Been reading up on these lower octane knocks, was running 87 now 89 and once this tank goes I’ll give 93 a try. Motor is full of fresh oil, bumped it up to a full synthetic 5w-30. I attached a video, sorry it’s not the greatest. You can hear it perfectly towards the end.

I know this motor has pretty high compression ratios and injection pressure, which should make for a noisy engine anyways. Should I be worried at all? Or is this normal? Not sure what noise is normal or a problem just yet. Ford says normal but time will tell!

 

here’s that video

in the cab, parked and idling.

 

It might be useful to not keep your model, model year, and type of engine a secret while you're asking for opinions on it.

 

LOL man it was late when I thought to post online, I was tired. It’s a 2020 f150 5.0

 

mine sounds the same with 85k miles and has sounded like that since day one. if anything it has gotten quieter with time.

 

I appreciate it! It’s pretty subtle, wasn’t sure if it was something to be concerned with or not.

These new v8s don’t sound like the old ones I love. All this whining and knocking and whatnot LOL

 

I've used nothing but 87 with 2 F150s with no problems. Maybe a little knock now and then under load, but it's of no consequence and not really noticeable.

 

From 87 to 89 I'm not too sure that I've really noticed a difference. I have a 36gal tank so I get closer to 600mi with a full tank of 89, there's also a pretty noticeable power difference for me.

I'm going to burn off this tank of 89 and spend the money on 93, if it's just one of those things we have to deal with I'll be fine running 89. It just concerns me, the knocking, the whining, all of the odd noises these newer f-150s make that ford says is "normal". It's not a lifter tick, or a chain/piston slap, I've had that scare once before! A spark knock sounds more like it.

 

Can't tell for sure from the video but the high pressure fuel pump is pretty noisy. Lots of people think it's knocking under the hood.

 

I won't spend an extra $9 a tank so my engine will make 390 hp under full load instead of 385 hp. Under normal driving conditions it's insignificant and unnecessary. If you didn't know which grade was in the tank, you wouldn't be able to tell.