SVTPerformance at the 2011 NAIAS for the F-150 EcoBoost Teardown
January 15, 2011 is a day that will go down in Ford Motor Company history. For the first time ever Ford engineers tore down an extensively used and abused 3.5L F-150 EcoBoost engine in front of a live audience at the 2011 North American International Auto Show.
To prove the capabilities of the new EcoBoost engine in a truck application Ford selected one production engine straight off the Cleveland production line to show that it can handle everything they can throw at it and then some. The 3.5L TT V6 was ran for an equivalent of 150,000 extremely hard miles on an engine dyno, installed in an F-150 where it was then driven across the country to haul 55 tons of timber in the Pacific Northwest, it was then driven to Homestead Miami Raceway where it towed 11,300 pounds at full throttle around the track for 24 hours, from there it was driven to Arizona to race Dodge and GM V8 equipped trucks uphill while towing, the engine was then installed a custom built race truck where it competed in the Baja 1000. And as mentioned above, the final stop for the engine was be torn down so everyone can see how the internals held up to all the torture.
There was no chance that SVTP was going to miss out on something like that. We were the first spectators there and spent quite a bit of time talking to the engineers. The pride they take in their creation is evident and, in my opinion, well deserved. We thoroughly appreciate the opportunity Ford gave us and look forward to other events and collaborations in the future.
The festivities began at 11:00 am with the Chief Engineer for the F-150 Eco-Boost program introducing his team and talking a bit about the engine. One fact of particular interest that was after all the torture the engine was dyno’ed yet again where it produced the exact same 420 lbft of torque it left the factory with and only one less horsepower (364). While tearing the engine down the engineers measured valve lash and crankshaft end play, both of which spec’d out in a range that would be acceptable for a brand new engine just coming off the assembly line. It was truly impressive to see the remarkable condition of engine’s internals after all the abuse. Most of the components exhibited very little wear. In fact, one of the engineers mentioned that the parts were in such good shape that they were considering reassembling the engine and continuing to run it. The 3.5L EcoBoost is an extremely stout design and I have no doubt that the engine pictured below has many miles of hard work left in it.
Below are some pictures of the day’s events:
Here is some videos Ford shot of the teardown.
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Ford has now posted Episode 6 in the EcoBoost Torture Test Series.
Ford F-150 EcoBoost Torture Test Episode 6: Teardown
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Acknowledgment: Thanks to Rich5150 for lending your photography skills to make this possible.
Feel free to post any questions about the tear down you may have, we'll do our best to answer them.
-SID297:beer:
that much abuse is more abuse than faliable. Im glad to see the engine did well.
