I hope you're kidding.

What does a 7.3 IDI get for power? 190HP on a good day? How about emissions? Noise? Torque?

We've come an extremely long way. If you told a guy in '88 that in 20 years diesels will be almost as quiet as a gasoline engine, have 400HP and in some cities effectively filter the air, he'd tell you that you were crazy. Actually I bet if you told that to a guy in '98 you'd get the same response.

 

Yeah, seriously. Diesels (at least in light trucks like ours) have come a LONG way. Compared to your '88 7.3L IDI, the 6.7 makes massively more power and does so quicker while still getting pretty decent mileage. At 400 hp and 800 ft-lbs of torque, the 6.7L makes over twice as much of each and with a much steeper and broader torque curve. Even with most of my driving being around town and without driving it like a grandma my average is till in the mid 15's. That's clearly not setting any records, but for moving a much heavier truck much faster down the road it's fantastic, especially for a still green engine. My buddy's '06 F150 with the bigger gas V8 gets worse mileage than I do in my much bigger and heavier (and more capable) Super Duty. Hell, my F250 today has the same "rated" capacity of your '88 F350 and a lot more real-world capacity than that.


Why do you say that?

 

I, for one, really do wish Ford would put a small DI turbo diesel in a Fusion sized rear wheel drive sedan. The price wouldn't be much different than a Hybrid Fusion and long term maintenance would even out. With the environmental damage that the lithium ion battery manufacturing process does, the diesel would actually be better for the evironment. If Mercedes, VW, and Audi can make a diesel car that gets 40 MPG highway so can Ford. And I would buy one. As it stands now, we're looking at VW for our next car because it's much closer to what I, the customer, wants. If only VW were rear drive. Then there wouldn't even be a decision involved.

 

We're talking about 20+ years of evolution here.
And I was speaking mostly about mileage.
I'm not impressed with a new 400 hp diesel when you look at the complexity of it, and the cost.

I wonder how many trucks from the 6.0 - 6.7 era will come close to total mileage on the 7.3 idi - 7.3 powerstroke era... probably not many.

 

We're getting pretty far off track guys, (myself included).

 

The biggest factor in the F-150...or any other 1/2 ton ever getting a Diesel is EMISSIONS. The new Federal mandates just make it too hard...and cost prohibative to do the R&D, run the production, and deal with all the particulate crap.

 

The biggst problem with diesel power is the perception that they're dirty. They are really clean these days. The Germans with their Blue-Tech diesel technology have some really strong, fuel efficient, and durable engines. I know of nobody that has a TDI Audi, TDI VW, or Blue-Tech Mercedes that is unhappy with them. Yes, the Feds have forced them to be more complicated and hurt their fuel economy with the DPF and Re-Gen cycles in the bigger trucks. But the cars are awsome. I'd love to have a TDI Fusion, especially if it were RWD.

 

Gentlemen please, back on track. This isn't a gas v. diesel discussion.

 

1 question

Why did Ford deny the whole aluminum skin thing....but then FTE sent me an e-mail acting as if the aluminum panels are a done deal? It was a few days back. Wonder if it has been purged from my msn yet...

 

Same thing here as well. Bottom line is simple, if Ford built everything from Aluminum and never told anyone and it did hold up fine and proved to be easily repairable, then no one would care.

 

Being in the body biss for years, you cant get aluminum strait...

 

I had no interest in replacing any of my 7.3 SuperDuty's, except with another 7.3 from 99'-03'.

The EcoBoost was the 1st engine to actually capture my interest in a long time.

An Aluminum bodied F150 with EcoBoost, now that's a combination that would get me to buy a new truck, and that's something I wasn't going to do again!