plenum lid that accept a twin 65mm Wipple TB. There are also some that have been fabbed to accept a TB either side or directly in front. Look on Ebay and you will find one. I am selling a BRAND NEW from Ford Australia 260/290 manifold without upper plenum.
I had a dyno shop here in Aus for 25 years (got out in 09) and we specialised in the Boss 4V engines along with the Turbo Barra and the GM LS engines. Our primary R&D car for Ford was an FPV 290 Ute. With only bolt-ons, tuning, etc, and a well set up car running the factory 4spd auto trans (4500 stall with a Heavy Duty lock-up clutch), at 3700 pounds race weight we ran an 11.6 @ 116.9mph. Completely stock internals (unopened) and Naturally Aspirated. Working with our chosen cylinder head guy, Dave Webb of AFD (Airflow Dynamics), we both thought the intake runners were a bit on the large side for the stock engine, so we reduced the crossectional area throughout by approx 20%. The result was interesting, and we lost no power anywhere whatsoever, right up to the 6700rpm limit we had set, and we made a little gain between 3500 to 4500rpm but only about 3 - 5hp. We never got to try a further reduction but a have a feeling it would have been beneficial on this engine to pull some much-needed power under the curve without sacrificing too much upstairs if anything at all. Another interesting point was that I visited the foundry that cast the prototype and spotted the same manifold in his office on display, and to my surprise, he told me that there was only ever this one prototype/size and configuration created and tested.
I'm in Manor, if you have any parts left or at all for a 2v or feel like tinkering with a 5.4 2v Pi engine or if you ever wanted to play with the Coyote. I have a 2nd gen ready to be built. 🙂
It’s becoming much more of an international dyno channel. Which is great.
I am glad you spoke about pistons speed. There is still a lot of theory out there that just does not hold water when actually tested physically, but people still tell people you can't do something because of the theories. You bring a lot of important information to the community with your physical testing.
Thanks again.👍
We don’t “get” some of the coolest stuff, we “designed” it, we may well ride Kangaroos to work, but we make lots of cool things when we get there, just curious if we didn’t also change our 4V heads as well, fabulous video as usual Richard, luv your work.
I think I demonstrated my love and respect for the Australian hot rodders-if you think I indicated anything else-that's on you!
Richard Holdener, indeed, and I certainly wasn’t having a go at you, I love the fact that you go to the trouble of even testing our aluminium bits at all, unfortunately most Muricans, think that we get all our go fast bits from the US, most still believe that the Barra is just an old 250 motor from an F150 with a touch of new paint.
Our now dead car industry turned out some wonderful things in their go fast departments, look what GMH did with that old 3.8 Buick stinker they ran in the Commodore for years, unfortunately they forget how to make daily drivers that people wanted to buy, again, luv your videos, I have learned so much from them, and even this episode about RPM, I was always told that RPM was limited by conrod speed in Metres per second, regards Mike.
@@elonmask50 I thought the big thing in Australia was to modify Toyota 1UZ motors or Nissan VK motors?
Kermit Stanbach , far from it. Most of our high performance market here in Aus is based around the LS, the Barra Six turbo, the 5.4 Ford and Coyote V8 and a whole range of other stuff, including old school Ford, Chrysler, GM Holden and Japanese performance like Rotaries, Fast Fours and Sixes, etc.
Kermit Stanbach, absolutely, we Mad Max the shit out em!
I know this is an old video, but I recently started following this Aussie fella "Gap Sauce". You're spot on with the Boss 290. I guess there's company called Yella Terra that makes a high flow upper plenum. He used the Yella Terra upper plenum with a GT500 twin 60MM throttle body. Seems to work really well.
ruclips.net/video/h9hTdkZxU70/видео.html GAP SAUCE LINK, HE IS A 5.4 LEGEND!
im running a boss 290 intake manifold on my twin turbo 5.4 4v. I cut and relocated the throttle body to the front. running a LS 90mm throttle body on a holley stand alone setup. Its a great intake setup for sure. I thought about switching to mmr billet coyote intake manifold with adaptors.
Aussie here, love my Boss 290 with same manifold and plenum!
