Ford Introduces Big New Truck Engine

Today Ford announced that the new 3/4-ton and 1-ton trucks will have an optional new 7.3L gas V8. What's odd is that this engine kind of bucks every trend that ford has been championing. It's an iron-block, pushrod-equipped, port-injected V8 with 7.3L of displacement. Kind of flies in the face of their aluminum everything, smaller displacement with forced induction, and overhead camshafts and direct injection. 

No word on power or torque (Ford seems to have rushed their truck announcement just to try and steal GM's HD release's thunder). No clue how thirsty this thing is going to be either, but I'm guessing "Very". The 6.2L F-350 I drove had an average of 8-9mpg.

Replacement for the V10 Triton. With the 10 speed auto, hope it will get nice MPG. For a lot of people, $10K upcharge for the diesel is too much. This would make sense.

Strage.  That seems like old technology with new polish.  I wonder if this is a re-engineer of their 7.3 Diesel?  

all I know is my Powerstroke 6.7L delivers 21MPG and 800ft lbs of torque.  I doubt this comes anywhere close to those figures.  

Sounds kinda like an up-sized 6.2 to try to keep up with the diesel HP wars.  I still don't quite understand why they don't just put the turned-up Raptor spec 3.5 EB or a beefed up twin turbo 5.0 in the Super Duty.  But I guess that might eat into diesel sales too much and would push people who want a simple engine over to GM for an LS powered truck.  

It's definitely not a re-engineer of the old 7.3 powerstroke.  That was iron block / pushrod, but no way would that get converted for gas use.  Plus, that wasn't a Ford engine anyway, it was an International engine (also known as the T444E).  

I'm not debating the merits of a new engine to slot below the 6.7L Powerstroke, it just seems oddly low-tech for Ford, which has been pushing the envelope on tech for trucks lately. This seems more like a Ram move.

NickD said:

I'm not debating the merits of a new engine to slot below the 6.7L Powerstroke, it just seems oddly low-tech for Ford, which has been pushing the envelope on tech for trucks lately. This seems more like a Ram move.

It all depends on how you see learning on the relative tech.

Turbos don't solve every problem.  

And there's a sizable reason this engine is coming back, but I'll not post that until late 2022 when I'm not getting a live paycheck.  (I joke, the reasons are actually really good and solid)

rslifkin said:

Sounds kinda like an up-sized 6.2 to try to keep up with the diesel HP wars.  I still don't quite understand why they don't just put the turned-up Raptor spec 3.5 EB or a beefed up twin turbo 5.0 in the Super Duty.  But I guess that might eat into diesel sales too much and would push people who want a simple engine over to GM for an LS powered truck.  

It's definitely not a re-engineer of the old 7.3 powerstroke.  That was iron block / pushrod, but no way would that get converted for gas use.  Plus, that wasn't a Ford engine anyway, it was an International engine (also known as the T444E).  

FWIW, it's a lot closer to a re-engineer of the old 7.5 than the modern 6.2.  The powerstoke, as you point out, isn't a ford engine.

7,3l is inbetween a lot of other engines- the 427, 428 and 460.  Either way, it's closer to the old engines and GM's current line up than the modular engines.  GM has really done a heck of a job with that engine.

NordicSaab said:

Strage.  That seems like old technology with new polish.  I wonder if this is a re-engineer of their 7.3 Diesel?  

all I know is my Powerstroke 6.7L delivers 21MPG and 800ft lbs of torque.  I doubt this comes anywhere close to those figures.  

Do you see 21mpg with emissions equipment intact? That would be pretty much unheard of. Most people/reviewers typically see fuel economy in the mid-teens with the HD diesels.

Diesel is getting expensive enough (and gas engines are getting good enough) that some fleets are skipping the diesel. With gas engines, you have far less maintenance, no costly aftertreatment systems, and a much lower initial buy in. This is especially true if the truck sees frequent short distance trips, lots of stop/go driving, or lots of time idling which can cause expensive maintenance issues and downtime for modern diesels.

NickD said:

Kind of flies in the face of their aluminum everything, smaller displacement with forced induction, and overhead camshafts and direct injection. 

“We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.” – C. S. Lewis

I see merit to it.  The aluminum/OHC engines are expensive and complex.  

alfadriver said:

Turbos don't solve every problem. 

True. As GM is learning with the 2.7L trucks

NickD said:

alfadriver said:

Turbos don't solve every problem. 

True. As GM is learning with the 2.7L trucks

I was gonna bring that up. It's likely that Ford is going to use a similar system of cylinder deactivation to keep V8 power but not have to deal with V8 emissions. Current gas engines are burning so well and so clean it's incredible.

People who buy fleet trucks want simple and reliable.  Downtime because of DEF whatever failures, additional maintenance costs, much higher initial purchase (granted better resale down the road), higher fuel costs, etc are all things fleet owners look at.  Not to mention newer diesels do NOT like idling for long periods of time.

