I watched a road test of the new F150 EcoBoost last night on speed vision. They beat this truck for a 150,000 miles, through the desert Baha, on a race track towing over 11,300lbs, 2 car trailers with Indy cars for 24 hours straight between 80 to 100 mph. Then they towed a bunch of enormous trees freshly cut down up a hill to a tractor trailer. Dragging them. They show the turbo’s via camera burning bright red while racing towing the car trailers. After everything they put it on a dyno and still got factory new HP & Tq. Then they took it all apart at the Detroit auto show, and showed the engine still looked good enough for another 150k. I guess Ford got it right.

 

Its equivalent of 150,000 miles. Not 150,000 actual miles.

 

I was pretty sure that they put 146,000 actual miles on it. I'll have to scan through those torture tests again.

 

Looks like relatively few actual miles. Most of the run was on a dyno which was supposed to be "the equivalent of 150k."

What the Inside of a Tortured Ford EcoBoost V-6 Looks Like - PickupTrucks.com News

The it was driven from Kansas City to Oregon for log skidder use, so maybe that's 4k miles.

Then driven to Miami and driven around a track for 1607 miles, so that's maybe 7k miles(?)

Then 1200 miles of Baja practice and 1062 miles of Baja race.

So probably about 15k actual miles plus dyno time.

George

 

I saw the show and thought what a joke. Show me the truck driving pulling a 10k trailer through hills, etc. Putting the truck on a race track driving circles is nothing since once you get the weight moving there is nothing too it. How many of us travel with the terrain being flat. I saw this show as nothing more then a promo for ford not a realistic torture test.

 

I think the EcoBoost is a great engine. I bought my wife a 2011 FX4 with this engine and all I can say is that her little F150 feels like it's ready to work harder and faster than my F250 with a manual transmission and solid axles and lever-shifter transfer case. These F150s with the EcoBoost are legit, I can tell you that much.

There is little cause for me to believe that the EcoBoost will be a flop. The engine starts easily, is quiet, idles smoothly, has tons of smooth, seamless power. My 5.4L is a proven and reliable engine, and even behind a manual six-speed transmission it needs 3000rpm to get good power flowing. The EcoBoost builds power as soon as the engine gets above idle and pulls hard to about 5000rpm. Spec an F150 with this engine and 3.73 or 4.10 axle ratios, and you'll be ready to pull way more weight than the truck's chassis and suspension will handle.

At this point, it looks like Ford hit a home run with the EcoBoost in the 2011 F150.

 

Running at WOT for 1600 miles towing 11,300 pounds is not impressive?

Yes it was on a dyno for many miles but it was run in all kinds of temperature extremes and also at WOT. Pretty tough duty.

 

If there's anything to take from this thread, its that some people clearly have an agenda.

Seminaryranger hit the nail on the head.

 

I want to talk to owners 5 years from now with well over 100K miles of hard work & see what they have to say!

 

My agenda has always been that I love Ford trucks and see no reason why I would ever buy a truck other than a Ford. Bought a '78 F100 brand new as my first new vehicle. And, the EB torture test was absolutely impressive (I saw the torn down motor at the Detroit auto show this past January). NO doubt about the basic design being really, really solid.

That said, I am certain that Ford also tested its 1991 4.6 and 1997 5.4 and 6.8 engines. But they started spitting spark plugs out after a lot of years and it was not until 2005 that Ford fixed that problem. Likewise, I'm sure Ford tested its 2004 3-valve 5.4 long and hard, but somehow did not anticipate that over time, spark plugs would stick in the heads and break in half on removal. I also regard these engines as rock solid but with some dumb minor design issues that can be very expensive and problematic.

Please take no offense at this, EB owners, but I'm just skeptical of new stuff for a few years based on the two specific examples above involving Ford engine design engineers. It is even possible that some of the same engineers were responsible for the EB and that some weakness may have been overlooked.

In terms of the spark plug blowout problem for instance, why were only 3 or 4 threads put in an aluminum head to hold a spark plug? In 1970, my first car was a 1965 Sunbeam Alpine (a cute but POS English sports car). It had an aluminum head with at least 8 threads for the plugs. Likewise, I'm sure that the 3 valve 5.4 was tested a LOT as well, but somehow the plugs that stuck in the heads would take a few years of carbon and rust accumulation to show themselves and cause plugs to break off in the heads. If you've been on this board for a few years, you will have seen guys talking about $3k head replacements in the early stages of this problem (whereas now there are improved techniques and special tools--but still not a problem that should exist).

I believe that a proper agenda is discussing Ford trucks on this board in a fair and intelligent manner. I don't think it should be "off limits" to discuss concerns we might have regarding new products. My answer to whether the EB is a tough engine is absolutely YES. But I have no answers about how troublefree the EB will show itself to be over the next 10 years.

With all due respect to all Ford truck guys,
George

 

Nor does anyone know how troublefree the 3.7, 5.0, or 6.2 will be over the next 10 years.

 

Absolutely; whenever you buy any vehicle, you take a calculated risk regarding problems that it may have in the future. The best you can do is research whatever history that engine (or engine family) may have, consider complexity, and consider the degree of stress that is inherent in that design.

I trust the 3.7 because of the history of the Duratec family, believe the 5.0 is solid but I would not rule out some potential problems because of the complex new heads on the Mod motor core. The 6.2 is simpler and designed to be tougher (a real TRUCK motor IMO) and will be stressed less than the former 2 motors in hard use. The EB has Duratec guts but a lot of layers of new techology in the form of the turbos and direct injection, and is potentially the most stressed of all these engines when working really hard.

Good luck to all Ford buyers and to Ford as well; problems can be very expensive to a company in terms of warranty and bad PR.
George

 

Of course its a promo. They should have put the Chevy and Dodge through the exact same evaluations and tear those engines down too. That would have made it more interesting!

 

ego, now you speak my language! A little comparison with the others would be good to see...

 

There will be naysayers, that's normal, legitimate and should be expected. In my mind, an engine sitting on a Dyno exposed to temperature extremes that are impossible for a human to duplicate is pretty impressive. A running engine is a running engine whether it's in a truck or in a lab, the only difference being a lab doesn't have rain and snow.

I too want to see how the EB and all of Ford's new engines are performing 3,5,10 years from now as the miles grow and she ages. I think we all want that.

Let's give Ford some props for finally getting back in the game with power and economy.