So.... I think Richard's homemade intake was the best of them all? Wow!
Chuck's Truck : It was. The 16 version of Richards made the most power with the least revs: 449 hp at just 6100rpm. I was taught to look only at the rpms required to make peak power, which is called the Hilth Method of data assement. Generally, most bench racers and dynomometer operators understand that carrying another 200 rpm to make another 15 hp is fine, but another 200 rpm extra to make only 2 hp more is not an efficiency win. The trends are more important than the peaks. The power peak Richard made on the second longest of his custom intakes made that 449 hp from a 330 cube engine at just 6100rpm. Not carrying extra revs means VE and BMEP have improved, but Ai is a real quick sanity check. If you take engine cubes, multiply it by the peak power rpm, and divide by indicated gross dyno horsepower, you get a number, 4484 in the 16 runner test case. That is an Aspirations Index (Ai) as defined by two Australians, the late F1 engineer Phil Irving and the still alive touring car engineering guru, Larry Perkins. Richards second longest Rube Runner gives the lowwst Ai of 4484. Revs are traded off against Horsepower. Lowest number Ai constant wins. Always. Mr Holdeners Second Longest 16 inch 'Sub' twin throttle body beast "wins" by that statistical rule.The SMH was 2nd. Boss 290 equal by a narrow margin, about 4714 each. 330 x 6300/ 448 hp for the Boss 290. For those worried about mid range torque losses, Variable valve timing can control that.
You are incorrect when you state that "Variable valve timing can control that." as the 5.4L DOHC modular V8 has absolutely no variable valve timing, nor have any models of the Modular DOHC 5.4 ever had that feature. It is not something that can be added into the engine either, obviously.
I've had a BOSS 290 in my FG XR8.. but I crashed it unfortunately 🥺😫... I currently have a 2008 BFII XR8 with only 55,000km in the clock with the BOSS 260 and I love it 🤤🤤😍
All the boss motors in aus have these intakes. alot of us put a forward facing intake plenum with twin throttle bodies on it. seems to work the best :) loved your video mate.
Richard the the boss 315 engine on the series one fg falcon GT had a twin blade throttle body from factory if you are looking for one . In Australia you could get the 5.4 in 260,290,302 and 315 kw
Yella Terra also do an aftermarket upper plenum for the BOSS manifold adding a twin 60mm TB. It also adds a bit extra plenum volume and fixes some cylinder to cylinder fill mismatches the factory plenum lids have. In the aussie location the TB is on the left side of the car (as you look at it, passenger side for us, drivers side for the US) meaning teh rear cylinder on that side has the least air flow.
some people have also tried the front TB input (used as an OTR style from a intercooler), and twin TB's one on each side (seen done for both n/a and twin turbo setups).
Dataminetk I was goin to say the same, you can also by a spacer to lift the top up 10mm to also help cylinder to cylinder air flow.
The upper plenum on the Aus Boss manifold can be improved quite a bit with Yella Terra swap or modified for front entry dual throttle body. The front and dual throttle body mods have all been done before. You can buy them on ebay.
Great video, were I live in Australia, the Ford Barra turbo 6 cyclinder is one of the favourite at the minute. Have a look.
You did all the dyno work for ford mag back in the day .seen alot of pics out of the mag in the videos .this engine did a 1000 way back then on twins .back then that was amazing .
FG Barra Turbo next mate, love your stuff.
No barra in the states. Send us some!! Lol
@@CallofDoobie585 There's already plenty there, just find Adam LZ. 😉
Yep Barra good pick.
PLEASE send us some Red Top Barras!
@@MafiaboysWorld Adam's 350GT is BADASS!
The SuperRichie(TM) variable length manifold is sick. It would be cool to see that one with the injectors mounted up high on the runners to answer the charge cooling question.
I did that too
I've got 3 of these intakes in my garage. Funny how stuff so rare and desirable in one country is just excess car parts in garage in another. My little unmodified Boss 260 runs a Vortech V3 side mounted blower at a mere 6psi at the top end, and a water to air intercooler, sitting pretty with a nearly 480hp :)
Still have one you'd be willing to sell? With stock fuel rails?
