Well, I took the 5.4 litre on its first "litmus" test today.

A ski trip from the Denver suburbs over the continental divide and back.

Now for those of you who haven't done I-70 west of Denver, it basically consists of a plethora of 6-8% grades and will really put an engine and transmission to work. You will frequently see cars overheated in the summer and lesser motored cars really struggle to make the grades (although newer cars seem to do better than cars 10 years ago).

With about 720 miles on the truck, I had no problem maintaining 75-80 on any of the grades. I shut off the O/D on the really steep ones to keep the tranny from hunting, but the truck did better than I expected.

My '98 5.2 litre Ram 4x4 with a manual tranny would have to be kept in 3rd and basically run at 4800 rpm to maintain speed.

Also the truck did much better on gas than I expected, I will fill it up tomorrow to see what it got.

I continue to be more and more impressed with this motor, it seems to be a very tight and powerful unit.

 

It seems as if everybody trucks keep getting more powerful. Thats a true sign of power/torque when an engine can hold a grade without breaking a sweat. I think alot of reviews with the truck were done before the point(~1000miles) that the engine "frees up"

 

Filled her up and clocked the gas mileage. Just as I guessed it did very well.

She now has 948 miles, and with much of the last tank spent on the aforementioned trip my mileage increased to 15.23 mpg.

Also noted is that since the last fillup, 87 octane here went up $ .07 per gallon.

 

Well, there is no question in my mind that my Screw has gotten more "powerful" as it has accumulated miles. It now has just shy of 8k miles on the clock since I bought it in early Oct. I drive between Albuquerque and Santa Fe in my 130 mile daily commute. This is hilly terrain that ascends from 5000 feet up to 7000 feet, so the motor is already at a power disadvantage owing to the elevation and thin air. There are two good-size hills on the way. I call them hills. Someone from Nebraska might well call them mountains. I've driven many different types of vehicles over these hills during the nearly six years I've been using the route, including powerful motorcycles that don't usually have much trouble getting up steep grades in high gear.

My 150 runs with the most powerful vehicles I've ever driven up these grades. I will usually, especially in headwinds, take the tranny out of OD going up them, but even if I don't take it out of OD, the truck has no problem at all maintaining 75 all the way up. My last small truck, a Nissan, had to drop down to 3d gear to even maintain 60 going up.

BTW, someone suggested that Ford programs the 'puter to prevent full power from being developed during the first few hundred miles for break-in purposes. I think that is very possible. I had already formed an idea that maybe the tranny "learns" driving habits of the owner over time, because it sure seemed like my tranny started shifting more to my liking after around 1000 miles.