Tucci Hot Rods Is Cutting Up a Ford Maverick to Fit a Twin-Turbo Coyote V8 for SEMABackfire NewsJohn LloydSun, September 27, 2026 at 3:40 PM UTCAdd us on GoogleSomewhere in Marcy, New York, a Ford Maverick is missing a chunk of its transmission tunnel and part of its firewall. That's not a crash report. That's progress.Tucci Hot Rods, the upstate shop that describes itself as hand-building custom cars and trucks "with a main focus of design and individuality," has confirmed on its own Instagram that it's taking a twin-turbo Coyote V8 and a ZF eight-speed automatic and stuffing both into Ford's smallest pickup. The target is the 2026 SEMA Show, which runs November 3–6 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. That leaves the shop roughly six weeks to turn a gutted compact truck into something that drives onto a show floor under its own power.The announcement itself caused a small comedy of errors. Tucci's caption promised a "twin turbo 8hp Coyote swapped Maverick," and a good slice of the comment section read "8hp" as a horsepower figure. It isn't. It's the transmission: ZF's 8HP family, the eight-speed automatic found behind everything from BMW sedans to Hellcat Chargers. Nobody is building an eight-horsepower Maverick. Probably.What Tucci has actually shown so farThe build log on the shop's feed is short but tells you most of what you need to know:AdvertisementAdvertisementSeptember 9: The stock 2.0-liter EcoBoost is on the shop floor, wiring harness and all. Tucci's caption: the four-cylinder "has left the chat."Earlier this month: The official SEMA 2026 announcement, tagging Hellion Turbo, LOJ Conversions and VMP Performance.About a week ago: The Coyote and an 8HP70 transmission are "fully mounted." Tucci notes that "a good chunk of the tunnel and part of the firewall had to be cut out" to get the engine where it belongs, and calls the swap "definitely not for the faint of heart."The supplier tags are the tell. Hellion builds turbo systems for Coyote-powered Mustangs. VMP is a Ford-focused tuning and supercharger outfit. LOJ Conversions sells swap hardware, including 8HP transmission adapters for the Coyote. HP Tuners, Mishimoto and Diode Dynamics round out the list, which covers calibration, cooling and lighting. Dom Tucci's design account is tagged on the Maverick posts, too.What Tucci has not published is a horsepower target. You'll see big round numbers floating around online, but the shop's own posts don't give one. We'll wait for the dyno sheet.Ford's Coyote is a wide, four-cam V8 designed to sit lengthwise in a rear-drive chassis. The Maverick was engineered around a transverse four-cylinder. Photo: Jpogi via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)Why this swap is harder than it sounds"Put a V8 in it" is the oldest idea in hot rodding. The Maverick fights it at nearly every step, and the reason is how the truck is laid out.AdvertisementAdvertisementFord builds the Maverick as a unibody, and its engines sit sideways. The factory 2.0-liter EcoBoost is mounted transversely and drives the front wheels, with an optional rear drive unit for all-wheel drive. The Coyote and the ZF 8HP are the opposite: a longitudinal engine and gearbox built to point rearward and send power down a driveshaft. So this isn't an engine swap in the old-school sense. Tucci is effectively converting a front-drive-based chassis into a front-engine, rear-drive layout, and the tunnel surgery in the latest video is the first visible cost of that.The engine is also a big guest for a small room. The Coyote is a 5.0-liter, dual-overhead-cam V8 with four cams across two wide heads. That's excellent for top-end breathing and bad for packaging. Then add two turbos, the plumbing that feeds them, an intercooler and a radiator big enough to handle it all. The Maverick's engine bay was designed around a four-cylinder with room to spare. A twin-turbo V8 has none.The transmission choice is smart, but it has limits. ZF's factory torque rating for the 8HP70 is up to 700 Nm, or about 516 lb-ft. A stock Coyote already makes 415 to 418 lb-ft in the current Mustang GT, according to Ford. Put boost on it and you can blow past the gearbox's factory rating quickly. Swappers still like the 8HP because it shifts fast, handles more than its spec sheet suggests when it's calibrated well, and gives a street car short gears for launching and tall ones for the highway. How much boost this truck runs will say a lot about whether