Thought I saw a graph of a torque curve comparing the Ford 4.6L or the 5.4L engine with the torque curves of the comparable Chevy engines.....thought I saw it here....can anyone lead me to it or possibly give commentary as to which is the better curve....by "better" I mean torque kicking in at lower RPM's and a "flatter" curve...

Any help would be appreciated....thanks

 

The important part is really the "area under the curve". An engine with a wide powerband will have more area and a peaky engine will have less area under the curve.

For a truck, you also want torque as low as possible in the powerband. This gets the load moving. This is why diesels make great tow motors.

Chev engines have a higher torque band than Ford (peak torque at 4000rpm instead of 2600) which means you have to wind the motor more to get the power to the wheels. Chev compensates for this by offering lower gears (3.73 and 4.10) to get the revs up.

Ian