Ford Introduces Big New Truck Engine

alfadriver said:

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)

This reminds me of the old Billy Todd and Debbie Sue analogy.

They both commute 100 miles round trip from the trailer park to the vinyl siding factory each day.  Debbie Sue has a ‘79 Z/28 that returns a solid 20 mpg.  

Billy Todd drives a 4 door dually on 44” Super Swampers.  454 with Holley double pumper.  Poorly tuned.  He gets 5 mpg.

One day Debbie Sue says “hey we need to watch how much we spend on gas.  I seen one of them hybrids they claim will get 50 mpg.  I’m only getting 20 now.  I want that.”  Billy T retorts with “..bruh my uncle Fred can rebuild my motor and he promises 6 mpg..”  

which plan saves more gas?  

Knurled. said:

alfadriver said:

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.  

I've always figured that the F350 and to a lesser extent F250 (work trucks) were meant to be run near WOT basically forever.  For that you need displacement and cooling.  I wouldn't want to sit an Ecoboost at a high percentage of its rated power for huge amounts of time and expect it to last 200k.

 

I'm assuming that this 7.3 is also going to be in the F450 and up, as well.

I was kind of stunned to hear Joel say to the world that the engine is designed to run peak power at stoich.  For many reasons...  But that's really tough on the engine and exhaust system.

A 401 CJ said:

alfadriver said:

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)

This reminds me of the old Billy Todd and Debbie Sue analogy.

They both commute 100 miles round trip from the trailer park to the vinyl siding factory each day.  Debbie Sue has a ‘79 Z/28 that returns a solid 20 mpg.  

Billy Todd drives a 4 door dually on 44” Super Swampers.  454 with Holley double pumper.  Poorly tuned.  He gets 5 mpg.

One day Debbie Sue says “hey we need to watch how much we spend on gas.  I seen one of them hybrids they claim will get 50 mpg.  I’m only getting 20 now.  I want that.”  Billy T retorts with “..bruh my uncle Fred can rebuild my motor and he promises 6 mpg..”  

which plan saves more gas?  

 

 

 

That's pretty easy.  But Billy Todd has a 20 gallon gas tank just to get to work one way.   Which is a lot of gas just to get to work one way....  (he'd lower that 16 2/3 gal per trip, or 3.333 gal saved per trip, whereas she'd go from 5 gal/trip to 2- so he is wasting less)

In reply to Knurled. :

Like the Mustang after the Camaro and the Ranchero after the El Camino. 

Everyone copies. All the time

Cooper_Tired said:

In reply to Knurled. :

Like the Mustang after the Camaro and the Ranchero after the El Camino. 

Everyone copies. All the time

Huh?   Last I checked, the Mustang came first.  by 2.5 years.

Not that I disagree with the copying.  Happens all the time.

alfadriver said:

Cooper_Tired said:

In reply to Knurled. :

Like the Mustang after the Camaro and the Ranchero after the El Camino. 

Everyone copies. All the time

Huh?   Last I checked, the Mustang came first.  by 2.5 years.

Not that I disagree with the copying.  Happens all the time.

It was sarcasm. The Ranchero came before the El Camino by ~2 years as well. 

In reply to Cooper_Tired :

Ah.  Still, there's a lot of copying going on.

Cooper_Tired said:

alfadriver said:

Cooper_Tired said:

In reply to Knurled. :

Like the Mustang after the Camaro and the Ranchero after the El Camino. 

Everyone copies. All the time

Huh?   Last I checked, the Mustang came first.  by 2.5 years.

Not that I disagree with the copying.  Happens all the time.

It was sarcasm. The Ranchero came before the El Camino by ~2 years as well. 

But it came AFTER the Corvair... hmm... 

When Ford decides to innovate or otherwise let their engineers loose, they do it HARD.  Other times, it seems like me-too engineering.  I was honestly a little surprised that they didn't have a retro mini-minivan type cartruckwagonthing like the PT Cruiser and HHR.

alfadriver said:

A 401 CJ said:

alfadriver said:

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)

This reminds me of the old Billy Todd and Debbie Sue analogy.

