edselford

Ya, today’s trend seem toward convenience for the person operating the machine. Also, eliminating down time caused by operator errors to help the party paying for the equipment ! Everyone seemed to go full speed ahead on EV’s without thinking about one main reason for having a vehicle, freedom of going anywhere you want, any time you want! Pure EV’s have a very negative affect on the above! The fallback position of Hybrids just may be a pretty good place to be for the next ten to 20 years even on Super Duty trucks. edselford

Even tractors in the 25 to 55 hp range are heading to hydrostatic drive systems with 2 to three ranges. Had at Massey Ferguson with a 4by4 manual, giving 16 distinct gears. It did everything well and had a forward/reverse shuttle. I don’t think they still make it! edselford

To Bob Rosadini your comments on people not able to drive manual transmissions is very accurate! I use to work for BorgWarner, Warner Gear Division and sold transfer cases and manual Transmissions.. We use to sell T18/T19 creeper 4 speeds to Ford for light duty and medium duty trucks and the T5 for the Mustang GT. it seemed that in light truck, our T18 was used to supplement F150/250 volumes when ford could not produce enough automatic transmissions. I think New Process Gear NP435 trans was also used for that purpose too. Over the years from 1980 to about 1998, manual volumes continued to decrease to a point that the cost of making them was more than the customer was willing to pay. newer automatics came out that reduced the fuel economy advantage for manuals too. in 1981, Clark Equipment who made the mid range five speed manuals, moved their production to Brazil from Rockingham NC and within two years, Eaton Corporation bought the Clark facility and mid range manual business from Clark Equipment in a business consolidation. The last holdout of manual transmission production was New Venture Gear in Syracuse NY. when this division of DaimlerChrysler was sold to Magna, the NVG 4500 rights were sold to Tremec in Mexico and to my knowledge, no one makes manuals in the US except for Eaton road ranger multi speed units. Manual were allot of fun while they lasted! edselford

Yes, the 5.0 liter was not designed for a front wheel drive Lincoln Contenental. Its predecessor, the 4.6 32 valve was but along the way both Ford and GM realized putting too much power through the front wheels was not such a good idea. This is especially true if the vehicle is just front wheel drive and not all wheel drive! The best example I had was a 2000 model year Seville. Northstar 4.6 V8, 4 speed automatic, 300 hp automatic. An almost perfect car except for torque steer at wide open throttle! GM and Ford took the trip down the fwd path where Mercedes and BMW did not on luxury high horsepower sedans! Bottom line is the 5.0 has 100mm bore centers because of the need to apply its predecessor the 4.6 V8 modular V8 to front wheel drive. It’s somewhat like the EV mess we have now. GM, Ford and Stalantus jumped on the opportunity to switch over to EV vehicles and invested billions to do it as fast as they could. Well, the market, the customers and the support network were not ready so now all three are taking their turns writing down billions of new assets they are probably never going to use! Just remember, the people making the decisions really try to make the right decisions based upon the information they have. Unfortunately, sometimes the info is someone’s best estimate and it might be wrong. edselford

To aKirby, I agree with you. After owning 6 Escapes starting 2005, I am sure Ford has made a huge mistake eliminating Escape like they did Eliminating the Edge. Before we bought the 2025 Escape Platnium, I tried getting my wife interested in the Bronco 2 but she liked the Escape much better. Ford should have made the Escape hybrid the only powertrain available and they would have been running three shifts At Louisville if they priced it right. Also I had a very good Edge years ago with the 3.5V6. It was a great car. Too bad the entire industry jumped on the EV band wagon and now is writing down EV investments they (goodbye Oakville edge) will not use within the accounting rules of the USA. It looks like Stalantus is writing down more that the company is worth! edselford

To twintirnados If you do the research, there were many very good people at GM and Ford that did not want to take the front wheel drive trip. I think Roger Smith at GM thought everything should be front wheel drive even luxury cars and full size sedans. This is how we got the front wheel drive Buick Electra and the corresponding Cadillacs like the Deville and Sevilles. Ford had to follow but wisely stopped at the Taurus size on front wheel drive and derived the Lincoln FWD from the Taurus. To be competitive with Cadillac,ford had to do a front wheel drive Continental V8, Intec 4.6 liter which did not sell very well and never got even close to the anticipated volume. Again, hind sight is 20/20 and that why the replacement of the 302 and 351W V8 engines was done with 100mm bore centers with the 4.6 and 5.4 V 8’s. The group that redesigned the 4.6 into the current 5.0, that replaced both the 4.6. & 5.4, were able to use the 4.6 block transfer lines with no change to bore center or deck height, a major accomplishment! Expect a refined 5.0 V8 to be in F150 for a long time probably with a more efficient hybrid drivetrain than the current Powerboost as an option. edselford