I'm looking forward to how this works out... I think it'll make it much harder to justify a diesel. 

In reply to flatlander937 :

My brothers company has about 10 trucks at the moment.  All GM 6.0L gas for this very reason.

alfadriver said:

NickD said:

I'm not debating the merits of a new engine to slot below the 6.7L Powerstroke, it just seems oddly low-tech for Ford, which has been pushing the envelope on tech for trucks lately. This seems more like a Ram move.

It all depends on how you see learning on the relative tech.

Turbos don't solve every problem.  

And there's a sizable reason this engine is coming back, but I'll not post that until late 2022 when I'm not getting a live paycheck.  (I joke, the reasons are actually really good and solid)

Tease.  I'd love to get a really candid, honest, & insider view of this. Guess I'll have to wait three more years.

The real answer is that the vehicles that this goes in uses a MUCH broader amount of their power output than most light duty vehicles (which accounts for 90% of the pick ups out there).  

And higher end efficiency and emissions now really matters a lot as opposed to some.  That alters the compromise equation quite a lot.  

The Triton engines are the reason I bought an older F-series with the 460.

That final generation 460 was one of the best truck motors I've ever had. Glad to see Ford getting back to doing what they seem to know best.

I really don't care that much about fuel economy in a tow rig. It's going to take fuel to do a job and you're never going to get around that fact.

Large motor that takes what will probably be a marginal hit in fuel economy to avoid maintenance issues and costs related to Diesels and GDI. 

I bet this will be very popular with fleet customers, where downtime is more expensive than any efficiency loss vs a diesel. 

 

ShawnG said:

The Triton engines are the reason I bought an older F-series with the 460.

That final generation 460 was one of the best truck motors I've ever had. Glad to see Ford getting back to doing what they seem to know best.

I really don't care that much about fuel economy in a tow rig. It's going to take fuel to do a job and you're never going to get around that fact.

Interesting that you say that, but I bet if you could get 20% better FE, you would really like having it.  One person I've talked with tells me that customers really love the RV engine that gets them 12mpg vs. 8.

(and this powertrain does include RVs)

spacecadet said:

Large motor that takes what will probably be a marginal hit in fuel economy to avoid maintenance issues and costs related to Diesels and GDI. 

I bet this will be very popular with fleet customers, where downtime is more expensive than any efficiency loss vs a diesel. 

 

For most DI engines, what maintenance issues are there?  Some have intake deposit problems, sure, but most don't.  So other than giving it fuel, and changing the oil- there's nothing to do.

I figure this engine only gets to exist because medium duty trucks exist. Although, i could see it being pretty popular for fleets and business use even in the 250/350 because the modern diesels have expensive maintenance and repair issues and as i was saying to someone else, 'gas is cheaper than downtime'. Especially since gas is currently cheap. 

Now we just wait and see which of the manifolds cracks, whether the plugs either come out when you dont want or dont come out when you do want, whether it becomes unusable when hot oil pressure drops below 30psi, etc etc. In reality I'm mostly expecting this engine to be pretty good! 

alfadriver said:

Interesting that you say that, but I bet if you could get 20% better FE, you would really like having it. 

Since this is a Ford discussion, the first thing that popped in my head when I read that was the old FE series of Ford engines.     By that reasoning a 20% better 427 would be a 512.

Something odd caught my eye- ford-introduces-big-new-truck-engine/150000/page1/

Is this the 150,000th thread in GRM history?  

Based on other numbers of threads near this one, it would be 150,000.  Epic

In reply to alfadriver :

20% better economy with the same power and I'd be all over it.

I probably didn't express myself as best I could. For the price difference in the age of truck, plus the cost of maintenance issues that I didn't want to deal with, it was much cheaper to just feed the old 385-series engine rather than deal with the newer engine that made the same power with marginally better economy and worse maintenance issues.

I hope the new gasser is is better than the Tritons. I might be in the market for a new, used truck in a few years.

Vigo said:

I figure this engine only gets to exist because medium duty trucks exist. Although, i could see it being pretty popular for fleets and business use even in the 250/350 because the modern diesels have expensive maintenance and repair issues and as i was saying to someone else, 'gas is cheaper than downtime'. Especially since gas is currently cheap. 

 

Now we just wait and see which of the manifolds cracks, whether the plugs either come out when you dont want or dont come out when you do want, whether it becomes unusable when hot oil pressure drops below 30psi, etc etc. In reality I'm mostly expecting this engine to be pretty good! 

Considering Alfa said "sizeable", I'm going to agree. This probably has way more to do with updating the medium duty line than anything else. Sounds like a good motor for that. Not everyone wants or needs diesel in their MD truck.