Big 'n' Brawny: These are the 5 largest pickup truck engines ever made

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Most automotive segments are – rather understandably, given current world events – rapidly moving to small-displacement engines which are often appended with some form of forced injection.

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This isn’t a wholly bad thing. Witness the amount of horsepower hove out from vehicles like the VW Golf R. The old yardstick of 100-ponies-per-litre-of-displacement is rapidly becoming obsolete — though that’s still a good benchmark on a naturally-aspirated engine, it must be said.

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It wasn’t always thus. History is littered with example of engines bigger than a grand piano, installed under vehicle hoods which were the size and shape of a Tempur-Pedic LuxBreeze memory-foam mattress.

We’ll take this opportunity to remind our readers that external dimensions don’t always correlate with internal displacement; the old 302-cubic-inch Ford V8 (the almost-but-not-quite 5.0L) had much smaller proportions than the 4.6L Modular engine that replaced it.

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Permit us the leeway to inject a note of sanity before diving headlong into our article. Our list will be comprised of engines designed for installation in trucks and found in consumer-grade vehicles, so mills like the mighty Detroit DD16 (a 2000-plus-lb-ft diesel displacing an atmosphere-gulping 15.6L and found in commercial vehicles) will not be listed here, though we will note that glorious engine has pistons the size of paint cans and has a dry weight about 500 lbs more than an entire 2021 Mazda MX-5 convertible.

8.1L L18 Vortec V8 | General Motors

Hewn from the same basic architecture of another big-block Chevy engine which will be listed later in this post, the 8.1L (496-cubic-inch) Vortec V8 was arguably The General’s last link to the ’60s hot-rod era. This is not to say it was old-fashioned, since the thing had a modern engine control system, short and long intake runners, and other advanced tech.

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It showed up in Heavy Duty variants of Chevy and GMC trucks, plus 2500-series Suburbans and Yukons at the turn of the millennium. The party didn’t last forever – the engine went away in 2007 – but this 340-horsepower monster remains sought-after by GM fans who often custom-tune the mill to well over 500 ponies.

8.0L Magnum Family V10 | Dodge

Showing up for duty in Ram 2500 and 3500 models starting in 1994, this 488-cubic-inch 10-cylinder Magnum was good for 300 horsepower and – more critically – every one of its 450 lb-ft of torque was on duty by a mere 2,400 rpm. This was way more than other gassers in the mid-’90s, and is rather impressive even today.

Some haters dismiss it as a 5.9L Magnum with two cylinders tacked on, but, while designs of the two are similar and they share a 4-inch bore, the V10 has a 3.88-inch stroke. Others in the peanut gallery will bleat we should have led with the aluminum block 8.3L V10 that appeared in the 2004 Ram SRT-10. However, we will encourage them to remember that mill – which was absolutely great, by the way – was not originally designed for trucks.

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7.4L Big-Block Chevy V8 | General Motors

Remember the engine which kicked off this list? Consider the 7.4L (better known as the 454, in reference to its size in cubic inches) as something of a predecessor. Tracing its roots back even further, we find the mighty 427 mill. The almost-square-but-not-quite 454 was initially found in Corvettes and Chevelles, but also went into El Camino and GMC Sprint, technically qualifying it for this list since the latter two are (just barely) trucks.

However, gearheads within General Motors introduced electronic fuel injection to a variant of this V8 in the late ’80s, pushing output to 255 hp and about 400 lb-ft of torque, eventually stuffing it into inky black C/K pickup trucks and calling them the 454SS.

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7.3L ‘Godzilla’ OHV V8 | Ford

This is a brand-new engine, one which can be bought right now from the showroom floor of any Blue Oval dealership (COVID-19-related supply constraints notwithstanding). There is a yaffle of proven technologies in this 445-cubic-inch mill, making it a popular choice for buyers of the current Super Duty pickup truck. Its pushrod V8 design optimizes low-end torque, not unlike a diesel, but modern variable cam timing helps with high-output power when you put your foot down on the interstate with a trailer in tow. Add in a cast-iron block plus a forged steel crankshaft and you’ve a reliable 430 hp and 475 lb-ft of torque.

7.3L Powerstroke Diesel V8 | Ford

We’d be remiss not to include at least one diesel engine on this list, though it should be emphasized that diesel power-adders such as turbochargers tend to keep the clamps on overall engine displacement of these oil-burners. Ford fans who were around in the mid-’90s often speak of the revered 7.3L (444-cubic-inch) Powerstroke diesel in hushed tones, especially given the reliability debacles which came with its replacement, the 6.0L Powerstroke (which tended to eat head gaskets and injectors on the daily).

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The 7.3L had a cast-iron block and cylinder heads, plus a half-dozen head bolts at each cylinder. Why was this 200-plus-horsepower and 400-plus-lb-ft of torque tower of reliability discontinued? Emissions regulations, of course. The 6.7L Powerstroke diesel available in today’s Super Duty, with its 1050 lb-ft of twist, has – in your author’s jaundiced experience – a glimmer of the old 7.3L, something the 6.0L cannot even begin to claim.

Honorable Mention: 9.9L V8 | Lingenfelter Suburban

We’re wrapping our list with this engine simply because it’s far too glorious not to mention. In 1994, the speed demons at Lingenfelter took a marine-duty V8 block, bored and stroked the thing to 9.9L of displacement, and stuffed it up the nose of a new Suburban. To put it in perspective, that equals a jaw-dropping 605 cubic inches. Magazines of the day saw zero-to-60-mph acceleration times of roughly 4.6 seconds. That’s quick now ; back then it was the stuff of supercars. Fuel economy was reported to be a heady 8 mpg (30 L/100 km).