Let's start talking/arguing/bragging about the larger '05 gas engines for the GM, Ford and Dodge's 3/4 & 1 ton pickups.

Ford's going 3-valve with their V10. It's going from 310hp/425lb-ft to 355hp/455lb-ft. It already is rated at 400lb-ft at/under 2000rpm and peaks at 3250rpm so 94% of it's torque is available under 2000rpm. Hopefully the rpm it takes to make the power will stay low. Looks like a winner to me as it beats the '05 8.1L from GM as far as I know!

The 8.1L is currently rated at 330hp/450lb-ft. The peak torque rpm is at 3200. I hear alot of GM fans touting the low-end torque of this engine but it's not much better than the 6.8L. As far as I know GM's hasn't announced any changes for 2005 so it looks like Ford will win the torque battle with gas engines at least for a year. The Triton V10 gets better mileage (at least for now) and doesn't burn much if any oil.

Am I jumping to conclusions by forgetting the new Dodge "hemi" HD engine? It's a 6.1L (with the flashy "hemi" marketing gimmick to go along) and is rumored to be rated at 400+hp/400+lb-ft. I think Ford will still have it beat in torque, which is what I pay more attention to with 3/4 and 1 ton engines.

The big question with this new Dodge engine is the operating rpm ranges. Given it's smaller size I really don't think it will be able to be in the same class as the other 2 engines for torque under 2000rpm. In other words I guessing it will be another high-rpm screamer just like Dodges 5.7L hemi. I may be wrong. Dodge already has plans to put this engine in the 300C so it looks ike they've designed it to be a car motor as well.

I like to look at a torque/hp graph for heavy-duty gasoline engines and see it making at least 400lb-ft at or under 2000rpm. That's how I judge it's work performance and it's usually a good indication of real-world towing performance. The old Dodge 8.0L V10 was a torque monster-I think it was rated for 400lb-ft at around 1300rpm! The 8.1L is at 400lb-ft at about 1600rpm and the current 6.8L V10 at 1900rpm.

What's next? No diesel talk, ok? I know about them and I want to hear some opinions and thoughts on gas engines right now!

 

A cheap and easy way to get a 6.1 Hemi is a 3.85" stroker crank and some different pistons. The heads flow well from the getgo and the overall design is very solid. But I don't think it'll be able to bother a 3v 6.8 10 cylinder. We'll see. Looks like Dodge has abandoned the "big" engine category. GM is totally different. They have the cubes. Fix the stupid problems, turn up the heat and leave both of them behind.

 

IMO nothing dodge will make now is going to compete with Ford or GM with their big gas trucks. The 6.1? Come on folks. 7% larger and that much more torque? Then do the thinking here. If it makes THAT much horsepower that thing has to rev high. IF you do the old horsepower calculation of (Torque X RPM)/(5252). That means it has to make peak torque at 5252 rpm or rev higher and give around 80-90% peak torque. That doesn't seem logical to have something be able to rev that high and still give the down low grunt. The 6.1 seems to be more based for cars than any truck purpose. When Dodge dropped the V-10 they seemed to want to drop the idea of a big truck engine. I think what we are hearing with this new 6.1 is a car engine that has played the telephone game. We'll just have to see though.

 

Cirdan49, I imagine you'll be right about it being a good car engine. I have no doubt that it will have more HP than the 3v V-10, but I doubt it will even be close on torque, especially at the low RPM's. MountainHound, I agree with you about the under 2000 RPM torque, the Hemi will not even be close in this category, unless they want to sacrifice high end HP, which they won't do because they aren't going to want their bigger 6.1 to have similar HP to their 5.7.
What is going to be interesting is the rumored 6.2 L Hurricane that Ford is developing. I believe it is an all new engine design, and I would bet that it is going to use a lot of the new technology of the 3v design, and also have a few other tricks up its sleeve. There are no details out on it other than displacement, so it will be very interesting to see what approach Ford takes with it. I imagine it will sit nicely between the 6.8 and 5.4 in torque, but have more HP, but hopefully not at too high an RPM. I would hope to see it put out at least 420 ft-lbs and and would bet over 400 HP. The thing is, is that this is being developed for the F-150, at least according to the detroit news article.

 

I would like to see the displacement of the V10 go up with hp and torque #'s. The new "Hurrican" engines sound great. Can't wait to hear more about them.

 

That's a good point.

Dodge had better not screw it up. Everyone I talk to with a Ram 5.7 250/3500 says the Hemi sucks towing and not every Dodge Ram buyer wants a diesel. I know one die-hard Dodge fan that bought a new GMC 8.1L because Dodge has had no larger CC gas engine for a few years now and he didn't want a diesel. I told him he's getting better and maybe next time he'll go ahead and buy a real truck!! You all know which one I'm talking about!

 

IMO Dodge made a mistake eliminating their V10. It was a gas hog, but it made torque at really low RPM. I guess they figured it was time to get rid of the gas hog like Ford did with the 460.

 

with a huge gas motor like that how can motor companies expect good mileage? unless you buy a diesel good mileage and unreal pulling power dont come in the same package.

 

I could care less about MPG, to a point. I was perfectly happy with 10-12mpg with my 460's. 13-14 with my V10 doest really show that much savings. I want some more cubes under the hood. I'm sure they could update the good old 7.5L for better economy and power. SOHC? That would be great.

 

Ford has always been good with there engines keeping a very flat torque curve and making most of the torque avaliable at lower RPMs, which is were you want it when your towing or have a load in the bed of the truck, so you cant always go by horse power and torque numbers if you have to red line the engine at all shifts to get that power, not to mention a lot more fuel consumtion

 

And by that note, you'd be wrong assuming a higher rpm torque peak (at 4k, 5k, whatever) automatically = no low end power.

 

With the smaller Dodge engine, a lot will depend on what gear ratios they put behind it. For example, Nissan put more tourqe multiplication (Gear) behind their Titan 32 valve motor than it's competitors, and that is, in my opinion, the main reason it "feels" so strong, compared to the 150 and the other American light duty jobs.

By going with a bigger crank throw on a 6.1 liter Hemi, it will shift the tourqe curve down slightly, and a lesser rod/stroke ratio will increase the tourqe peak at lower rpms. The average tourqe through the entire power band will be less with a lesser rod ratio though. They might run a different cam profile than the 345. BTW, does any body know the exact cubic inch displacement of the Ford V10? You can do the math, but this ofton doesn't match the exact cid, because the metric measure is only down to the nearst 10th.

 

I think overall power has a lot more to do with bore/stroke, heads, and intake tuning than rod ratio. A high ratio has it's benefits like less side load. A low also has benefits such as increased resistance to detonation. Sort of like the age old pushrod vs. ohc argument. I prefer as high as possible without compromising ring integrity. But nowadays it doesn't really matter. Either has been proven to work. Ford has to catch up with larger bores. And maybe a 5 speed. The new F-150 is the truck to do it in. A few little tweeks here and there and I just might do a 180 and buy a new one.

 

There used to be a good rule of thumb that any given cam had a powerband of about 3500 RPM's. You would grind or choose your cams according to where you wanted your torque/power curve to be.

This new "variable cam timing" changes that and is why ford is able to say that 90% of the 5.4's peak torque is available at 1000 RPM's while still having high Horsepower numbers in the upper RPM ranges.

Tony

 

However, I havn't read where the new 3-valve v10 has the varial cam timing. They may be thinking that we will assume that it does or it might not be part of the v10. Anyone read that it has VCT?
Tony