An inline 6, if done right, produces an incredibly beautiful exhaust note. Some of the most legendary sounding vehicles have been I6. The 7L naturally aspirated v8 is too big, too unimaginative, and too thirsty. A 600 pound engine or a 400 pounder with equal power? Hmm. This is the right move for Mopar to make. If the horsepower junkies within Mopar are allowed to go nuts on a turbo I6, I PROMISE, many of you will become believers. This is a move that should inspire Mopar fans. Would you prefer to be the Harley Davidson of trucks.. building the same engine for 100 years and suddenly realizing you've been stale for the last 25?
I'll take the other side of the
argument discussion!
And that contrary opinion goes as such:
No, power is not just power.
Speed, sound, low end torque, even height over other cars on the road - they all amount to the
EXPERIENCE of driving our trucks.
And that sound actually does matter, even if Ford desperately wishes it didn't. It's why they pipe sound in through the speakers.
If it didn't, they wouldn't have spent the money and developed the sound.
It's why they made the 2.7 EB a more economical option, and only offer a 5.0 V8 with less HP than their EBs.
This then gave the Ford buyers, a large chunk of the market, the opinion that it's EB > Everything.
No.
The EBs have better specs than what V8s FORD sells.
They do not make a 707hp Ecoboost V6. FCA makes a 707+ hp V8, and that engine is coming to the TRX.
The 5.0L V8 is less powerful than GM's 6.2L V8.
The HO EB's development was in some part, so the guy with the 2.7L Feels good about his purchase, due to strength of brand.
"Well it's technology, it's not 1968 anymore."
If my memory serves me correctly, somewhere in the mid 70s early 80s time frame, the V8s were on hiatus for a bit.
The V8's demise has been called a few times now. And while the Ecoboost accounts for much of FORD's sales, which has a lot to do with their strength of brand, their marketing, their pricing, their engine offerings, and their large loyal fanbase - The 75% ecoboost take rate number that's often floated?
That's not 100% of the truck market. None of the other brands sold an ecoboost equivalent until chevy hopped in this year. And even then, chevy's is not a replacement for the V8s.
It's hard to proclaim the V8 dead, when the very technology (turbos are not new) that makes these 6s peform well, would ALSO make the V8s perform BETTER.
You're telling me an ecoboost with 2 more cylinders that makes more power, isn't desirable?
The Raptor is a fine machine in many ways, but the truth is the HO EB3.5 was done to help market the ecoboost family as whole.
Same reason they put it in the Ford GT. (Yes The GT is in that racing group no one watches, but they didn't have to bring back the GT at all, nor did they have to do it with an EB, they wrapped it around that engine to sell it to more people, for EPA reasons).
The SVT guys were 100% capable of making a 5.0 V8 With a turbo on it, of equal or greater HP.
If you took a guy's raptor, that he loves, with the look he loves, the tires, the suspension, all of it - and said, "I can swap your eco-boost with a V8 of equal or greater specs. Same exact engine, 2 more cylinders, little less boost, better specs." They'll take it.
Because it's everything they liked about their Raptor, and it sounds 100% better, and it's not a strung out V6 - it's a V8 with which really does matter as an experience of driving a vehicle.
It matters so little, that we have guys on this very board talking about jumping to a TRX because of it, along with a nice interior.
Ford makes a quality truck, the Raptor is well designed in many ways - the guys aren't leaving due to quality or offroad capabilities.
They might leave because of that "end all be all" 6 cylinder engine.
Ford tried to tell everyone the ecoboost would be allll anyone could want - which works, until the TRX with a V8 is on the menu.
And with the imminent return of a V8 to the raptor, that was proven true.
For me, I wanted a big simple V8 that saw life in 3/4ton trucks that lived hard truck-lives.
That's the 5.7L V8 in the Ram. If they offered the 6.4, I would own that.
(Side note, the 5.7L V8 had different torque and HP figures from the 1500 to the 2500, I guess it had to do with stress on the drivetrain involved in a life of heavy load towing. If they sold a 6.4, it would likely have higher HP and torque figures for those same reasons for the hp/tq differences in the 5.7L It might crank out a little more than chevy's 6.2 I would find that desirable.)
Up to very recently, that 5.7 was offered in 2500s. Those things we see towing landscaping trailers everywhere, 14 years after they were sold. That has a lot of appeal to me. In addition to good power and good longevity, they sound fantastic. That rumble is a very pleasant enjoyable thing to hear. I don't envy any EB driver, truth be told I actually chortle everytime I hear one roll by. And that's no exaggeration.
That's how
I feel, just my 2 cents.
