I will tell all you ecoboost naysayers this: If this tiny little 216 CID engine was under such great stress, it wouldn't be sitting at 1600 RPM's at 70 and it sure as hell wouldn't whip my 5400 lb truck around like a dish rag at such low RPM and with such awesome mpg's.

The transmission will help these new engines survive for decades.

Let us not forget that the turbos are water cooled, the oil filter block is water cooled, we're using better lubricants now and we have better airflow across the engine than ever.

Comparing the early 80's turbo engines to the ecoboost is just as absurd as comparing a cummins diesel to an ecoboost.

After all of Ford's "F" ups in recent years with the 5.4L, 6.0L, 6.4L and some 6.2's, does anyone really believe that the Ecoboost wasn't well thought out? Can Ford survive another engine disaster? The Ecoboost is Ford's flagship.

There will be problems, but, they will likely come from the idiot who doesn't perform good maintenance or abuses his equipment.

 

Thanks for the input guys. At lunch today I went through the "build your F-150" web site and was happily surprised to see ELDs available on all ratios. I've got 3.55 gears with ELD on my SD and I love it. I was amazed to see 3.15 gears were an option for the F-150. I did not check, but can you get 3.15 gears with the EB? That would be an interesting combo.

-Gavin

 

The 3.15 gear is standard with the 4x2 ecoboost truck and the 3.31 is standard on the EB 4x4.

 

The high stress with small displacement argument is getting old. If you guys have ever messed around with forced induction in the performance world, you will learn that RPMs put more stress on a motor than boost does. I come from the LSx world, and there are plenty of LS1/LS2 motors running upwards of 700rwhp on stock internals. How do they live? It's all in the tune and limiting the RPMs. If you are smart with setting the rev limiter and you have your tune spot on, you will enjoy a long lived motor. People are too quick to generalize boost with short motor life. I've seen motors grenade with 400rwhp caused by the owner spinning the motor too hard, and I've seen boosted motors operating way outside of the design specs live because the RPMs were limited and the A/F is properly tuned. Sure boost puts more stress on a motor compared to a N/A motor, but a boosted motor like the Ecoboost with its low end torque doesn't need to rev to the moon to accelerate. Like was mentioned before, the 6 speed tranny and the low end torque, I think, will pan out very well for Ecoboost owners.

 

Here is an interesting tid bit from one of my books...

maximum boost -Corky bell (one of the best Forced Induction books)

inertial load. vs power load
inertial load - "if engine speed is increased threefold, the inertial load will be nine times as great"....
these inertial loads are huge. a large-displacement engine running 7000 rpm can develop con-rod inertial loads greater than 4000 pounds. ( Thats' like a Cadillac sitting on your rod-bearing.)

power load- " the thought of doubling an engine's torque (doubling power at the same rpm) easily gives one the idea that power load will double. Thank goodness this is not true....it can be seen in figure 1-6 that with twice the mixture in the chamber, peak pressure is only up about 20%. There are two reasons for this disparity.
first, power is a function of average pressure over the entire stroke of the piston, not just peak pressure. the average pressure can be dramatically increased due to the much higher relative pressures near the middle or end of the stroke, while the peak does not gain significantly.

Second,peak pressure is generally reached after only 19-20% of the mixture has burned. if the mixture quantity is doubled, 18-20% of it too, will have burned by the time peak pressure is reached

....the preceding discussion establishes that the increased combustion chamber pressure due to a turbo, and thus the power load, will have only a moderate adverse effect on the structure of the engine."

A low RPM boosted motor (Ecoboost) has less stress than a high revving N/A motor (6.2).

 

You know the V8 vs Ecoboost arguement really is getting old, I tend to stay out of it now because I have my ideas and others have theirs, that's just the way the world works.

But why can't you all just be happy we still have the options we do? HOW LONG are going to have the option to choose between a N/A V8 and a Turbo V6? How long will we even have an option to get a Turbo V6? From what it sounds like the future of trucks could consists of Turbo 3 and 4cylinder Hybrids dropped into Tars ''Trucks built like Cars''.

That's all I'll say about it because I don't want to hijack this thread any further than I already have.

 

Said with the utmost respect, 640, I do think that one problem which will remain unresolved is that all of the engines, the EB, the 5.0, and the 6.2 are still quite new on the market, and it will be a number of years before we *really* know if there are going to be problems with any of them.

It took a number of years for spark plug issues to surface on the mod motors, for instance, and some of the potential issues with the EB like intake valve deposits due to direct injection, turbo life, etc, will not be known for a number of years. I agree that all of our threads thus far have been based on speculation and it does seem like they are getting old, but if I were choosing the engine for a new truck right now, I would want to get as much info as possible because it's a big investment and I keep my stuff for a long time. Big problem is that the info people really want won't be available for some years.

Regards, George

 

I like the 5.0, would fit all my needs, sounds good like my 5.4. I just don't like the the new technology with the twin turbo yet, not in a heavy truck anyway, maybe in a few years. I just turned in my lease on an 08 BMW 535xi, this was the first year out with the twin turbo inline3.0 six. BMW has had a major recall from problems with fuel pumps failing, software re-programming, and they still haven't fixed their design flaw. The new models are running a single twin scroll turbo, curious to see how this design works.

 

I figure buy the end of the 2012-2013 model year we will be getting some pretty good reporting on the overall success of the Ecoboost. There certainly should be enough EB F150’s on the road as popular as they have been.

What I want hear about are the Ecoboost trucks that will have accumulated upward toward 200k miles on them. By that time I will be ready for a new truck.

 

Well i will stay optimistic and and hope the Ecoboost was a good choice for me and like everyone has already said only time will tell.

 

Again, thanks to all who contributed, I will recommend that my neighbor get the EB with 3.31 ELD and 4wd. That's the easy part, now he has to decide what other options he wants.
FTE is a great resource.