The Mustang GT500's V8 Has An Awesome Name

Ford has not been shy about showing off its stunning 2020 Mustang Shelby GT500, but we've been in the dark about some of the hand-built, supercharged 5.2-liter V8's key details. Fortunately, Automobile Magazine has received some answers. Speaking with Ford Performance powertrain manager Patrick Morgan, the publication learned this engine goes by the name "Predator" and that it utilizes the same core architecture as the 5.0-liter Coyote V8 found in the Mustang GT as well as the GT350's 5.2-liter V8, also known as Voodoo.

Morgan says his team essentially beefed up that architecture in order to handle the 1,813 of firing pressure the enhanced supercharged V8 delivers. He says the blocks and heads were strengthened and the head now uses longer bolts and deeper columns.

It also uses a bar-plate cooler, which is a low-temp intercooler located above the supercharger rotors. According to Morgan, tons of effort went into ensuring the GT500 had the proper tooling capacity to keep the charge air temps down on the track. In the end, Morgan's team went with a structural wet sump oil pan that ties directly to the dual-clutch gearbox, but a dry sump oil system was also possible.

The crank damper is an aluminum viscous unit designed to handle the supercharged loads on the nose of the crank and the torsional loads. Why go this route? Because it's an effective solution to get weight off the nose of the engine and, therefore, the nose of the car. In terms of benchmarking, Morgan outright admitted other pony cars come first, but special attention was also given to the Corvette, Porsche, AMG, BMW, and Audi. Ford was particularly interested in how they do their boosting systems, bottom-end design, and their solutions to valvetrain.