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Video: 2010 PickupTrucks.com Light Duty Shootout: 7% Uphill
By Cars.com Editors
November 8, 2010About the video
PickupTrucks.com puts the trucks through their paces by running them through up the 7% uphill grade.
Transcript
(smashing sound) This is Mike Levine from PickupTrucks.com. We're here in Michigan at Fords proving grounds on the 7 per cent grade to test three V six powered work trucks. We've put 1,200 pounds in each of the cargo boxes.
and now we're gonna run them a quarter mile up the hill. Let's go ahead and see how they do. It's probably no surprise that the 2011 Ford F-150 and its all new three point seven liter V six was the fastest truck of the day on the 7 per cent grade. Ford's 302 horse power three point seven has a 107 horse power more than GMC's four point three liter V six and 87 horse power more than Ram's three point seven liter V six. In the quarter mile up the hill, the F-150 finished at 72 and a half miles per hour, more than 10 miles an hour faster than either the second place RAM 1,500 or third place GMC Sierra 1500. The F-150 was also more than two seconds faster than the RAM and almost four seconds faster than the Sierra. We'll note however that the Ford had a significant rear axle gearing advantage over the Sierra. With the middle of the road 373 to one rear axle in the F-150 versus a mileage optimize 323 rear in the Sierra. The RAM's rear ring and pinion was the most work friendly with a relatively short 392 ratio. But this wasn't the only advantage the F-150 had over the RAM 1500 and Sierra 1500 pickups. Ford's three point seven liter V six has four valves per cylinder, two intake and two exhaust for a total of 24. That's twice the number of valves than the RAM and GMC's six cylinder engines each have. So Ford's V-6 is able to breathe better when it's cruising or working hard. Ford also variably changes the timing of the valve openings and closings to improve performance and fuel economy at low and high speeds. Also helping Ford's sophisticated six is a standard six speed automatic transmission that has two extra gears over the four speed automatics in the Ram and GMC trucks. That helped the F 150 sprint off the starting line and keep its momentum up at high speeds. (car engine) The Toyota Tundra and its four liter V six is the only truck with a similar engine to the F 150 but we were unable to test that truck during our comparison. Lool for GM and Ram to get all new standard V six engines to take on Ford in the next two years or so. For more results and testing from our V six work truck shoot out, check out Pickuptrucks.com.
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