taekat

Ok,

I am new to the truck world and I am really interested in learning about the new ecoboost engine before I buy a truck. I have come to realiz that the engine block and head is aluminum so my question is does the ecoboost use cylinder liners. My only knowledge on aluminum engines is that pressed-in cylinder liners were used to prevent premature wear and oil burning/leaking issues. I read dozens of articles on this engine but I can't find any information on whether or not this engine does use liners or maybe a special coating. Any input would be great and would help ease my apprehension.

Aaron

boosted150

Aaron, from what I understand, all aluminum blocks (since the 1970s) must have liners (called sleeved cylinder walls). If you think about it, no amount of lubrication can keep aluminum from wearing, so there must be a hardened material separating the piston from the cylinder.

I had a 1976 Chevy Vega that had an aluminum block and cast-iron heads (just the opposite of every other engine at the time - cast iron block/aluminum heads). They did NOT have lined cylinder walls, and every Vega burned oil at 40,000-50,000 miles. Mine at 70,000 miles burned 1 quart of oil every 100 miles!

EBinMT

The cylinder walls are not sleeved in the traditional sense. Ford uses a process called Plasma Transferred Wire Arc Thermal Spraying to coat the cylinder walls instead of a pressed in sleeve.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009...-20090529.html

Al Kohalic

Thanks for the link EBinMT. That was a good read. I tried to get a better picture of the tear down they had on the torture videos, but this is all I was able to come up with. What ever they use, it still looks good after the all the hell and back crap they did to this engine.

kingement

A short video of the process:

http://www.flame-spray.com/images/Video/blockspray.flv

http://www.flame-spray.com/

Pretty cool. Another reason Ford is in the innovation lead.

brulaz

So I guess not all Ford aluminum blocks are using this technology?

For example racers can buy the Coyote 5L V8 Al block but need to hone the bore for their pistons/rings. Does that mean a sleeve?

Or is the bore still honed/finished after this plasma process, rather than before?

taekat

Would you say that this is an improvement. I read about the fact that ford uses this technology on the Shelby GT500 but not on the 5.0L Coyote:

http://mustangforums.com/forum/5-0l-...der-walls.html

Also, here is a quote about the Plasma technology in the GT500:

Ford released details on the new Shelby GT500 on Monday. The car will be sold in coupe and convertible body styles, going on sale this spring as part of the full 2011 Mustang line.

Overall would you say that this Plasma Transfer Wired Arc is better and more reliable?

Ssls6

More reliable? no. Less weight?, yes. Hard coating aluminum cylinders is not new. It can be as reliable but really not field serviceable without very specialized equipment. BMW once had problems with it and gas treatments. They were using nickel & silicon carbide.

You have only two choices in putting these coatings down....using a liquid (electroplating) or vapor (plasma). To make a plasma (high quality) you need a controlled environment (vacuum chamber), a transport gas, some plating material, and a source of high energy. Nothing is perfect and they will and do have pin-hole defects in them. Detection of these defects is impossible but fortunately they are small in number. Iron liners don't suffer from this.

Pretty cool technology and lots of BMW motorcycles using this have run hundreds of thousands of miles. They funny thing about these films is the notion of break in. They really don't wear quickly for ring seal in the traditional sense. For motorcycles I've messed with, some are tight and consume zero oil, other consume quite a bit, and this never changes with time.

engineermike

+1. Many people don't realize that dirt bikes, outboards, and chain saws have been doing this for decades. In fact, some small production 2-strokes actually hard-coat the aluminum piston and leave the bore bare aluminum.

The same debate is taking place around the new Yamaha 4.2 liter v6 4-stroke outboard. They got rid of the iron sleeves and hard coat the aluminum to save weight. Lots of folks are appalled by that because it's not easily repairable, not realizing that many 2-stroke outboards have been that way since the 80's.

Ford may have patented a new method or material, which isn't too surprising. In the industrial world, seems like every week a vendor comes around touting the benefits of some new hard-coating process or material.

NASSTY

So far it seems to be reliable in the 3.5l. There have been more reports of 5.0's consuming oil than reports of EB's consuming oil.