They both commute 100 miles round trip from the trailer park to the vinyl siding factory each day.  Debbie Sue has a ‘79 Z/28 that returns a solid 20 mpg.  

Billy Todd drives a 4 door dually on 44” Super Swampers.  454 with Holley double pumper.  Poorly tuned.  He gets 5 mpg.

One day Debbie Sue says “hey we need to watch how much we spend on gas.  I seen one of them hybrids they claim will get 50 mpg.  I’m only getting 20 now.  I want that.”  Billy T retorts with “..bruh my uncle Fred can rebuild my motor and he promises 6 mpg..”  

which plan saves more gas?  

 

 

 

That's pretty easy.  But Billy Todd has a 20 gallon gas tank just to get to work one way.   Which is a lot of gas just to get to work one way....  (he'd lower that 16 2/3 gal per trip, or 3.333 gal saved per trip, whereas she'd go from 5 gal/trip to 2- so he is wasting less)

Winner winner

Aren’t you going to ask what you won?  That’s pretty easy to answer too :-)

In reply to A 401 CJ :

I'm going to guess the chicken dinner is at best the 10 piece chicken nuggets for $1.  

 Watched that TFL video. Loved the closeups. As a tech looking at this thing, it's pretty exciting mentally to see everything i would complain about in other Ford motors mostly absent. I see a  whole lot of easy and a whole lot of unlikely to break. I especially enjoyed the long discussion of the exhaust manifolds. They're beautiful. I wish i could buy cast manifolds that nice for everything i own. This thing is gonna be great. 

Did i mention im 5 cylinders into rethreading all 10 spark plug holes in a ford v10 RV? Talk about a pita, and I even like the 6.8! But this thing looks approximately twice as good. 

That 7.3/10 Speed would be a nice replacement for a 400/460 in a Lincoln MkV...

Man, I was really hoping Alfa was implying the excursion was coming back. 

I've heard (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that the current V10 stuck around partially due to UHaul's need for gigantic medium-duty trucks that didn't run on diesel - because they can't trust their customers to find and fill up with diesel fuel. This will be a good replacement for the V10 and fit that use case, alongside RVs and whatever else needs a big ol' gas motor.

Knurled. said:

When Ford decides to innovate or otherwise let their engineers loose, they do it HARD.  Other times, it seems like me-too engineering.  I was honestly a little surprised that they didn't have a retro mini-minivan type cartruckwagonthing like the PT Cruiser and HHR.

Oh, they did the retro thing during that time, too. Remember the T-bird? And of course the S197 Mustang.

fasted58 said:

TLDR 

TFL 2020 Ford Super Duty 7.3L V8: Here's What You Need to Know!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FtNlfAbc2w

He was wonderfully candid. I wish he went into more engineering about how they can use older, more proven technology and still easily meet emissions standards. I can't wait to see aftermarket get ahold of it.

"It's an iron-block, pushrod-equipped, port-injected V8 with 7.3L of displacement."

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

I'm sure Alfadriver can correct me, but I think when designing an engine you have to strike a balance between fuel economy, emissions, performance, and cost. I'd have to think that the fact that this engine is intended for the heavy duty market can alter that balance.

The vehicles that his engine will be going into aren't tested for fuel economy by the EPA, and therefore have no impact on a manufacturer's tightly regulated fleet fuel economy numbers. So, fuel economy is less critical to the manufacturer, so there may be less need for expensive or complex tech to get the desired end result. This engine also seems targeted towards fleet customers, and they care about costs and reliability above all. Fuel economy is still important o the fleet buyer, but it simply has to be class competitive which shouldn't be difficult for this engine that's designed from the start with the focus of stoichiometric efficiency @ it's intended duty cycle.

In reply to STM317 :

Pretty much that- but the way the rules are going, pretty much all of the engine's main development WRT emissions are for it's first 30ish seconds of running.  And engine like this does add on near max performance emissions, but having it run stoich most of the time solves that.  After that, it's all up to the aftertreatment.

The gas v diesel thing- the other cost factor is emissions.  Gas engines are a whole lot easier to meet the LEV IV and EURO7 projected emissions (as well as many of the China rules, too) compared to diesel.  And for fleet buyers, that matters quite a bit, too.  Not they know it.

