Alright this will be my ONLY statement towards you as i dont feel like getting into the usual pissing match
My "5.0" is making well over 400hp, hasnt been tuned cause im saving that money for when the F1c goes in, anyhow im sure backed by a T56 it'll get damn near 25mpg(without the blower), and perfect idle?, to me thats subjective, my perfect idle is something that sounds like a wounded angry badger in heat, i would NEVER run 87 in any of my vehicles so i couldnt give a rats ass about that, if i cared about emissions i wouldnt be DD'ing a diesel truck and if i wanted to stay smog legal with the motor i could have but i dont car about that, so as far as im concerned it'll be well behind me in my "outdated" 2900lb fox
A few points to clarifiy.
1st Your 5.0 is no long a 5.0L at all (347ci - 5.7L). It’s tough to claim the superiority of a particular engine when you need to change every component from intake to oil pan (block included) in order to do so.
2nd You can speculate all you'd like about what you “predict” you’ll get for fuel mileage, but until you've done any real world testing, it’s only that...speculation. I too have a predictions with regards to your fuel economy and that’s that with a wild enough head/cam/intake combination that you’re seeing “well over 400hp” in N/A trim like you claim, you’re not going to get anywhere close to 25mpg with 347ci when the rubber finally hits the road like you’re assuming.
3rd Perfect idle is not subjective. When I said perfect, it was quite obvious I referred to a smooth, uninterrupted, clean crisp low RPM “burble”. No excessive lope, no loss of vacuum at idle, or need for increased RPM to keep it running. You engine would quite simply sacrifice a huge amount of horsepower and torque in order to run cam profiles that would achieve these characteristics. With the independent variable cam timing design of the new 5.0L, great idle and superior horsepower are no longer a compromise. You truly can have your cake and eat it too.
4th You would never run 87-octane fuel in your tank, because quite frankly, you don’t have the option of doing so. At least not without having to sacrifice a large portion of drivability and horsepower because of the timing you’ll need to pull out of your tune in order to do so. Again…making one compromise, for another.
5th Emmisions….do we really need to go there? Again, another option that isn’t available to you, so you don’t seem to care about it.
6th This isn’t a pissing match about an “outdated Fox” vs the superiority of an S197. We’re comparing engines here, not the cars themselves.
I realize you’re quite comfortable with giving up and/or compromising fuel economy, the option to run regular gas, emissions, drivability, etc all in the goal of superior horsepower. That’s great. You’re essentially building a race car. That quite frankly should be your goal.
But let’s not turn this debate into something it isn’t, or ignore the fact that you’ve given up a lot to meet that goal.
This new 5.0L hasn’t. It makes over 400hp, it gets great fuel economy, it can run regular gas, it idles smooth as silk and it does pass emissions with flying colours and it does it all with only 302 ci of displacement and without even swapping the air filter. The fact that you’ve chosen to sacrifice these things with you build (and choose to no longer care about them) is irrelevant. The reality still remains that sacrifices had to be made on your end and my point still stands. The old 5.0L OHV is playing catch up to this new mill.