Its just the name Ford gave the new engine family. Just a name, nothing mechanical makes it a mod motor.
The term "modular" means that it is able to be built in multiple configurations. It can be buit as either a 2 or 4 valve motor, and can be built as a 4.6l or 5.4l motor. It makes the motor cheaper to produce in each application because a lot of the parts interchange from one model of the motor to the next.
Actually it's the opposite. The mod line of engines are designed to be interchangable, aka modular, with each other. That means heads from a 5.4L will fit a 4.6L and so on. The 4.6L, 5.4L and 6.8L are related. the 6.8 is just a 5.4L with an extra pair of cylinders added on. The engines appear similar and have a lot of the same basic running components.
Modular does not mean OHC. If Ford still made pushrod engines with interchangeable parts like the 4.6, 5.4 and 6.8, they could be called a modular family of engines too. We just tend to relate "modular" with OHC.
just about all of fords engines families were modular as far as interchangeable parts are concerned. 221/255/260/289/302/351 have interchageable parts, 332/352/360/390/406/427/428 also interchange, etc etc. Pretty lame name for an engine family.
Nah, I wish. I'll be working through the xmas holiday to afford this supercharger and the broken drivetrain parts to follow.
Modular means that the engine has the mad tyte Ford factory super power "mod". I cannot go into much detail about what this is exactly or what it does because it is a Ford proprietary trade secret but let's just say it makes VTEC look like stone age technology...