I give the engine people at Ford tremendous credit for creating the Coyote V8, given the original constraint that Jim Clark was working with. He was required to built an engine that would power both future F150’s and fit into transverse front wheel luxury Lincolns. This limited the bore centers to about 100 mm and compromised how large the engine family could become on the other end. Nevertheless, ford created a great engine with the current 5 liter utilizing the transfer lines designed for 100 mm bore centers and probably saved the Mustang platform along the way. Yes, you may be right that taking the trip to smaller bores and longer strokes may not be worth it but I am sure there is someone at Ford that has studied exactly that if for no other reason than understanding what other OEM’s might just do! rdselford

I am not a self proclaimed expert by any stretch of the imagination! I have over forty years of experience with gas engines, transmissions and four wheel drive systems . I watched and participated in the introduction of new technologies that sometime succeed and at other times fail in all these three areas. edselford

To Shermonator98 If you go back and look at the original modular 4.6 / 5.4 V8 , there have been many iterations of the 4 valve double over head cam cylinder heads for both the 4.6, the 5.4 and the 5.8 engines most with a 90.2 mm bores. In every case, the focus has been on improving horsepower with less concern for low end torque and long term durability. My suggestion is to refocus the future engine on F150 pickups where buyers want best low end torque, long term durability even when towing. Make the powertrain less sensitive to duty cycle and bulletproof its ability to make it to 200,000 miles without any major engine repairs. Think of what an F150 did years ago with a 300 I 6 or a 360/390 FE V8. The customer of today are asking for what their dad’s had without all the twin turbos, stop/start, displacement on demand and 0W- oils that leave no room for error in terms of maintenance schedules. If Ford has already looked at these things and decided not to take the trip, it might be to protect the Ecoboost solutions already in place. edselford

Ford needs to simplify and also enhance the powertrains for the future F150. The trend on your ecoboost 4 cylinder engines have been, longer stroke and smaller bores, I assume to make the engines absolutely bullet proof with longer service life added! Why not do the same for the naturally asperated 5.0 V8? Take the bore back to 90.2 mm like the 4.6 V8 and increase the stroke to something like 98.7 mm. Deck height could go back to a round 256 mm like the old 5.4 V8 to give a rod to stroke ratio of about 1.77 to 1. This would make a better truck engine than the current Mustang based 5.0 V8 and at a 90.2 mm bore , the cylinders could be surrounded by water for improved high load cooling and durability! If more torque is required, do a 108 mm stroke version of this engine for something like 5.5 or 5.6 liters . Try giving the customer Ecoboost torque without the turbos! Your comments are welcome edselford

I think Mary is talking about removing the fly cut between the cylinders and having more room between the cylinders. The L8T is at .335” with the 7.3 at .307” . At ford, this probably forced them to a seimezed design with no coolant between the cylinders. At 105.15 mm bore for a 7 liter Godzilla, the distance between cylinders would be .3877” which would allow water around the entire cylinders and make rebuilding the engine a couple of times possible. Like all designs, compromises are made to make it to market within a given development period. Also Ford might be hedging their ecoboost bet in F150 given the upcoming new GM V8 engines at 5.7, 6.6 and 6.7 liters. edselford

True, but some of this stuff is based on accurate information that leaks out! I just have a feeling that the original Godzilla phase1 prototypes were actually at 7 liters but the torque objectives could not be met with port injection and the need to avoid pre ignition (C.R.) As Mary has pointed out, the program was done on the cheap with little development and refinement time. I say the above because a smaller bore would be greatly helped with the angled valves of the current cylinder heads of the 7.3 I don’t think a 4.22” bore would need that! When in trouble, there is no replacement for displacement at least for torque! Does anyone know Brian Wolfe? This is a fun discussion edselford

True, but some of this stuff is based on accurate information that leaks out! I just have a feeling that the original Godzilla phase1 prototypes were actually at 7 liters but the torque objectives could not be met with port injection and the need to avoid pre ignition (C.R.) As Mary has pointed out, the program was done on the cheap with little development and refinement time. I say the above because a smaller bore would be greatly helped with the angled valves of the current cylinder heads of the 7.3 I don’t think a 4.22” bore would need that! When in trouble, there is no replacement for displacement at least for torque! Does anyone know Brian Wolfe? This is a fun discussion edselford

To 7Mary3 Yes, that is the video I was looking at. could easily reduce the bore to 105.15mm keep strokes at 101 mm and 93.5 mm and have 7 and 6.5 liter offerings. DI worth about +10% on torque and about +8% on hp with less propensity to knock. Eliminate fly cut between cylinders. edselford

Reviewed a recent video on u tube that talks about a new 7.0 liter V8 (gas) for 2027 Super Duty trucks. It might be just speculation but when you think about evolving a Godzilla V8, it makes allot of sense to me! If you add direct injection to current port injection, a 7.0 liter super duty would be about 450 hp and about 510 ibs-ft of torque, better than the current 7.3. Direct injection would allow higher compression ratio assisting in improving the efficiency of powertrain. Maybe in super duty, we can find a way of idling on 4 cylinders instead of the stop/start solution of improving f/e and reducing emissions. This could utilize a derivation of the 5.0 liter DOD system adopted to a pushrod, rocker arm design. what do you guys and gal think? edselford