My have things changed

Remember when a six speed transmission was so great? Not enough gears now.

I say keep making improvements!

I'm still rockin around 200HP/440TQ lol

Since we replaced our smaller 20' toy hauler with a 30' I'm considering a axle change and going to a 5spd+2 just to keep things reasonable. Also shifting 5 times before making it through the intersection will make it seem like another day at work.

When we bought our last car I didnt even care enough to look under the hood to see if it had an engine let alone ask about hp. With the truck I want enough power to pull my 5ver 60 mph up a 8% grade. I think the 2020 Ford is finally there.

People always complain about this topic when their favorite brand is behind the competition. When their brand is ahead of the competition then all this power is great.

Yeah, we had a 1992 F250 with 7.3 (pre-turbo version)...at the time it sold, it was a towing monster with a whopping 180hp. Wouldn't race up a grade at 75mph pulling 10k but never a question of making it to the top.

Our current 2008 F250 with V10 has 365hp...yeah, we have to wind the RPM up higher to get that HP but plenty of HP available.

I said the same thing in a 7.3L gaser thread not too long ago. I remember when people said that they did not need more power than the 6.2L and could not justify paying for more, and then the 7.3L comes around and all that is forgotten.

In regards to diesels, what many do not understand is that unlike gas engines most of the upgrades and improvements made to diesels that increase their horsepower, also increase their efficiency. Slap a turbo on a gasser and you will make a less efficient because it will need to inject more fuel for added air. Slap a turbo on a diesel and it will increase it's efficiency significantly. However, some of these improvements do not make it more reliable as many have seen with the early CP4.

You also have the fact that you are not getting this horsepower all the time. Unlike ECM's in the past, the advanced ECM's of today allow for more programming and more functions meaning that the manufacturer can add more defueling into the maps to where they couldn't before. Think of it as a hard drive on a PC. Ten years ago, 100 GB was a lot and needed something big to hold that amount of data. Now, that ain't nothing and you can easily fit 100GB worth of data in something so small it can fit in an ECM. So while manufacturers are posting big numbers, it doesn't mean you are getting those numbers all the time.

But for those that are wanting more efficiency out of these HD trucks, it is coming. Now that phase one has finished, which focused on emissions, phase two is just starting to be implemented and it focuses on fuel efficiency numbers of these trucks. HD (8,501 GVWR and up) trucks will soon be included in a manufacturers Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency(CAFE) numbers meaning that the fuel economy of these trucks will now be apart of the manufacturers weighted average of what they sell. This also means that you will start to see fuel economy numbers on the window stickers of HD trucks as well. This is why manufacturers have been making improvement to the trucks for better fuel economy like more gears in transmissions and taller rear ratios because they are getting ready for it to hit in the next couple of years.

4x4ord wrote:
When we bought our last car I didnt even care enough to look under the hood to see if it had an engine let alone ask about hp. With the truck I want enough power to pull my 5ver 60 mph up a 8% grade. I think the 2020 Ford is finally there.

What 8% grades do you travel on towing a 5th wheel?

My old now RAM with only 385/865 twice did round trips with a 16K 5th wheel 24,500 combined between the NW and Arizona, once with a smaller 5th wheel, 1.5 round trips with the TT and one with a box trailer. Just do not know how I did it with all the mountain passes and high winds.

ShinerBock wrote:

In regards to diesels, what many do not understand is that unlike gas engines most of the upgrades and improvements made to diesels that increase their horsepower, also increase their efficiency. Slap a turbo on a gasser and you will make a less efficient because it will need to inject more fuel for added air. Slap a turbo on a diesel and it will increase it's efficiency significantly. However, some of these improvements do not make it more reliable as many have seen with the early CP4.

So Ford was making their engines LESS EFFICIENT when they added a turbo to their ecoboost line?

If you want to produce more HP, you need more fuel...regardless of gas or diesel.

PS: My naturally aspirated diesel got 21-22mpg empty. By Brother-in-laws 2008 turbo got 17mpg. So apparently, while he could generate more HP, it wasn't more efficient.

My son had a 1990 F250 with a 7.3 IDI. We put the Banks turbo kit on it one weekend. I remember turning up the pump screw about 3/8 turn per the instructions. Man did the turbo wake it up. Iirc it had about 15 lbs of boost the mileage in reality was more affected by his right foot than the kit. Only down side was we were doing a clutch a couple months later. Great truck though.

ShinerBock wrote:
Slap a turbo on a gasser and you will make a less efficient because it will need to inject more fuel for added air.

The main reason I see for any efficiency loss is that they generally reduce the compression ratio about 10% to control NOX with the boost. However, some of that will be made up when idling since the smaller engine requires less fuel at idle. The two boosted engines that I own are much more efficient than the non-boosted engines that they replaced and I have several friends and relatives with the 2.7 Ecoboost reporting amazing fuel economy numbers, double the mpg that my V10 gave with nearly as much power.