Ford Motor Company has actively developed clean diesel technology in Europe and for the heavy-duty segment in the United States. "The 6.0l V8 diesel engine used by Ford in vehicles like the Super Duty is the PowerStroke by International," Erickson said. "In addition, Ford is developing a 3.6 liter V8 diesel for possible future use in the F-150 or Expedition, a move to bring diesels into the light-duty market."

Maybe it won't be too much longer for the F-150 to get a diesel.

mikebaby

 

bright future...20mpg

 

It would be nice to get better mileage. Diesel fuel is nasty though, don't get it on your shoe...or anything else you value.

 

They've been talking about that for at least two years now but I haven't seen anything out of it yet.

The US market as a whole is not a very diesel friendly market unlike Europe. It will have to make sense for them financially to ever go very far with a diesel for the F150.

 

kinda the same for the E85 stuff. Great idea, corn instead of oil. No infrastructre to support that tho. At least you can get diesel at most gas stations.

 

So called "clean" diesel fuel had about 350 Parts per million of Sulfur while conventional diesel has about 500 ppm. thats off the top of my head. Still new diesel technology is very cool.
Mercedes diesels are simply incrediuble, the 3.2 liter Benz diesel has about 201hp but 369 lb/ft of torque. Acceleration to 60 is depending on who u believe anywhere from 6.1 to a bit over 7 seconds. Still fairly quick. You wouldnt even believe they were diesels unless somebody told you. And a little under 700 miles per tank is a nice thing too.
Still if ford could refine a diesel engine to half as good as the benz diesle i would want it but if it is simply a smaller "old" diesle count me out i love my gas engine poor mileage and all. And less emissions is great too.

 

Ethanol makes almost no sense. Just a way we would like to believe lessens our dependancy on foreign oil.
But if i pay 3.00 a gallon for E85 ill take the saudi oil that costs me 2.10 a gallon. Thats the cold hard facts about ethanol.

 

Yep.

Ethanol has less energy per gallon than gasoline does too. More expensive up front and even worse MPG than you're getting already.

 

My research is about to start once I finish building my test engine. Ford is funding us to run bio-diesel on the Euro Jaguar s-type engine. We believe that diesel will prevail, and that bio-diesel will be promising.

The department of energy has two yearly meetings with two professors from academia to help determine the direction of research funding for the country. My advisor is one of them.

 

I heard the Diesel was going to be avaliable in the F150 in 2009.

 

Here the E85 ethanol is 40 cents cheaper than regular or 10% ethanol gas. It would save you money right away but I don't know if that would make up for the different in fuel economy or other issues that might pop up.

 

My last truck was E-85. I liked the idea, intended to use it. Until I put a full tank in. MPG was terrible, power dropped off and the final straw...would not start on a cold morning. I mean, would NOT start. 6 month old, $50k new suburban and I flat bedded it to the dealer to find out what was wrong.

Service tech - You have E-85 in it?
Me - Yes, it's an E-85 motor.
Service tech - Yeah, but it's cold out
Me - So?
Service tech - That's why it won't start
Me - You gotta be kidding me.
Service tech - Nope.
Me - That sucks
Service tech - Yep.
Me - So much for helping the farmers out
Service tech - They buy most of the corn overseas anyway
Me - Figures