2011 Ford F250/350 Super Duty gets a face lift and a new diesel powerplant!

For many years Ford has been putting Navistar built diesel engines in it's bread and butter of trucks, the super duty truck series. However, while that relationship wasn't a total disaster, it started to be plagued by a myriad of problems that slowly started chipping away at Ford super duty image and reliability heritage it has enjoyed over it's history. Navistar engines didn't make the Ford's super duty customers happy and Ford decided to be done with them and build their own. Simple concept it seems, but it took a while to get to it.

New engine is Ford designed and Ford built 6.7 liter turbocharged engine that according to Ford will at least match if not surpass the current setup they have, but with less reliability issues. All while meeting stricter emission standards that in the past. The new engine block is graphite iron, slightly stronger than the more common cast iron engines but this particular one will be 160 pounds lighter than the Navistar 6.4liter it's replacing. Not that most current or future super duty owners care much about weight in a full size pick up, but it's nice to see more efficient engines being designed and built. I am going out on a hazard and assuming that the new engine will have a better diesel mileage because to be frank, current Navistar 6.4liter has such poor mileage that a normal person would be hard pressed to justify the premium difference it commands versus a gasoline engine, even the V10 one.

Other goodies of this power plant include a massive turbo, boosting 30psi, forged steel crankshaft and oil jets that cool the underside of pistons. Ford also went to great lengths to make sure that problems that plagued Navistar engine won't happen again. The engine testing consisted of 1200 hours of continuous usage. Ford also ran the engine for 6 hours straight at peak torque and for 3 hours at peak horsepower—and rev it to 4200 rpm even though the rev limit is set to 4000. All sounds impressive at the time and I am excited to wait for it's immediate arrival to the market and reviews that are to follow.