Ford V-6 beats v-8's in towing competition

[bdeboer]

Well, it wasn't that particular article, there have been more than several published, but that one will do. They sure cause a dust-up though:laughing:

No worse than the Chevy vs. Ford here.

 

[turbo36]

Apparently you've never performed a leak down test. Bad rings would cause high leak down just as much as bad valves. Could be head problems instead but when your talking about a high compression turbo engine, the rings usually go first.

No, I guess in all my years of racing and engine building I never performed a leak down test .

From the article I really can't figure out what was different with the higher leak down cylinder and neither can you, anything you codger up at this point is just pure speculation.

If 13% was so bad why did the engine still produce the rated horsepower and torque?

You are a big fan of the Dodge diesel, isn't that a "high compression turbo engine"? This isn't an old style engine that they just threw a turbo charger on to make more horse power, it was designed from the begining to take the higher loads. If you look at the torque curve you can see that it performs closer to a diesel then to a gas engine, do you think maybe the engineers took that into consideration when designing the engine?

 

[slowzuki]

I'm not a big fan of this, its very centric on power related tests for climbing hills. I live in a flatish area and could care less about hill starts and acceleration. I do care about safe handling and braking of course.

If all the manufacturers adopt, even bigger, heavier, less fuel efficient vehicles will be required to tow the same loads, just so owners in the west can fly up their big grades.

Hopefully our local enforcement will continue to only enforce axle ratings as they normally do.

You must be talking about this article.

2011 Toyota Trucks Will Meet New Towing Standards - PickupTrucks.com News

Hopefully they all start to use this, and it does not get watered down too much.

 

[turbo36]

I'm not a big fan of this, its very centric on power related tests for climbing hills. I live in a flatish area and could care less about hill starts and acceleration. I do care about safe handling and braking of course.

If all the manufacturers adopt, even bigger, heavier, less fuel efficient vehicles will be required to tow the same loads, just so owners in the west can fly up their big grades.

Hopefully our local enforcement will continue to only enforce axle ratings as they normally do.

SAE, ASTM, ISO, Consumer Reports Etc. Etc. are all in the business of keeping thier employees- employed:laughing:. I hate it when some organization comes out with a standard as to how they think I should do things.

 

[slowzuki]

I'm not against all standards, but the problem is these tow ratings get picked up and applied as law in some places, regardless of where they originated. Similar to how people get quite upset about people exceeding the factory GCVR when towing. lol.

 

[Egon]

If all the manufacturers adopt, even bigger, heavier, less fuel efficient vehicles will be required to tow the same loads, just so owners in the west can fly up their big grades.

Talking Trans Canada Highway only for about six or seven trips towing and loaded with camper.

Ontario has some long steep grades, next comes the Maritime's which have more vertical than imagined, the prairies have a few but not bad and BC. has a few the Coquihalla being the longest and generally the steepest.

When towing it was only one hill in Ontario that my anemic now old Dodge had to get into first gear behind a slow moving truck and follow. Most trucks passed me on this hill.

In the Maritime's lots of trucks passed me but I could stay in second gear.

And the poor old truck is still running on it's first transmission. [One trip was a gross of 24k]

 

[slowzuki]

You've got an older 12V with the automatic right? They are detuned to keep the tranny alive. Have you made the trip since they've cut the new 4 lane through? A lot of the grades are less now.

I've done two trips towing with a Ford 4.6 through the new route with about 8000-10000 lbs of trailer and no trouble keeping up 110 km/hr. My codriver who wasn't paying for gas liked to keep it at 130 km/hr.

I've made the trip a dozen times in my little Matrix towing about 2200 lbs or so each trip. When its a big non aerodynamic load, it has a hard time in a head on wind. Only has 100 hp or something like that.

 

[Egon]

You've got an older 12V with the automatic right?

You betcha 1996.:thumbsup:

Had lots of windage though.

Even on the new parts here in the maritime's the grade's are a little tougher than western Canada aside from the few in BC.

 

[Dargo]

This is a BS test, V6's cannot compete with V8's period.

I have to agree; this is a rather dubious statement to say the least.

 

[TheGoose]

Very disappointed in the fuel mileage reported for these engines. 2x4 = 22 mpg, 4x4 = 21 mpg. Not much better than the std. V-8's.

I think the whole thing is super silly. Once you get past 300 HP and a comparable amount of torque what difference does it make? Most people are going to be using them for light to moderate towing, around 5-6K at best. Sure, you can tow 10K but how many will be doing that on a constant basis?

What I want is a full-size 4 door truck (preferably 4x4) that gets ~25 MPG on the hwy and about 20 in the city that can tow about 6,000 lbs. The rest is BS.