The wild and often weird world of engine swaps is no stranger to nutty creations. We’ve seen some absurd engine swaps, and we’ve certainly seen engine swaps that border on the ridiculous. Somewhere between all of that is this particular creation: a first-generation Porsche Cayman 987 that’s powered by a 5.0-liter Coyote V-8 engine from, you guessed it, a Ford Mustang. The combination is about as strange as it gets. Then again, is there anything that isn’t strange when it comes to engine swaps? The sheer practice is insane in itself. Why should we be surprised that someone thought a Mustang-sourced Coyote V-8 engine would be great on a first-generation Cayman?
It’s an unusual combination, isn’t it?
From a performance perspective, a Porsche Cayman and a Ford Mustang aren’t that different from each other. Both are created for that purpose. But other than that, these two cars couldn’t be more different from one another. One is a testosterone-laden American muscle car while the other is a systematically engineered German sports coupe. Two different cars, two different styles, two different identities, two different engine layouts.
None of that matters, though, to the owner of this first-generation Porsche Cayman 987.
It’s not the most visually appealing engine swap you’ll see, but then again, you can’t deny the results of the entire exercise, either.
What kind of power and performance numbers are we talking about here?
Here’s the thing about engine swaps: they’re not supposed to be pretty; they’re supposed to be effective. More to that point, they’re supposed to reflect the kind of results a car owner is looking for to justify the Frankensteinian experiment.
In this case, the setup gets the desired results. The Mustang-powered Cayman 987 was tested on the dyno, and it returned surprising results to the tune of 428 horsepower and 364 pound-feet of torque at the rear wheels. Output numbers at the crank higher, though those figures weren’t shown.
Considering that the most powerful version of the first-generation Cayman — the Cayman R — had a 3.4-liter flat-six that produced 326 horsepower and 273 pound-feet of torque, I’d say that this engine swap, as weird as it is, achieved the owner’s desired results.
At the end of the day, you only need to listen to the German sports car in the dyno to know that this particular engine swap hit all the right and important notes.