What's The Deal With Ford's New Megazilla 2.0 Crate Engine?

Ford announced the 7.3-liter, gas-fired, naturally aspirated, pushrod V8 Godzilla engine to its friends and associates way back in February of 2019. At first it was just a truck engine, a big ol' V8 mill that put down a relatively sedate 430 horsepower and 475 pound-feet of torque in stock trim. Pretty good for hauling around building materials or landscaping equipment, but nothing that was going to set the drag strips aflame, as it were. That said, it had a lot of potential and it didn't take long for hot rodders to figure out how to squeeze a bunch more horses out of the big engine with just a handful of basic, off-the-shelf mods — upwards of 600 of them, in fact. They even wanted the massive engine implemented into other vehicles. 

Never ones to rest on their laurels, the big brains at FoMoCo immediately got to work making an in-house hot-rodded version of their big, new V8 to beat the aftermarket at its own game. Godzilla hadn't even made it into Tokyo yet, as it were, before FoMoCo was teasing a bigger, stronger, angrier version called the Megazilla. Megazilla? Really guys? When MechaGodzilla was right there? 

Anyway, the Megazilla engine kept Big-G's displacement, iron block, compression, and general construction and tossed a bunch of hi-po go-fast parts at it — Callies forged H-beam con rods, Mahle forged pistons, CNC-ported cylinder heads, etc. This bumped the Godzilla's output to 615 horsepower and a whopping 638 pound-feet of torque. Not bad, but I think we can do better.

Ford obviously agrees with me, because in January of 2025 the company unveiled plans for an even bigger, angrier Megazilla, the cleverly named Megazilla 2.0. Now, we all know there's no replacement for displacement, right? Well, there's a corollary to that old saw — boost. Megazilla 2.0 has the same 7.3-liter, iron block, pushrod V8 as the Megazilla and Godzilla mills, but this one has a blower! In fact, it has a 3.0-liter Whipple supercharger — the same one used on Ford's smaller, higher-tech Coyote crate engine — that provides enough boost to push an alleged 1,000-plus horsepower out of the Godzilla mill. We love forced induction, don't we, folks?

Okay, so, why is this such a big deal? Well, for starters, the fact that the nerds over at Ford Performance were able to force enough air into an iron-block, pushrod V8 to produce north of a thousand horsepower without blowing it, themselves, and half of Dearborn clear to Saturn is a feat in and of itself. Then there's the engine's shape and size. Despite being roughly the size of a 351 Windsor as the Godzilla platform weighs nearly 700 pounds, a small-ish blown V8 with tough as nails internals and a torque curve wider than the Katy Freeway is going to be a godsend for racers.

While its official "off-road use only" status will keep it out of the hands of workaday hot rodders, it sounds like just the thing for trophy trucks, desert racers, prerunners, and drag racers of all kinds. Despite its heft, being able to drop more than a thousand reliable horses into a spot the size of an old small block opens up all kinds of possibilities.

As stated earlier, details about the new Megazilla 2.0 are still pretty sparse. Its official launch isn't slated until fourth-quarter 2025, and a lot can happen over the course of six to eight months in the auto industry. Obviously, we'll keep you abreast of the situation until then, and if anyone at the Detroit Desk sees a bigger, badder, blown Godzilla stomping around Metro Detroit, you'll be the first ones to know.