Ford goes pushrod?

[tchapps88]

Unless you're buying F450-F750, this engine isn't for you. It's plain to me that none of you are actually in commercial truck fleet use or maintenance.

THANK YOU for the sane post!

This is NOT a brodozer or even an F150 engine - this is a heavy duty gasoline engine that THE FLEETS HAVE BEEN REQUESTING. This is going into medium duty trucks and fleet F350s/F250s, where the 6.8 and 5.4 were King because they were cheaper to buy into and cheaper to maintain than the Powerstrokes. I can count the number of 6.7 fleet vans, work trucks, tow trucks, etc. around here on no hands, they're all gasoline.

There's a reason why so many Isuzu trucks had gas Chevy 6 liters in them. The fleets wanted it!

not very often does someone accidentally put diesel in a gas tank, but accidentally puting gas in a diesel tank happens far too often.

[mekilljoydammit]

Random thought with the relatively modest HP per displacement - wonder if they're doing Atkinson cycle tricks with the cam timing for emissions and economy. That and turning slow could do some interesting real world things.

[Brian P]

Given that the engine uses variable valve timing and a single camshaft, it is highly likely that they are delaying all valve events at part load (GM does the same thing).

Delayed intake valve closure at low revs pushes some of the charge back out again. At part load, doing this as opposed to closing the throttle gives less intake manifold vacuum so that there is less pumping loss.

Delayed exhaust valve opening results in the effective expansion ratio being bigger than the effective compression ratio (i.e. emulation of the Atkinson cycle).

Delayed intake valve opening and exhaust valve closure until partway into the intake stroke retains some exhaust in the cylinder - acts like EGR but without actually having EGR. At part load, again, this also substitutes for closing the throttle.

This engine is designed to run at stoichiometric all the way up to full load. That's incompatible with forced induction. This is an engine that is designed to be as efficient as possible when running under load.

The Ecoboosts are not that. (They have a well known reputation for using more fuel than the 5.0 V8 when towing a trailer.) Supercharging a 6.2 would not do that.

This isn't designed to be a high performance engine. It's designed to be a truck engine.

[mekilljoydammit]

I'm also thinking in terms of, maybe at full load it's still running in an emulated Atkinson mode with a higher than typical static compression ratio. It seems to me that the target power is low enough that's possible.

[Roadknee]

This will be a great engine in ford chassis motor homes.

[midnightbluS10]

Anybody on here care to lay down some numbers for the rest of us here.

I for one would like to know the numbers for how many F150's, F250's, F450's, F550's are sold in a year?

I understand the logic expressed here for a high torque, lower rpm and decent gas mileage are major factors that entered into the design of this new pushrod 7.3 engine for commercial and fleet uses especially in the F450 and F550.

However I don't know the numbers above but I suspect the F250 sales far outstrip the numbers of F450, F550 combined by a huge difference that the Ford engineer said drove the final design of the engine in his Road and Track interview. I am also thinking that the F250 sales have big numbers purchased by just private owners and not commercial or fleet usage.

If this was the driver behind the 7.3 engine then why not show and release those high torque, lower rpm numbers and expected mileage when they released the engine to the public??

Ford truck sales numbers are published online and available for what they call their light duty trucks as a whole, which includes all trucks from F150-450. According to their numbers, anywhere from 50-80k trucks/month in the previous 5 years. 909k trucks in 2018. 750k in 2014. Fairly sure they don't break them down to each model. Not for sales figures, anyway. There may be some internal figures but nothing I've ever seen published. It's always for the entirety of the light duty truck models as a whole.

Off-topic: Average cost of a F150 in 2018: $46,751! Highest of all fullsize truck manufacturers.

I remember when you could buy a full size truck for 24k. Amazing that the price has doubled in such a "short" time.

Their heavy duty trucks sell much, much less. Combined in 2018, Ford sold 12 THOUSAND heavy duty trucks, to include 550/650/750 trucks. 12,096 to be exact.