Looking at this engine, it's incredibly cheap, even with the various coatings and stuff put on the engine.  There's no "stuff" included, and even adding DI would not cost much.  On a relative basis, the cast stainless manifold may be super expensive.  But relative to a turbo, well....  One cam actuator vs. 4.  

All that adds up to a better cost balance to consumers.  

Brake_L8 said:

I've heard (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that the current V10 stuck around partially due to UHaul's need for gigantic medium-duty trucks that didn't run on diesel - because they can't trust their customers to find and fill up with diesel fuel. This will be a good replacement for the V10 and fit that use case, alongside RVs and whatever else needs a big ol' gas motor.

Last time I rented a U-haul, a couple years ago, they claimed the reason they weren't offering diesel trucks was that apparently they weren't offered with a conventional automatic in a medium duty chassis. Seemed a bit odd that you couldn't get a Duramax and Allison transmission on these chassises.

alfadriver said:

I was kind of stunned to hear Joel say to the world that the engine is designed to run peak power at stoich.  For many reasons...  But that's really tough on the engine and exhaust system.

How the hell do you do that without glowing manifolds, NOx shooting through the roof, or detonation? You can only throw so much EGR at the thing... I doubt you are free to answer that but however it's managed, it's impressive.  

RXBeetle said:

alfadriver said:

I was kind of stunned to hear Joel say to the world that the engine is designed to run peak power at stoich.  For many reasons...  But that's really tough on the engine and exhaust system.

How the hell do you do that without glowing manifolds, NOx shooting through the roof, or detonation? You can only throw so much EGR at the thing... I doubt you are free to answer that but however it's managed, it's impressive.  

Joel mentioned the cast stainless steel manifolds, so you can deal with the glowing hot manifolds.

The NOx... well, I can't tell you how to deal with that, but I'm pretty sure that can be dealt with.

And the detonation, just take spark out- I'm sure the engine has knock control.  I didn't hear that this engine has EGR, so not sure if that's part of the solution or not.

MadScientistMatt said:

Brake_L8 said:

I've heard (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that the current V10 stuck around partially due to UHaul's need for gigantic medium-duty trucks that didn't run on diesel - because they can't trust their customers to find and fill up with diesel fuel. This will be a good replacement for the V10 and fit that use case, alongside RVs and whatever else needs a big ol' gas motor.

Last time I rented a U-haul, a couple years ago, they claimed the reason they weren't offering diesel trucks was that apparently they weren't offered with a conventional automatic in a medium duty chassis. Seemed a bit odd that you couldn't get a Duramax and Allison transmission on these chassises.

A more likely reason was that U-Haul got tired of dealing with gasoline in the diesel tanks.  You can fit a gas nozzle into a diesel tank, but you can't do the other way around, and dealing with a typical consumer, which may have never bought diesel in their life, well....  it would be an easy mistake to make.

I wonder if they also did any tricks like LT1 reverse-flow cooling to keep the heads cooler to reduce detonation.  I'd also expect piston oil squirters and possibly fairly cold spark plugs.  

alfadriver said:

MadScientistMatt said:

Brake_L8 said:

I've heard (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that the current V10 stuck around partially due to UHaul's need for gigantic medium-duty trucks that didn't run on diesel - because they can't trust their customers to find and fill up with diesel fuel. This will be a good replacement for the V10 and fit that use case, alongside RVs and whatever else needs a big ol' gas motor.

Last time I rented a U-haul, a couple years ago, they claimed the reason they weren't offering diesel trucks was that apparently they weren't offered with a conventional automatic in a medium duty chassis. Seemed a bit odd that you couldn't get a Duramax and Allison transmission on these chassises.

A more likely reason was that U-Haul got tired of dealing with gasoline in the diesel tanks.  You can fit a gas nozzle into a diesel tank, but you can't do the other way around, and dealing with a typical consumer, which may have never bought diesel in their life, well....  it would be an easy mistake to make.

But it's much better to give a plausible, technical reason than to say your average customer is a moron.