Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives Ford 2.7L V6 Turbo?

I have the 2.7 in a 2017 Explorer. Nice engine for that, but wouldn't want one in a pickup. My 2017 F-150 super cab 4WD has the 5.0, and I'm getting 18mpg. A nephew has the 3.5 in his farm truck, and he pulls a gooseneck trailer all the time, and is very happy with the engine.

A Ford salesman told me back when I was looking for a truck, that they called the F-150's with the 2.7, "city trucks," as they didn't think the engine was enough for someone that actually used a pickup for hauling and towing heavy loads.

There wasn’t a 2.7 available in the Explorer.

Good point. However, if you look up the specs for the Ford heavy-half, it's nothing but tires, wheels, rear end ratio and extra springs. Plus you can only get them in the bottom grades, and not the crew cab.

A guy could "build" himself a "heavy half" for just a few bucks by starting with a 3.73 rear end, substitute heavier rated wheels and tires, and add airbags. You'd have additional payload capacity when needed, and the economy of the half ton instead of the 3/4 when not needed.

You're right, my bad. My Explorer has the 2.3 Ecoboost. I was thinking 2.7.

I've pulled some heavily loaded gooseneck trailers, cattle, tobacco, cross ties, hay,with F-150's, F-250's, F-350's, both gas and diesel engines. The problem with the F-150's, at least those I've used, is not the power of the engine, but the weight of the truck, the way it's geared, and the transmission. We have a 2003 F-350 4X4, 6.0 diesel, that we use to pull heavily loaded trailers with. I'll never go back to using an F-150 to pull a 24 foot cattle trailer full of cattle.

I have not put a gooseneck ball in my current truck, a 2017 F-150, even though I'd really prefer to pull my horse trailer, a 3 horse slant, with it instead of the F-350. I know that somewhere along the way, I'd be tempted to use it for pulling a bigger trailer, and I don't want to do that. The fact that a truck will pull a certain load, is not a valid reason to use it. I've seen too many people take a standard half ton pickup, with no towing package, standard tires, and use it to pull a heavily loaded trailer, then gripe about how it didn't perform like they expected It to.

I help my nephews out on the farm from time to time. We often take loads of tobacco off to market on 25 foot gooseneck trailers. One of them has an F-150, 3.5 Ecoboost, the other 2 have F-250 diesels. I'll always choose the F-250. Yes, the half ton will pull the trailer, but performance wise, it's not even close when compared to the 3/4 ton pickup.

Went down to Denver from Rapid City ,SD over last weekend in a friends F-150 2018 has the 10 spd and 2.7 Ecoboost at 80 mph the rpm was only 1900 or so. Thinking it had the 3.31 gear ratio. We had the wind going down and were making 21.5-23 mpg pretty impressive in my book . On the way back with the around town miles in Denver and pushing a wind ,still driving pretty hard the truck ran 17.4 mpg from north of Cheyenne after the traffic thinned out we covered 100 miles in 75 minutes. Passing power was I thought incredible ,at 70 he'd pull out to pass and we'd be doing 90+ time we got around them. Some stretches of highway it's safe but still illegal to do that, I don't tell someone else how to drive and before you need to make a negative comment keep in mind that we were passed far more than we passed. It was educational for sure. Truck was the 4 dr crew cab with the 5.5' box and damned smooth. Nice really nice. MB