Once again, looks like those guys at Ford knows how to design a intake manifold for the 4v engines!!!! For the money, can’t beat that stock intake and my choice if I had unlimited money, would definitely be the boss!!! Or maybe Richard’s custom made intake!!!!
Your adjustable intake is cooler than a tunnel ram.
Have you ever compared different runner diameters?
not on the mod motor
I bought a 290 off ebay here in America. Absolutely badass intake. Paid 500$ for mine. Also rpm on these engines arent limited to the valve train, its the terminal piston speed due to the long stroke of the 5.4. The piston becomes unstable, and the skirt starts smacking the walls with some brutal force.
Is the 4.6 or 4.6 stroker to 5.0 better than a 5.4?
Your diy intake contraption rocks!
Speaking of f1. I would love to learn more about the air spring for the valve spring. That would be cool.
They have a pneumatic bag in place of a valve spring to eliminate coil binding and valve float from oscillating.
I would absolutely choose the Super Richie- by far the best intake in the test.
Richard I have a Shaun Hyland aluminum 6.0l block with a ford 5.4 racing crank (5.8l total),running a Boss 290 intake with a custom upper 1000cfm oval throttle body. It also has custom cams and long tube tri y headers. The chassis dyno indicated 580 hp and similar torque at the flywheel. I think a greater plenum volume might help and would like to see what a 1 in space would do. I also like your twin inlet idea. Btw there is an Aussie company that makes a front inlet upper. There is also an individual throttle body intake. I would live to see that dyno'd!!!
I have an example of piston speed limit... I run a rover 1.4l K-series (an engine found in the MK1 lotus elise but probably completely unknown in the USA) at 8000rpm I could run the engine all day every day. When racing, due to gearing I used to run it to 8400rpm so I didnt have to change to 5th. after aprx 5 passes (1/4 mile) it would push the gudgeon pin out into the cylinder wall, it would run fine but obv itd burn oil fur fun. yes technically its a conrod issue(press fit pin) but was directly related to piston speed. The reason I cite this example, is the pistons jsut a slug, I suppose so long as it doesnt seperate into two it has no reall limit, the limits always whats around it, rods, pin, rings etc.
Denis O'brien you would have had bores that looked pregnant! “Slightly” larger in the middle if you know what I mean!
You can lower piston *Acceleration* with longer con rod and lower height piston (higher rod ratio),
which is also improving the crank angles which reduces wear and force from the cylinder wall, and makes the same displacement engine to be able to rev higher without exploding it, and in some cases even gives you lighter rotating assembly, and also makes the compression stroke just a slightly “longer” like an half degree or so but anyways it theoretically helps with detonation issue 😁😅
So there is much “pros” in longer rods. 😁
@@beardbuilds5140 if you could post pictures in youtue comments id show you, yes driving 300 miles home from an event with the gudgeon pin riding the cylinder wall left an impression (but she always made it home) the pin was very wide, so even when it was contacting the wall on one side, it was still in the piston on the other, there was a slight little end knock but the tell-tale was the horrific oil consumption on that cylinder.
@@Jubr123 Id love to see richard actually test this, ive no knowledge of "domestic" v8's cause in the UK they just dont exist in decent numbers, but off the top of my head the subaru EJ25 and the nissan RB26 are both engines I know intimately and they both rev hard and both have very short rods. Now the EJ is famous for piston slap but id say thats more due to the tiny height slipper style pistons than the short rod. I agree from an engineering point of view, but interesting how it plays out in the real world.
Longer the stroke the better torque and the less rpm needed.
This for a production engine.
302, 327 350 Chev
302 351W
340 360 LA
351 400M.
The 5.4 here in Oz has very little available simply to overhaul, or at least a few years ago. Huge heavy lump. And overshadowed by the 4 litre turbo 6.
Please correct me if I am wrong. They run less than a 4 " bore. To me, that is less piston surface area and increased valve shrouding and less low rpm torque? I wonder if the reason was to control detonation? They are known for timing chain adjuster o ring blow out, leading to dire problems for the valve train. The 3V 5.4 at 80 mph, in a 35 mph{ 110'} cross wind and air con on full; delivered 24.5 mpg. An imperial gallon is 4.5 liters. I thought that was great going. Cheers.
