On Saturday, Ford did an engine teardown and inspection of a "torture-tested" 3.5-liter EcoBoost twin-turbo V6 from the F-150. The engine ran for 300 hours straight, simulating 150,000 real-world miles, then dragged 110,000 lbs. So, how's it look?
PickupTrucks.com has the full story:
A production EcoBoost V-6 engine, serial number 448AA, was randomly selected off the assembly line at Ford's Cleveland engine plant. The dual-overhead cam powerplant was shipped to dynamometer cell 36B in the Ford Dearborn engine labs and run for 3,000 hours to replicate the equivalent of 150,000 customer miles, including repeated temperature-shock runs when the engine was cooled to -20 degrees F and then heated to 235 degrees F.
The engine was then shipped to the Ford Kansas City truck plant and installed in an F-150 4X4 crew cab pickup. It was driven to Nygaard Timber in Astoria, Oregon, and put to work as a log skidder, dragging a total of 110,000 pounds of logs across the ground to demonstrate its 420 pounds-feet of torque.
And then Ford tore the engine apart on the floor of the Detroit Auto Show to show off just how well it performed and how durable the new engine is. Pretty cool if you ask us.
More here on PickupTrucks.com and more photos on their Facebook page.