That’s kind of my theory. When they further boosted the 3.5 and ran their usual 300 hour dynos with all the shock cooling I can guarantee you they didn’t come up with 450 on the first run. Furthermore, we don’t know if those Whipple/Ford Performance tunes weren’t leaked out of the R&D cell to begin with and explored via third parties like Whipple.
Two options:
Ford is having too many problems with internal parts on the 3.5 to even consider more power.
And/or
Ford took the FP tune and the engine did not make the 300 hour endurance test.
I do wonder if the original intent was to build a 7.0 Raptor that is significantly less complicated and more reliable at that power level but marketing stepped in and wanted a solution 2 years sooner; so they put different pistons and turbos on their latest engine which allowed them to capture insane margins during the OEMs best years, 2016-2018.
It’s times like this I think old MGD knew someone on the inside, he’s right, the 3.5 was not ready for big power (over stock levels). What else could Ford have done? They couldn’t drop down from the 6.2 to the 5.0 on their flagship. No, marketing needed numbers and they boosted the 3.5 to its max limit for durability. Dealers were stoked to make $50k off their units(with markups in places like Chicago, OC).
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@OPT PRIME ... Put DOWN the crack pipe.
Quoting Al D’Amato, that gal was a super putzhead. c’mon
@MGD, we know you’re still subbed here and lurking. How many of your accounts have been banned now, 5 ? heck, I think I see one of your old troll accounts browsing the thread right now... gotta check.
anyway, anecdotally, there are an awful lot of tuned Raps running around still running fine, not having issues from various tuners. If there was an endemic problem with the platform, all the tuned guys would be reporting problems.
Remember pedal commander guys put out some boost increasing box that everyone had trouble with? Tune guys aren’t all writing in to FRF with tales of woe after nnnn thousands of miles. They’re mostly happy with increased power and better shifting. Which is why I think OP needs a deeper analysis than “your truck is tuned, warranty void. ugh.”
