meaz93

^It can really embarrass at the stop light wars!

Stu Cazzo

Rhetoric...

Heretic

Why?

I can do the same thing - forcing an engine to do more work than it's supposed to will cause parts to wear out prematurely.

/sarcasm

CreepinDeth

What you are reading about mostly is the 1st years of the engine's production woe's.

So buying a 1st year remodel is obviously putting yourself into that same possible predicament.

Brycicles

Everyone better avoid the new 2.7L like the plague then, I'm calling it now!

conger

I see a lot of people by ecoboosts for the wrong reasons. They really are a work horse motor and like diesels, they need to work or you will likely develop problems. I used to see a lot of complaints on the diesel forum about reliability and maintenance issues. Lots of it attributed to clogged injectors, EGR fouling and problems caused by tuning.
I don't even know why Ford would offer an ecoboost with a 331 axle. It seems to be a useless combination with an engine designed to tow.
But that's my two cents anyway. I find it's a good practice to toss a bottle of injector treatment in about every 4th or 5th fill up. It's cheap insurance to keep the fuel system clean.

rmp213

Understandable, but 'new' things like aluminum to me is not a gamble... it's been around in the auto market and aerospace since WWII. Mechanical things such as an engine, new transmission, etc rely on a lot of moving parts to work in harmony, and regardless of how much testing is done, you don't know what you don't know until they've been out in the real world.

That said, I appreciate everyone's feedback. It seems like the Ecoboost woe's I read about are on the '11's.. While I don't tow much, I plan on running 35's, and with the 3.55 gears in the '15, it'd be getting enough of a workout to keep it happy. I'm going back to test drive the 5.0 next to the 3.5 this weekend again and hopefully make a decision. To me, power felt like a wash between the two on the '15's... It's likely going to come down to a coin toss.

MCDavis

iTrader: (1)

In all fairness, your statement contradicts itself.
If the first part is true, then the second part I bolded works into that theory as the 3.31 will actually load the engine sooner causing the turbos to spool sooner thus working the engine a bit harder than say a 3.73.

Regardless, the 3.31 will tow damn near 9,000lbs...

conger

My thinking is purely a practical application. Being an old man and quite set in my ways I think of the engine as a tool. So, for me, I would only consider an ecoboost for my practical purposes. It behaves like a diesel engine somewhat with its maximum torque achieved at a much lower rpm than its 5.0 counterpart.
Having the turbos spooling up earlier with a 331 axle will work fine for some applications but having it pulling a big hill with a heavy load at high rpm will just burn a lot of gas.
But if your travelling with a lighter load and the same axle, you will just whistle up that same hill without dropping two or three gears. Which is what you want this engine to do with its available torque of 420 ft/lbs.
If you look back through some ecoboost threads you will see a lot of common complaints about towing mileage. The common thing with them all is the 331 axle and a relatively heavy trailer and speed. The result being 8 mpg is all they can get unless they play around with downshifting the transmission to get the RPMs up into the torque curve.
So for me and my old man thought process, why buy an engine designed for towing and then tie it to a drivetrain that was meant for cruising. Just get a 5.0 instead.
Sorry, I tend to be a bit long winded as well.

MCDavis

iTrader: (1)

I see your points...nothing wrong with a healthy discussion.
I love my 3.31'd EB...SOB screams. Loaded, unloaded, calm mannered when need be or a down right bitch when I request it
Either engine is 100% sufficient in this truck. Some like beer, some like whisky, some like vodka, and a few like those fruity lil colored drinks in funny glasses...but we're all drinking alcohol right?