Interesting. A 5.4 has a higher piston speed than my 521 (8.5L) BBF. I have played around with a 5.4 Lightning motor. A couple of nice things about these engines is the stout bottom end assembly and the very stable “small bore” piston. 4V heads, small bore and long stroke can be an excellent combo.
Jon Kaase was asked about the liabilities of his IHRA Mountain Motors. He said that although very undersquare, those engines got down the track pretty good. I guess.
Would have been cool if during the weird ford years where they made a million different v8s if they just made the 5.4 for that time period. I am glad that they’re basically making coyotes now instead of two valve coyote three valve coyote and four valve coyote. Glad they just make coyote.
Plenty of cool stuff down here that’s still for the most part unknown beyond our shores. Pretty sure we also had the 351 in new cars for many years after everyone else stopped.
Edward A we had the locally made 351 and 302 Cleveland engine right up to 1982. The 302 Cleveland was designed and made exclusively in Australia.
I'm with Mr Holdener. I turned an all motor D16 honda 9500rpm over and over. It did wear out rings. New rings, and output would come back to the baseline. 3.54 stroke
I agree Richard, if the bottom end can handle the torque, rpms are limited by cam/heads.. Great show!
Hey Richard. As an Aussie, I feel a big pang of Aussie pride with your positive comments about the stuff our Ford skunkworks have put out over the years. No doubt you've heard about the Miami version of the Coyote V8 and the Barra 6 needs no introduction. It saddens me that the Australian car building industry is dead in the water which will undoubtedly affect the innovation our factory performance divisions have managed down here-including the great work Holden/HSV have done as well. We are a small nation of serious car nuts and we punched well above our weight for many years. I'd love for you to have an in-depth look at the Miami version of the Coyote and the later versions of the Barra. Love your content and the scientific way you approach it.
I like car guys and gals-from everywhere in the world-lots of cool stuff other countries get that we don't here in the US-the Barra is a great example
Are you sating the coyote and miami arw completly different?? I thoight coyotes were NA and miami were S/C?
@@MadLadMartyMcFly85 the Miami is a supercharged variant of the Coyote built in Australia by Ford. All Miamis are Coyotes but not many Coyotes are Miamis.
@@bengibson3955 so i was correct?
@@MadLadMartyMcFly85 they are not at all different. The Miami engine is a Coyote. This cannot logically occur if they are different from one another.
We need another of these with coyote intakes on it. I run a boss 260 in my falcon with a coyote boss 302 on it. Surprisingly I picked up quite a bit of torque
Good to see. Aussie Boss; Quad cam 4.6ltr heads, 5.4 Ltr block. Was a good engine.
Love it! I’m an Aussie with a boss 260 5.4 (lower comp than the 290) but with the same intake manifold. Cool to see it tested!
I was also worried about everyone saying “piston speed” is a big worry with it. I’ve revved mine to 6500 for minutes at a time, occasionally seen 7000 and nothing’s ever broken!
You gotta bump those numbers up. Those are rookie numbers!
Matvey Kulgavyy 🤔 it’s also a daily driver that does 1000 or more kilometres a week, don’t wanna push it too much... I don’t like walking 😬
Oil pump gears might shatter if you keep revving its tits
The 290 is actually the lower comp .
@@robsearles3875 sorry mate it most certainly is not. The boss 260 has 9.5:1 compression ratio and the boss 290 is 10.5:1. I also have a bottom end from an FG GT boss 315 which has 11:1 comp ratio that I hopefully can put to use soon. The differences in compression are achieved by a different height flat top piston that comes up closer to the deck height for each higher compression engine combo.
Richard, it would be worth measuring the restriction that the throttle body causes. You may find that increasing the plenum size gives a bigger gain than increasing throttle body size.
Just bought a boss 260 BA XR8. Stock makes a good sound. I think a dual throttle either side of the boss manifold would be best for air to each bank of cross flow manifold. Might look at fab shop for new ideas...
Love these mod motor tests
I love my Boss 290 in my ford gt-p falcon.
The thing just hammers, and sounds fantastic.
