More: 2020 Chevy Silverado HD wins towing bragging rights over Ram, Ford Ram’s biggest gasoline V8 for its 2500/3500 trucks is the 6.4L Hemi.
It produces 401 hp and 464 pound-feet of torque. It’s smaller, with a total cylinder displacement of 6.6L. General Motors also introduced a new 6.6L gasoline V8 - its biggest gas V8 - for its Class 2 and 3 (Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra 25) pickups this year. The 6.2L remains the base engine in the F-250 and 350.
The 7.3L engine is an upgrade from the Super Duty pickups' previous gasoline V8, a 6.2L that produces 385 hp and 430 pound-feet of torque. A broken truck is a crisis for a small business that can’t make deliveries, or for a hospital without an ambulance. That’s expensive - every pre-production engine an automaker builds takes time, parts and money you’ll never be able to use in an engine it sells to a customer - but a sign of how important durability and reliability is to commercial truck owners. It made and tested hundreds of pre-production versions before it was ready to start selling the new V8. Tested for reliability, durabilityįord builds the V8 in Windsor, Ontario. The new V8 produces 430 horsepower and 475 pound-feet of torque in Super Duty pickups, slightly less in some of Ford's other commercial trucks. In addition to that, many fleet customers only keep trucks this size for three or four years, so diesel’s long-term, high-mileage durability isn’t worth those engines’ higher cost. “Those customers can get everything they need at a lower cost with a gasoline engine."
“Diesels are incredibly important for those trucks, but many customers don’t need their full towing capacity,” IHS Markit senior analyst Stephanie Brinley said. But gasoline engines play a role, too, accounting for up to 40% of sales of big Class 2-4 pickups like Ford’s F-250, 350 and 450 Super Duty trucks. Most of the conversation about big trucks like these - they’re officially called Class 2 through Class 7 vehicles, based on the massive weights they can haul and tow - focuses on diesel engines. Ford’s biggest trucks will get one of the world's biggest V8 engines starting this fall, as one aspect of the Truck Wars turns into an old-fashioned battle of engine size that's reminiscent of the muscle car era.Įxhibit A: A 7.3L gasoline-powered V8 coming to Ford’s Super Duty pickups and commercial vehicles, from ambulances and utility bucket trucks to just a step shy of massive highway semitrucks.