The 2018 Ford F-150 is still available with a good old fashioned V8, but the top engine option is the turbo 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6. Even better than that is the High Output 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6, but you can only get that in the Raptor off-road truck—until 2019, when you’ll be able to get the big booster daddy in the ultra luxurious F-150 Limited.
Engine options for the 2019 F-150 are going to be pretty diverse. You’ll be able to spec a 3.3-liter naturally aspirated engine for base trucks, a 3.0-liter Power Stroke diesel, a 2.7-liter EcoBoost, the standard 3.5 EcoBoost and now the High Output EcoBoost if you’re willing to spend $61,000 on the Limited luxury trim.
I assume the V8 will continue to be an option too, but I reached out Ford to make sure and will update this post if and when the company confirms it. I’m always a little wary that Ford will try to drop that engine from the options list when we’re not paying attention.
Anyway, back to what we do know: the Limited is the absolute top-trim F-150 right now, starting at the afore mentioned $61,000 and capable of being accessorized to nearly $70,000. It is, somehow, even plusher than a King Ranch or Platinum truck and basically just bristling with soft-touch surfaces and idiot-proofing proximity sensors. The Raptor starts at $50,000, for your reference.
The 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 that represents the most powerful engine for non-Raptors until the 2019 model year is rated to make 375 horsepower and 470 lb-ft. That’s an ample amount of juice, and I can personally attest to the fact that a 5,000-pound truck with that engine is no slouch.
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The 3.5-liter High Output EcoBoost V6 that’s the only engine in the Ford Raptor is rated to a stump-splitting 450 HP and 510 lb-ft of torque.
In both the Limited and Raptor, the High Output EcoBoost engine will be paired to a 10-speed automatic.
Since both the Raptor engine and the regular F-150 engine option have the same displacement and pretty much the same name, it’d be logical to assume that they are essentially the same mill with a slightly different computer tune. But when I first drove the second generation Raptor at the end of 2016, Ford’s people promised me that’s not the case.
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From my 2017 Ford Raptor first drive story:
The 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 Ford calls “EcoBoost” has been the top power option for F-150s since 2015. For 2017 that engine was completely revised for the regular version of the truck and a special High Output version was dialed up for Raptor.
“It’d be easier to tell you which parts we didn’t change,” Ford Powertrain Integration engineer Seth Goslawski told me, referring to the 2017 EcoBoost engine versus the 2015 version today’s F-150 body style was launched with. “I know the oil filter is the same, that’s about it.”
Tweaks for the Raptor are a little more subtle. Goslawski explained that there are really four significantly different power-parts a Raptor gets that a regular F-150 doesn’t:
– New pistons, which allow for higher compression.
– The compressor wheel on the turbo, which allows for a peak boost of 18 psi.
– The exhaust, which is a true dual system on the Raptor with a stainless manifold instead of cast-iron.
– And cooling, which gets an extra cooling radiator right up front in the engine bay with dedicated fans that, “yes, are submersible in mud.”
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So if you wanted all that paired with less off-roadiness but more luxury, the 2019 F-150 Limited is your jam.
And yes, this extra energy does eek the F-150 up to “most powerful regular half-ton pickup truck” status for the time being, with its 450 HP and 510 lb-ft of torque trumping the Chevy Silverado’s 6.2-liter V8 (420 HP, 460 lb-ft) and Ram 1500‘s 5.7-liter Hemi (395 HP, 410 lb-ft.)
Truck YeahThe trucks are good!
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