They make a dual 65mm plenum upper for the 5.4 BOSS intake, pretty common too. Just pricey hahah
Lol the 290 intake rare in Australia. I threw one in the scrap bin recently.
Checkout the Yella Terra intake plenum for the boss 290 intake. It can take a monoblade or twin 65mm.
The boss 315 came out standard with twin 65mm
Dorman should make a "replacement" manifold for the boss 290 like they do with the LS6.
I know this is an older test but it'd be nice to see different coyote intakes ran on a Navi motor with the MMR adapter plates.. Especially since you mentioned the last test adapter plates hurt power.
Make a variable sliding intake that can be manually shortened as the RPM goes up, it would be revolutionary. Then design a servo system with controller to auto vary the length using RPM and throttle input. Maybe can be integrated into ECU, maybe Holly would work with you to design it.
Want a bigger throttle opening on a BOSS intake? Check out Yella Terra’s website. They offer a revised top half that accepts a twin blade (used on some Shelby cars I believe) or oval single blade TB. Furthermore, they offer a supercharger kit that lives in the valley and doesn’t add any size to the factory intake!
I tried to buy 1 of the yella terra hats but they didnt need my business, i bought a better front mount job, 120mm throttle 😉👍🏼
Check out the stock Navi TB at 4:33, any chance this is the twin blade that you speak of?
Stuart Marshall bigger again. It’s a twin 65mm Ford Racing unit.
I wish this could be done again with a coyote intake! A cobra jet on a 5.4 would be cool!
Boss 302 vs Boss 290
That Boss 290 is so sweet looking..
That 290 is cool. I think the navigator intake is going to work best for a daily driver. I'm putting one of these motors in a 2000 f150 single cab stepside.
Do some testing on the Ford V10.. need to see one in a Mustang..
Awesome testing!!!
Thank you very much for testing this engine, it's a true junkyard gem! One question for you though, was the Navi intake run with the crossover open or closed?
I've also run across a rumor that the supercharger from the Mercedes AMG M113k 5.4L can be mounted on the Ford 5.4 with a spacer. If anyone has any information on that I'd love to hear it.
You should make a video comparing 4.6/5.4 intakes to the coyote intakes with the adapter plates for the earlier mod motors
Yella Terra down here in Australia do a plenum lid for the boss intake that is higher (more volume) and has a bigger throttle opening with two different TB designs to suit.
The Australians got all the nice stuff. Wish we got the cross flow six heads and the Barra.
Hi rich. Can we get a video about your old Foxbody? With a timeline of when you bought it and all the mods you did.
One day I hope to see couple junkyard hy35w Cummins turbos on the 4.8 or 5.3 . Interested to see how the internal wastegates workout.
As always Well done!
If you want a bigger throttle body opening for the boss 260/290 upper plenium find a boss 315 plenium from a fg 5.4 gt. They have a twin 60mm throttle body. Or u can buy aftermarket higher volume pleniums from aussie relatively cheap
Piston speed affects engine life. That's why OE manufacturers have a self imposed limit on it. It is of no consequence to hot rodders, so long as the rods don't break.
Please do Coyote intake tests with the available adapters for comparison
Piston speed is considered more for the life of an engine than a restriction.
Yeah it’s an endurance thing, all endurance motors keep to 25-27 mean piston speed.
I have a 290 fg 2010 in Australia. It has 180000 klm. It requires regular servicing and tyres so far. Hehe 😋
If I can say one thing about the piston speed thing, which is truly pedantic, also depends on the engine life. Bearings and cranks can only take so much, but definitely valve train is the limiting factor, unless your using Nitrogen sprung valves, but that is in a different realm of engine building. Just my $0.02
Awesome video man, ive been waiting to see the factory gator intake test. I have one waiting for a project, just didnt know where to go form a stock gator intake
Think engineering explain fella said that max piston speed is 60ish mph due to the combustion cant expand much faster than that???
Ford love ❤
Love that adjustable is crazy
Yella Terra make a plenum lid for the Boss 290 intake with twin 68mm throttle bodies. Would be interesting to see if it makes any difference N/A because I think the lid is more so used for boosted applications
A manifold vs sort vs long tube header turbo setup would be an awesome test to see if header length will make a difference with a turbo or not.
