First Supercharged 7.3L Godzilla V8 | Procharger and 5 Star Tuning Crank Up The Power

First Supercharged 7.3L Godzilla V8 | Procharger and 5 Star Tuning Crank Up The Power

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At long last, the day we have been waiting for is finally here. You can now own a supercharged 7.3L Godzilla V8 Powered Ford. The first to market with a kit for Ford’s latest Super Duty engine is an established player in the industry, Procharger. They’ve been setting records on the strip for decades, and now they are setting their sights on the highly competitive heavy duty truck market. However, this is not Procharger’s first time building a kit for the Super Duty. They produced a 6.8L V10 kit nearly a decade ago.


This time around, Procharger is working with a completely different beast. The new 7.3L Godzilla V8 has already proven itself to have massive power production capabilities in stock form. We’ve seen gains of 38.6HP and 51.5TQ with just American Racing Headers and a 5 Star Tuning 93 Octane calibration. Ford has designed an engine with a truly impressive set of cylinder heads; that not only are capable of flowing a massive volume of air, but also have an extremely efficient combustion chamber. I have a feeling that very few enthusiast understand just how good the Godzilla heads really are.

Anyone who has installed a Centri-Blower knows running the piping can be a challenge. Having the massive engine bay of the Super Duty to work with makes the plumbing work much simpler. ​

Until now, the big hold back for making big power with the 7.3L has been the factory cam. It has a ton of gross lift on both the intake and exhaust, but duration is very limited. That’s a good combination for producing torque in a truck application, but hampers production of big horsepower numbers in N/A form. Well, not thanks to Procharger all that is out the window. With boost you can cram in a huge amount of air, even with limited duration. Over the next few months you’re going to see some unprecedented power figures for a gas powered heavy-duty truck. We’re now in a whole new world.

The velocity stack design of the Procharger filter adapter is really nice. I would like to see them provide a heat shield to surround the filter though.
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The P-1SC based Procharger kit installed on Josh’s blue STX F-250 is a very nice piece. He opted to get the race intake setup (instead of sticking with the factory airbox) and black powder coated head-unit and mounting bracket. Both not only look great, but also contribute to the performance and longevity of the kit. Procharger fabricated large diameter piping with smooth radii, all connected with high-quality silicone boots and stainless Breeze t-bolt clamps. A standard sized aluminum intercooler is mounted behind the factory grill with plenty of room left over for a larger unit to be installed in the future.

Everything installs very nicely on this F-250. I would be interested in seeing how the kit fits with the factory dual-battery option. ​

We had four different pulley sizes on hand to try out during our time at 5 Star, but we only had time to run three. Josh from 5 Star was handling the tuning via HP Tuners software. The 4-inch pulley made 4-5 PSI and produced 539.7 HP and 554.5 lb-ft. The 3.55-inch pulley produced roughly 8 PSI and put out 583 HP @5,700 RPM and 594 lb-ft of torque @ 4,000 RPM. This is the best setup we ran on the truck. The 3-inch pulley necessitated a belt change and made ~12 PSI. Even though that combination added 4 pounds of boost, it failed to produce the jump in power one would expect. It did produce slightly over 600 HP on a cool run, but the top of the graph wasn’t pretty. We determined that the P-1SC was simply out of its efficiency range, and was essentially pumping in superheated air. The supplied intercooler could not cool the charge enough to prevent the ECU from pulling out a significant amount of timing. To make over 600 HP safely and reliably on this 7.3L engine we’re going to need a bigger blower. So Josh called up Procharger and ordered a D-1X. We’ll be bolting that on in about 6 weeks after all the testing and tuning is finished on the current P-1SC setup.

Options are nice. 4-inch, 3.75-inch, 3.55-inch, or 3.15-inch; choose wisely.
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You may also notice that none of the dyno runs saw the RPMs climb past 5,700. We ran into a hard limiter in the factory ECU that closed the throttle blade at 5,700 RPMs. There was currently no provision in either HP Tuners’ or SCT’s tuning software to get past that limiter. Over time we’re sure both will develop a work-around. One thing that is apparent, at about 5,500 RPMS the horsepower curve started to climb dramatically. That is evidence of the massive HP potential of the Godzilla cylinder heads. There’s likely another 30-40 horsepower hiding in the RPM range between 5,700 and 6,500. Once the tuning companies can get by that limiter you’ll see Procharged Super Duties running around with over 600HP and 600TQ on 8 PSI.

If swapping between the three largest pulleys you don't need to change the belt. That makes optimizing your boost levels about a 5-minute job.​

So having learned that, we bolted the 3.55-inch pulley back on and set out for a little road testing. The first thing I noticed was the lack of any quirks in the driveability. Josh and the 5 Star crew really has this 8 PSI tune dialed in. The truck drives exactly as it did when N/A, except now it has about 200 more HP and 165 TQ. The power delivery is smooth and epic. This F-250 simply does not feel like a 7,000 pound truck any longer. The added power makes it feel much lighter.

Having nearly 450 lb-ft of torque available right off the hit is a beautiful thing. And as you can see by the end of graph, with just a couple hundred more RPM 5 Star could have the Procharged 7.3L would be pumping out over 600 RWHP on 8 PSI of boost.​

With the Procharger installed and running the 5 Star tuning this Godzilla powered F-250 now drives like a tuned diesel. It feels very similar to a 2017-19 6.7L Powerstroke with a daily tow tune on it. I know that sounds crazy, but if you’ve been driving diesel trucks for years you could hop in this blown 7.3L truck and not miss your diesel in the least. We cover quite a bit more (including acceleration feel, fuel mileage, and overall shortening of your tread-life) in our full test drive review video below. Check it out:

The Procharger P-1SC does an admirable job, but on an engine as large and efficient with airflow as Godzilla a D-Series would make a huge difference.



Everything tucks into place nicely.

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The intercooler is a nice quality looking piece, but it looks like there's plenty of room in there to install a larger upgrade down the road.​

-SID297

 

The 7.3 is a $1,705 option over the base 6.2, while the PSD will set you back $10,495.

The 10R140 is a beast of a trans to send power through, but is far more efficient than the HD slushboxes of the past. You're still spinning massive Sterling 10.5 or Dana Metric with E-Rated tires. That all soaks up power.

Based on centripetal weight alone, without a load, a PD blower will reqire more power to drive is than a Centri.

What kind of numbers are superchared Coyote F-150's putting up on 8PSI? Right around 600 with lighter running gear and more compression. What the 7.3 needs is more RPM, which will coming with more capable tuning software. I predict nearly 700RWHP at 8 PSI with more RPM and an open exhaust (this truck still has the full factory exhaust).

 

My guess would be cost.

 

Watch the vid.

 

Just being able to take it out to 6,500 RPM would make a huge difference.