News: Ford EcoBoost Torture Test Engine Tear Down

[Paul_The_Aussie]

Want a chance to see the very same EcoBoost V-6 engine that Ford engineers have
torture tested over the past several months? You can ? in pieces ? if you attend the first
public day of the 2011 North American International Auto Show in Detroit at 11 a.m. on Jan. 15.

Ford engineers will disassemble and examine the twin-turbo direct-injection six-cylinder gas
engine for long-term durability performance in the Ford powertrain display at Cobo Hall.

The 365-horsepower, 420 pounds-feet of torque EcoBoost V-6 is one of three all-new
engines available for the 2011 Ford F-150. It racked up the equivalent of more than
160,000 miles and 10 years of rugged use after it was ?shock? tested on a dyno,
dragged thousands of pounds of logs up steep grades, towed a pair of Ford Fusion
racecars at full throttle around a 1.5-mile oval NASCAR track for 24 hours and raced
in the 1,061-mile Baja 1000.

Why do all that? Ford wants to prove to full-size truck buyers that a six-cylinder turbo
can perform with the same reliability, durability and performance as a V-8, but with up to
20 percent expected better fuel economy.

"Customers will be able to see for themselves how the components fared during a regime
of tests that, when taken together, are far more extreme than even the harshest-use
customer could dish out," said Jim Mazuchowski, V-6 engines programs manager.
"This EcoBoost truck engine received no special treatment, and now we?re going to see how it did."

http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2010/1...torture-test-engine-at-detroit-auto-show.html

A couple of the vids of the torture tests involved:
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4
Video 5


Video of the another forum member who attended the tear down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFfRcwesqNg

 

[JipJopJones]

Respect to that motor for sure.

It seems to have held up well.

 

[WillDAQ]

a regime of tests that, when taken together, are far more extreme than even the harshest-use customer could dish out...

...but no harsher than the typical pre-production testing that any modern engine would receive.

What a load of tosh, if you can't get an engine through a durability test you have a major problem.

Plus of course the test takes no account of the sort of parts degredation and corrosion that occurs over 10 years.

 

[Spectre]

Will: Surprisingly, even modern engines don't usually get real-world testing like that. They get run on dynos instead. Remember the oil gelling issues that started cropping up a few years back? Didn't show up in the lab dynos, but did show up in the real world. And that's what Ford's talking about. Also, most new engines don't get tested by getting run at Baja....

Just a bit of speculation here, but based on that usage and tear down, this should be a solid 200-250,000 mile engine in most peoples' hands unless something random pops up.

 

[TC]

Wow, I'm impressed.

/wants a F150 now

 

[argatoga]

It is impressive, though even more impressive would be to last ten years while treated like shit with missed maintenance.

 

[Cobol74]

Some modern engines are oil spec sensitive, the very high quality oils are used to lengthen intervals between services and allow the engine to be more heavily used than normal - more power for a given CC too. Put the wrong oil in and whammo - splatt.

 

[Spectre]

Cobol, oil gelling was occurring on cars that were always serviced at the dealership with factory specced oils! Initially it was claimed that it was due to substandard or non-specced oils (especially by Lexus) until makers' CPO/maintenance-included/complete dealer service record cars came down with the problem.

 

[jebjeb]

It is impressive, though even more impressive would be to last ten years while treated like shit with missed maintenance.

Ask me in 2 years. My 2003 F150 v6 has done 125k miles. Normal oil change been done on 6-8k intervals. Only thing done to it was its 100k tune up and brakes 2 times. I tow a 3800lb boat and a jetski. Helped move friends about 30 times and tow other random things.

 

[thedguy]

Cobol, oil gelling was occurring on cars that were always serviced at the dealership with factory specced oils! Initially it was claimed that it was due to substandard or non-specced oils (especially by Lexus) until makers' CPO/maintenance-included/complete dealer service record cars came down with the problem.

Saab never did fully cure the problem on their 2.0 (or was it 2.3?) turbo engines from the early 00's. Current owners recommend using full synthetic and change every 3k to keep the problem to a minimum.

Let's not forget the rod bearing issue on the S54 BMW M3 engines. Or how about the fact that more often than not OHC timing chain engines have (at least) 1 TSB for issues with it. Nissan, GM, Ford, Jaguar, BMW (though they just refuse to acknowledge a problem), mercedes, etc...

 

[EyeMWing]

Eh, what they're doing here has nothing to do with torture testing the engine. It has EVERYTHING to do with trying to convince the average American truck buyer that they don't need a Merlin V12 to carry around flat-pack furniture.

I wholly approve of this concept and look forward to the triumph of turbo V6's over their idiotic V8 brethren in the land of small trucks, just as turbo V6's won the medium truck wars 20 years ago.

 

[Spectre]

Except that they didn't. Cummins would like to talk to you about that...

The wars are still ongoing.

 

[Cobol74]

Cobol, oil gelling was occurring on cars that were always serviced at the dealership with factory specced oils! Initially it was claimed that it was due to substandard or non-specced oils (especially by Lexus) until makers' CPO/maintenance-included/complete dealer service record cars came down with the problem.

I agree with that; but still home service oil change and put the wrong oild in - it does not help look after the engine. Can affect the performance on some too.