Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire More Details Released on Ford's 'Godzilla' 7.3 Gasoline Engine

Smart move Sammo, I have had my fill of diesels also. Brings back memories of ice fishing at Ft. Peck and having to put the coleman stove under the oil pan to get the damn diesel started.....

Not getting rid of my Dodge '06 5.9 Cummins 3500 anytime soon. Still under 100k.
Always made it home from Ft Peck too,

i'll keep the 12 valve.

There's not much a 3/4 ton pickup with 400hp/800ft lbs can't do as far as pickups go. Rather than the race to 500hp/1000 ft lbs, I'd MUCH rather see significantly better fuel mileage and lower maintenance/repair costs.

I had a 1979 3/4 ton Ford with the 460 engine. It would run a hole in the wind or pull the hinges off of Hell. I had a 1976 with the 390 before that. Both were good pickups.

I'd expect the number to be close to 450 HP, 500+ TQ. With some 4.10 or 4.30 gears and the 10 speed, that should make a very capable truck.

4.10's or 4.30 gears ain't going to help the fuel economy much!

My next truck will hopefully be my last. I'm running an 08 F250 with the 6.4 diesel. I took off the death inducing EPA crap, put in a coolant filter, and religiously change out the fuel filters. I just passed 106K miles, and it pulls a 14.5K lb. equipment trailer like a kitten on a string. But repairs on this beast are outrageous because they have to pull the cab to do about anything.

My last gasser was a 95 460 and I really liked that motor. These days I don't care as much about non-towing fuel economy since I have a Honda accord that gets 38 mpg or so. I really only use a pickup to tow. This new 7.3L gasser has me intrigued.

It has a fully rollerized valve train, which should make it last longer than the old 460 did. The exhaust manifolds are cast stainless instead of cast iron. The exhaust manifolds on the 460 were prone to cracking. I like the lack of a high pressure fuel pump. I bet this thing makes decent torque down low. If it puts down 550-600 ft. lb. at 2800 rpm and gets 8 mpg towing, I'll probably get one.

While I’m excited to see it, I think Ford would do well to re-engineer the old 4.9 straight six.

Make it lighter in weight. The old one was heavier than a small block v8. Add forced induction. A smallish turbo that would spool up and hit modest boost at 2000-2500 rpm, combined with a the long stroke and decent displacement, could produce a torque monster that would be awesome.

Straight sixes just seem to be such a well balanced configuration.

That's about how I see it. 8 MPG sounds bad, but right now gas is ~2.00/gal and diesel is ~2.80 where I live, so the fuel difference isn't as great as folks think. My diesel gets ~11 MPG towing relatively heavy, and about ~17-18 empty. My old diesel is still strong so I'm not in a hurry to replace it, but if this new 7.3 is as good as I think it's going to be, I'll be interested.

Talk about not passing a gas station! I also had a 76’witj a 390 but mine was an F-100 full time 4x4. She passed everything but a gas pump.

Why the hell would they do that? The 2 6-cylinders they have now make 3-4 time the hp the 300 made, get twice the gas mileage and are a hellova lot more fun to drive.

And 2 valves per cylinder. They even brought back spark plug wires.

Ford engineers are expecting it to do a little better than the 6.2. Perfomance wise they expect to land between the 6.2 and the Diesel. They should be able to do a lot better with a 10 speed trans.

Why the heck is anyone really concerned with fuel economy when it seems everybody here pays cash out of an old flower sack for their vehicles?

Gotta know more than the diff gearing to estimate mileage. Need to also know how much OD the 10spd is going to have, where in the RPM range it's making power, and how tall the tires are before you can even begin to estimate. Tall gears in 9th/10th can make 4:10s or 4:30s pretty groovy in the bottom 8.

I see I'm not the only one who spied that there's room in the V for a super-spool.

Four bolt, and cross bolt mains, over square bore and stroke and forged crank . In a year or 2, somebody's gonna put one of these big blocks in an old school Ford musclecar resto-mod. I wish I could afford to.

Over on Fordtrucks,com someone that knows a lot more than I do said that new motor is ripe for forced induction.

They aren’t available in 3/4 or 1 ton trucks for a reason.

More displacement, straight 6 configuration, add some squish, and you’d have an “eco boost” that may actually be worth putting in a work truck.

First dually I ever had was a '96 F-350 SC with the 460 and stick shift.. I was never, ever, lacking in power.. I wonder if the flatbed truck had a 460 with a 2 bbl carb instead of the 4bbl.. Yuge difference in performance..