Tucci is building a show piece or something meant to cross the country.The numbers Ford gave it, and the ones Tucci tends to findFor scale, here's what the Maverick leaves the factory with, per Ford's 2026 spec sheet:PowertrainOutputTransmission2.5L hybrid184 hp combinedeCVT2.0L EcoBoost250 hp / 280 lb-ft8-speed automaticMustang GT 5.0L V8 (for reference)480–486 hp / 415–418 lb-ft—Mustang Dark Horse 5.0L V8 (for reference)500 hp / 418 lb-ft—An EcoBoost FWD Maverick weighs 3,517 pounds, according to Ford. Even an unboosted Coyote would nearly double the power in a truck that weighs less than a Mustang GT.AdvertisementAdvertisementTucci's recent history hints at where this could land. The shop is currently selling a twin-turbo 2018 Mustang GT that it built for the 2017 SEMA Show, where Tucci says it won a Ford Design Award. According to the shop's listing, it makes 1,060 wheel horsepower and 900 lb-ft on E85, using a Hellion kit with Precision 6262 turbos on a 5.2-liter short block. And this week Tucci posted dyno pull video of a twin-turbo Coyote Ford Galaxie with the readout showing 930.7 horsepower on E85. Tucci says it "ran out of fuel pump" before running out of engine.None of that guarantees a number for the Maverick. It does tell you this shop doesn't do half-measures with Hellion hardware.If this gives you ideas for your own MaverickMaverick owners are going to see this at SEMA and start pricing turbos. Before you do, here's what a professional shop can absorb that a typical owner probably can't:Emissions law is not optional. The EPA's long-standing enforcement guidance generally permits an engine swap only when the replacement engine is the same model year or newer, meets the same or stricter certification, and keeps all of its emissions equipment. In California, a swapped street vehicle has to pass inspection at a Bureau of Automotive Repair referee station. A twin-turbo conversion adds another layer, because boost hardware generally needs its own CARB exemption to be street-legal there.Your warranty has limits. Federal law (the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act) says a manufacturer can't void your whole warranty just because you added aftermarket parts. But a dealer can deny a claim for damage those parts caused, and after a swap this size, practically every powertrain claim will be traced back to them. We broke down how that works in our look at the warranty-safe Callaway and Waldoch Silverado.Tell your insurer, in writing. A standard auto policy values your truck like a stock Maverick. If you total it, you'll get stock-Maverick money, and an undisclosed swap can give the insurer grounds to contest the claim. Builds like this belong on an agreed-value policy with the modifications listed.Budget beyond the engine. The Coyote is only part of the bill. The expensive parts are fabrication time, the rear driveline, brakes that can stop 3,500-plus pounds from real speed, cooling, wiring and calibration. And repairs are already getting pricier for stock trucks.Why a Maverick, of all things?Because it's the right truck to make a point with. The Maverick became a hit by being cheap, practical and efficient, basically the opposite of a hot rod. Putting a boosted V8 into that package is the same move hot rodders have made for about seventy years: take the humble commuter and give it the drivetrain it was never supposed to have. Model As got flathead V8s, and Fox-body Mustangs got 5.0s that defined a generation. Now a Coyote is finding its way into old pickups, from '70s F-150 restomods to, apparently, a compact truck with a hybrid option.AdvertisementAdvertisementThere's also a business angle. SEMA is where aftermarket suppliers show what their parts can do, and a Coyote-and-8HP Maverick is an advertisement for every tagged vendor. If the truck works, expect adapter plates and mount kits with "Maverick" in the part name to follow.Ford is not going to build this truck. The Maverick's whole business case is a low price and good fuel economy, and a twin-turbo V8 kills both. That's what makes it good SEMA material. We'll be watching for it in Las Vegas in November, and for the dyno sheet.Build details and quotes come from Tucci Hot Rods' official Instagram account. Specifications come from Ford's published 2026 Maverick and Mustang specs. Show dates come from the SEMA Show. Photos: Mr.choppers (CC BY-SA 3.0) and Jpogi (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wikimedia Commons.