Aussie here, boss 290’s love high rpm with the things we do to them haha
they are cool
Great info Rich.... Nice intake test
I have a 5.4 2v lightning motor swap. Have zero deck height piston from weisco. K1 rods, tfs heads and a gt500 blower adapted to it. Running 10.4:1 and stage 3 crower cams. I hope to put 650 to 750 to the ground. Its running about 21 lbs of boost
Hi Richard we have another intake you guys didnt get and its for the L36/L67. It was fitted to VS through to VY commodores with the ecotec 3.8l v6 and is fitted to the L67 when going turbo instead of the m90. when you do your Big Bang test on the L67 I can organise to send one over for you to play with and it will be yours to modify as you please
I'm ready-was going to use an NA one
Yes! Home made IR fuel injection. 'So cool. BTW what were the cam specs? When you are specifying runner length, is that valve-to-entry?
Yes but the f1 engines that reved to 20000rpm only had 42mm stroke with 90mm bore
Needed the bigger bore to get bigger valves in so it would actually breath at that rpm
Boss 290 the world 🇦🇺.
Great video Richard, there are a few different options of top section (plenum) for the aussie boss manifolds. All expensive to. I run a yella terra plenum lid that allows larger dual or ovel throttle bodies. Only running twin 60mm. Definitely noticeable gains.
A carbon r is a front entry lid and there was a lid made at one time in history that had throttle body wither side...
Any chance of future vids on best 5.4 NA setup. Loved the boosted 5.4 vid. 👌
Ayyy your still active👍👍👍 any upgrades on your XR?
@@MadLadMartyMcFly85 G'day Josh, yeah mate some 3.23 diff gears and some tramp rods just gone in.. looking and flex fuel system with a retune and going to see how it goes down the 1/4mi
@@koontproductions ooof tyre fryers hey....flex fuel,will that work well with NA motors? Ive only assumed that was good for boosted engines?
@@MadLadMartyMcFly85 yeah better for boost but if i can squeeze alittle more out NA just for 1/4mi then it'll help. Then i suppose i could go boost 🤔🤣. I would have to give the intake cam the flick but i have options.
Boost is a serious investment unless you can do it your self
mentioned navi intake should be dual runner. but it does have a runner control.
You’re an angel in disguise
The fg falcon was a 315 boss and had a twin 60mm throttle body also you can get a front entry throttle body plenum
Where can you find the front entry besides ebay.
I was watching a video of a diesel drag truck where the throttle stuck and the auto shutdown failed so the driver had to put it in neutral and let it eat. It was a 6.7 Cummins and it hit 8200 RPM when the connecting rod bolts reached plastic deformation and all hell broke loose. You can find the video on Power Driven Diesels website. So while I sort of agree with you that piston speed is not as much of a limiting factor as valve train it certainly can be a limiting factor in some situations and for that engine it was roughly 6600 ft/min of piston speed.
that runaway diesel situation is hardly an argument for piston speed
@@richardholdener1727 No it wasn't a run away and even so why not? Isn't the piston speed argument that you you can only run an engine so fast before either the rod or the bolts fail? That being the case I think this is a very good example. The valve train was still functioning or the engine wouldn't have been able to keep running, diesel or not it needs oxygen. So the limiting factor in this case was unrelated to valve actuation but was instead related to the ability of the rod bolts to secure the rod to the crankshaft. You asked for an example of piston speed being the limiting factor. I'm not arguing that it is the case very often however in this case it was. This wasn't an old 2 stroke Detroit running away in which case I would agree with you that it isn't a good example since the Detroit's use their valves to get rid of exhaust but this was a 4 valve Cummins which uses 2 intake and 2 exhaust valves has something like 9/16" pushrods and is purposefully built to run at least 5-6k on a regular basis with tool steel piston pins and tons of other racing components. So please explain why this is a poor example of precisely what you asked someone to provide?
@@richardholdener1727 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine_runaway
I would life to see a long runner intake test using dual 92mm throttle bodies. On a stroked ls with ported factory heads vs after market head. Without and with power adders.
