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From: Steve on 3 Mar 2010 16:47
Paul Hovnanian P.E. wrote:
> "M.M." wrote:
>> I'm looking for a pickup to tow a fifth-wheel trailer. I'm looking at a
>> 2008 F-350 with the 6.4L turbo. Anyone have any experience with this
>> model? Any known issues? How do the Ford diesels compare to the Chevy &
>> Dodge in reliability?
>
> I don't know how the various models compare, but here's my observation:
>
> The diesels that most comercial outfits purchase seem to rum pretty
> quietly. The ones sold to individuals seem to come with that exhaust
> option that makes them all sound like they have loose rocks in their
> crankcase.
>
> Do us all a favor and order the truck without the rocks option.
>


Its only exhaust noise if its been modified. Most of the noise you get
from a diesel is directly through the engine block. The Cummins ISB
introduced in the Ram a few years ago is amazingly quiet. When Cummins
switched to common-rail injection they were able to alter the injection
pulse profile so that the "burn" in the cylinder ramps up pressure much
more gradually and it COMPLETELY altered the way the engine sounds. I
think the Ford 6.0/6.4 has a similar injectionprofile, but being
Navistar engines they still sound pretty rattly (the old Navistar DT-466
found in a million school busses and dump trucks has to be one of the
most distinctively rattly diesels ever, although brutally reliable).

Of course the first thing some diesel pickup owners do is change the
exhaust out for one that lets you hear every exhaust pulse modulated by
the turbo whine... which sounds REALLY cool for the first 10 minumtes :-/

From: Steve on 3 Mar 2010 17:00
Pete C. wrote:

>
> Look at aluminum aircraft and engines.

Aircraft engines with their 2000 hour time between overhaul limits?


That's only 120,000 miles for a car engine at 60 mph overall average speed.


While the statement that "iron engines last longer than aluminum" is a
gross oversimplification (and not even necessarily true for light-duty
engines) I do think that its very questionable to use an aluminum block
for a medium-duty diesel in a pickup truck that will undoubtedly see
some pretty heavy towing use in the marketplace. At any rate I don't
want to be a pioneer in that little experiment... I'd rather stick with
a tried and true iron-block engine like the Cummins.


From: Pete C. on 3 Mar 2010 20:03

Steve wrote:
>
> Pete C. wrote:
>
> >
> > Look at aluminum aircraft and engines.
>
> Aircraft engines with their 2000 hour time between overhaul limits?
>
> That's only 120,000 miles for a car engine at 60 mph overall average speed.
>
> While the statement that "iron engines last longer than aluminum" is a
> gross oversimplification (and not even necessarily true for light-duty
> engines) I do think that its very questionable to use an aluminum block
> for a medium-duty diesel in a pickup truck that will undoubtedly see
> some pretty heavy towing use in the marketplace. At any rate I don't
> want to be a pioneer in that little experiment... I'd rather stick with
> a tried and true iron-block engine like the Cummins.

They will probably see some new and interesting failure modes when the
"more HP" kiddies start "tuning" those new Scorpions and getting
stung...
From: Ashton Crusher on 4 Mar 2010 00:00
On Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:00:23 -0600, Steve <no(a)spam.thanks> wrote:

>Pete C. wrote:
>
>>
>> Look at aluminum aircraft and engines.
>
>Aircraft engines with their 2000 hour time between overhaul limits?
>
>
>That's only 120,000 miles for a car engine at 60 mph overall average speed.
>

Not a fair comparison. The aircraft engines spend almost there entire
lives between overhauls running between 70% to 100% of rated power.
Most car engines spend 90% of their time running at about 15% power.
And most aircraft engines are running just fine when they are
overhauled, it's just that for safety they can't risk running on the
tail end of the durability curve like you can in a car.

>
>While the statement that "iron engines last longer than aluminum" is a
>gross oversimplification (and not even necessarily true for light-duty
>engines) I do think that its very questionable to use an aluminum block
>for a medium-duty diesel in a pickup truck that will undoubtedly see
>some pretty heavy towing use in the marketplace. At any rate I don't
>want to be a pioneer in that little experiment... I'd rather stick with
>a tried and true iron-block engine like the Cummins.
>
From: Steve on 8 Mar 2010 10:13
Pete C. wrote:

> Dunno, I've got the 6.4, and with the 5,060# on the front axle with the
> truck empty, I don't think there is much aluminum there.

There's not. All of the current medium-duty diesels (Cummins, Navistar,
Duramax) are iron block/iron head. The Scorpion is going to be all aluminum.
>
> I'll let the early adopters buying V1.0 get stung by the Scorpion...

Possible- but on the other hand Ford got stuck on the 6.0/6.4 and has
been testing the Scorpion for much longer prior to release than either
of those were. I'll wait and see.

As for the "never adopt version 1.0" that really isn't always the best
thing to do IMO. One of the very best vehicles I ever owned (my wife's
1993 Eagle Vision TSi) was an early build in the first year of
production for the LH chassis, the gen1 3.5L v6, and the 42LE
transmission. The only thing that ever gave any trouble in the 260,000
miles we had the car was the 42LE, and it lasted 150k miles (not
terrible for a front-drive automatic, though nothing great by RWD
standards). The difference there was that I'd done a lot of research on
it, and everything looked very solid and nothing was all that far afield
of what had been done before. The Scorpion diesel, on the other hand, is
EXTREMELY far afield of anything Ford has sold, let alone built
themselves, in the past. It may be the best thing since sliced bread...
but I'll let someone else test the waters this time ;-)

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