If that engine is only for heavy duty trucks, you likely won't see many, it seems like. 12k? That's a drop in the bucket. That's about 1.3% of the amount of light trucks sold. 1 percent.

Wow.

[Rowdy Yates]

I think i may have said something along those lines.....needle in a hay stack. Unless over the counter sales justify building 1. Think I may call my local Ford racing people @ tommie v. In houston and see, if & when a block will be available. Wonder what a bare block cost will be?

[Rowdy Yates]

They have to sell the hard parts........ That goes for any engine, got Ls3 heads @ 175.oo each bare at my Local parts dept. Made a friend and bought lunch for us both. (Didn't go to Lubbuck with my friends on spur 327) Parts manager Now dealership manager. Works with any brand... With 4 fords SUV's bought out cash $ New. Figure ...Break bread to my ? Tommie V Racing dept. Just willing to wait till they have one at the dealer. Once there parts and blocks... Shit breaks... A replacement 7.3 block is needed. LOL! To start a godzilla build. Just needs to be seen...

[Lem Evans]

The 115mm bore spacing of the 6.2L was carried over to the 7.3L engine.

[Newold1]

Midnightblues10's post sort of points out exactly want I was thinking in my post about numbers of F450-F550's and that number being the real reason behind the new "Godzilla" 7.3 Ford pushrod engine.

Would Ford develop a whole new V-8 engine for 12,000 or so trucks and commercial fleets, I don't think so!

If they did it would be the second big mistake behind saying this engine was designed strictly for that market. Nope, Ford and other auto companies may get dumb from time to time, but they are not that dumb! I suspect if they can't hit a minimum of 100,000 to 200,000 units, it would not even justify putting it into production. My thought is that the primary use of this engine will come in the F250 Heavy duty applications. We'll see as time will tell.

[Keith Morganstein]

Midnightblues10's post sort of points out exactly want I was thinking in my post about numbers of F450-F550's and that number being the real reason behind the new "Godzilla" 7.3 Ford pushrod engine.

Would Ford develop a whole new V-8 engine for 12,000 or so trucks and commercial fleets, I don't think so!

If they did it would be the second big mistake behind saying this engine was designed strictly for that market. Nope, Ford and other auto companies may get dumb from time to time, but they are not that dumb! I suspect if they can't hit a minimum of 100,000 to 200,000 units, it would not even justify putting it into production. My thought is that the primary use of this engine will come in the F250 Heavy duty applications. We'll see as time will tell.

Ford sells around 300,000 super duty trucks a year, F250 and up.

[Steve.k]

Of course its for the 250 and up class. The writing I think is on the wall for diesels especially with the carbon tax issues going on. While Trump has delayed this carbon tax bs in the US the idiots that run the country to the north have not. So with the clampdown on carbon emissions the sales chunk hit to ford they see the writing on wall. Alot of buyers already switched back to gas here despite the hp difference between the 6.2& 6.7 diesel. Cost of fuel,repairs and initial cost to much for most already. There is alot more to it than we see I'm thinking. Fords recurving now before the its to late. If trumps crew gets changed out the carbon emissions situation could change drastically at which you have little or no time to come up with alternative.

[Lem Evans]

The engine will go in the F650 and F750s too.

[Steve.k]

Thanks Lem. With them going into vehicles of that size you know they are thinking diesel replacement as most of those heavier trucks pretty much only sell with diesel. They say the they used hardened piston material and ring not normally used in this style engine before.May even see a increase in LNG vehicles.I have heavy equipment and the particulate filter setups in heavy trucks and earthmoving equipment are absolutely useless in our cold climate!

[peejay]

Practically all of the tow trucks around here are 6.8 engines. Way too many people got burned by the expense of maintaining a Diesel for it to make sense from a business perspective. And these are people who keep a truck for only a year to 18 months and then sell it off at 150k miles!