Be your own BOSS. I'd like to see a larger front throttle body on the front.
Where can I buy the Super Richie? Looks legit.
as always thank you for the information
They usually try to keep piston speed below 26 m/s no matter your stroke because the engine has to sustain that speed. It's not so much about valvetrain. You can have a formula one piston speed with a 6,000 rpm redline depending on your stroke. For 1/4 mile application you can do whatever you want because it's only for a couple seconds. The 8250 rpm redline of the 5.2L coyote in the gt350 works out to exactly that, 25.9 m/s the very same as a formula one engine. That's determined to be the limit for an engine that has to run at that speed for hours at a time.
Quad Cam 5.4 liter 03-08 Boss 290 is 378 hp net, Boss 260 is 349 hp net, the 342 factory Stroker 5.0 --->5.6 2002 Tickford T3 250 was 335 hp net. Each were just the Quad Cam Cobra R intake. Its the Trick Flow Box R with some slightly better detailing. The 82 mm MAF was Cobra R for those. The bssic casting became the DJR 320, a 429 hp net engine. The idea was US Dearborn. The application of the idea was Australian. The items go far above those net hp ratings if you linish and flow bench the bellmouths and adjust the upper box. US idea...Aussies did it because they wanted to win the performance war with 5.7, 6.0 and 6.2 Alloytech Chev engined Holdens.( No ER required...just yet).
SuperRitchie FTW!
You can buy adapter plates and throw a coyote intake manifold on a 4v 5.4
The bf falcon 290 comes with tiwn throttle and custom front feed
How about a high rise twin 4 barrel intake with either twin efi 4150's or carbs? Maybe port injection?
Right on
Very nice
since 2014 when the Turbo era re-started, F1 max RPM is only 15,000 were previous years it was around 20k
💪🏼 🇦🇺 🏁
Piston speed has only been an issue when durability is required with stock parts. If quality aftermarket pistons and rods are used theoretically there really doesn't seem to be an issue. There are limits that shouldn't be exeded if extended road miles are expected with stock parts never designed to operate at increased power levels for extended periods. I have a bit of experience in finite element analysis to destruction too hopefully lend some clarity to this subject.
I'd like to see some boost Richard! NOS, Blowers, Turbos
check out the turbo test video i did on this 5.4L
Would love to see a BXR manifold on 5.6 Windsor on perhaps blown and naturally aspirated applications , particularly 7500 rpm high rev style play things , also down under we also do a boss 260 on our earlier 4 cam 5.4 litre tritons
Small Block Chevy, 5000+ fpm with cast pistons.
I’ve got a set of 2000 cobra R heads along with a shortened ,ported and polished intake in the garage for a future high compression TT build. Next 5.4 4v test give me a heads up and I’d be inclined to let you borrow the T intake to see what it would do begins the 260/290 intake variant.
Alright Richard, who's the Aussie who slipped you a 290 intake? 🤔 You gotta ask whoever your contact is down here for the BOSS 315 intake off the FPV before we swapped to the Miami motor. 😎👍
260 - 290 - 315 Intakes? What are the differences between them?
@@chucksgarage7165 From what I'm reading off all the old Aussie forums...none. 😁👍 Not between the 260 & 290 anyway. All internal differences (different comp pistons, different cams, valves). Trying to find the 290 vs 315 comparo. 🤔
@@chucksgarage7165 Okay, same lower intake on all 3...from what I'm reading though it maybe different on the upper on the 315. 👍
This is partially correct..BOSS260 and BOSS290 Upper plenums are the same but...the BOSS315 is built to accept a larger throttle body.
We also have an aftermarket fabricated plenum lid that accept a twin 65mm Wipple TB.
There are also some that have been fabbed to accept a TB either side or directly in front. Look on Ebay and you will find one.
I am selling a BRAND NEW from Ford Australia 260/290 manifold without upper plenum.
@@michaelgray8543 Thanks Michael for that info. 👌 I couldn't find that last bit why the 315 upper was different. 👍
Get yourself a Boss 260/290 lower plenum, Yella terra upper plenum and a factory twin 60mm Ford and you have the ultimate.