A production EcoBoost V-6 engine, serial number 448AA, was randomly selected off the assembly line at Ford’s Cleveland engine plant. The dual-overhead-cam power plant was shipped to dynamometer cell 36B in the Ford Dearborn engine labs and run for 300 hours to replicate the equivalent of 150,000 customer miles, including repeated temperature-shock runs when the engine was cooled to minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit and then heated to 235 degrees.
The engine was then shipped to Ford's Kansas City truck plant and installed in an F-150 4X4 crew-cab pickup. It was driven to Nygaard Timber in Astoria, Ore., and put to work as a log skidder, dragging a total of 110,000 pounds of logs across the ground to demonstrate its 420 pounds-feet of torque.
From there, the truck was driven across the country to Homestead Miami Speedway, where it was hooked up to a trailer carrying two of Richard Petty’s Ford Fusion racecars, a load of 11,300 pounds, and run continuously around the track for 24 hours, averaging 82 mph and covering 1,607 miles.
It was then taken to Davis Dam in Arizona, where it bested both the 5.3-liter Chevy Silverado V-8 and the Ram 5.7-liter Hemi V-8 in an uphill towing contest pulling 9,000 pounds up a 6 percent grade on Highway 68.
Finally, the 3.5-liter twin-turbo EcoBoost engine was shipped to Mike McCarthy’s race shop in Wickenburg, Ariz., and installed in his 7,100-pound F-150 race truck. McCarthy practiced locally for 1,200 miles and raced the truck in the SCORE Baja 1000, the toughest off-road race in North America, finishing first overall in the new Stock Engine class after 1,062 race miles.
