2.7 Ecoboost - An overbuilt beast with a flaw

ctechbob

ctechbob

Joined
Jun 12, 2004
Messages
4,200
Location
Athens, GA
Note to Ford.

JUST STOP IT. QUIT USING THAT STUPID BELT TO DRIVE OIL PUMPS.

Every other part of the motor looks just fine, other than the oil-starved bearings, but come on. Not even 100k on the motor and that oil pump belt should already be replaced.

If the wife gets a Bronco, it will be a 2.3, even with the stupidity that is a non-keyed crank pulley.

I even looked up the 2024 parts, yep, still a belt. I don't even mind the plastic oil pan.

That bottom end though. Looks like they started building a diesel and then decided to switch over to gas.

 
the little things do matter…

.
IMG_2456.jpeg
 
What's the big deal? Timing belts are often rated to 150,000 miles with many owners driving over 200K without a failure. Plus, driving an oil pump is much less stressful than driving a bunch of cams. And if it does fail, it's not instant death for the engine like a timing belt.
 
atikovi said:
What's the big deal? Timing belts are often rated to 150,000 miles with many owners driving over 200K without a failure. Plus, driving an oil pump is much less stressful than driving a bunch of cams. And if it does fail, it's not instant death for the engine like a timing belt.
Click to expand...
The point is, timing belt engines are usually designed to be replaced.

This belt is a 'lifetime' belt and it was just about smoked before 100k. And you have to tear a LOT off the engine to replace it.
 
i have never heard of a belt failure even on the forums and you hear the worst of the worst on forums.
 
I've got a 2018 2.7 as a company truck and it has 190k of very hard oilfield miles on it, never skipped a beat. Nothing but oil changes, tires, brakes, and one set of plugs. I average 18mpg with ethanol 88, while hauling 1k plus pounds in the bed
 
Zee09 said:
How about Ralph Nader?
Click to expand...
The thing that prompted my comment about Nader was that he was the one who realized that the most efficient way to increase profits at Ford was to cut production costs. I'm paraphrasing, but he is said to have said something like "If we can save 10 cents per car and build 100,000 cars, that's $10,000. Around here we'll kill for a buck (per car)".

Now think of all the times you've been frustrated by a cheap broken factory part, and thought "What would it have cost them to have made this just a little bit better?"
 
I watched that video a few days ago when it came out. As I recall the story goes that the truck got a low-oil warning and the guy pulled over. The oil light went out and so he started to drive again. And he apparently drove about 20 miles (IIRC) to get to a place where he could then deal with it. So this engine was abused; it gave a low-oil warning and was basically ignored. The engine in that video was unique in that it had a catastrophic oil loss. I'm sure that condition quickly and viciously elevated the internal engine friction and temps. And that in turn affected the little oil pump belt.

So IMO, the condition of the belt in the video (as was shown to have cracks in the backing of the belt) cannot be assumed to be "normal"; it's likely that the oil pump ran dry and created a large drag on the belt, plus the soon-to-be entire drag of the rotating assembly eating the engine alive made the internal sump temps to go WAY above normal temps. That pump drive belt suffered immense heat and load that it would not "normally" see. And so the condition of the belt is not indicative of what otherwise would be 90k miles of use.

Further, we all call this a "rubber" belt, but I'm sure it's made of some material that is essentially impervious to the expected crankcase conditions (temps, chemicals, etc). It may be "rubber", but it's not your average, every day rubber like we think. To say all rubber belts are the same is not unlike saying all oils are the same; it just ain't so.

The rest of the engine does seem over-built. It's even got a CGI block, just like the 6.7L PSD.
 
Last edited:
dnewton3 said:
I watched that video a few days ago when it came out. As I recall the story goes that the truck got a low-oil warning and the guy pulled over. The oil light went out and so he started to drive again. And he apparently drove about 20 miles (IIRC) to get to a place where he could then deal with it. So this engine was abused; it gave a low-oil warning and was basically ignored. The engine in that video was unique in that it had a catastrophic oil loss. I'm sure that condition quickly and viciously elevated the internal engine friction and temps. And that in turn affected the little oil pump belt.

So IMO, the condition of the belt in the video (as was shown to have cracks in the backing of the belt) cannot be assumed to be "normal"; it's likely that the oil pump ran dry and created a large drag on the belt, plus the soon-to-be entire drag of the rotating assembly eating the engine alive made the internal sump temps to go WAY above normal temps. That pump drive belt suffered immense heat and load that it would not "normally" see. And so the condition of the belt is not indicative of what otherwise would be 90k miles of use.

I'm not a fan of internal wet belts, especially one so hard to access, but we cannot assume that the condition of this belt is "normal".
Click to expand...
If you listen closely he says the owner got an oil light, found the dipstick popped out and that side of the engine covered in oil, then he added 5 quarts of oil and drove it another 30 miles. So something caused it to lose oil but basically this is owner neglect for not checking the oil and keeping it topped off. Even if the oil loss was fairly sudden for some unknown reason how can you not smell the oil burning off of the exhaust manifold and realize something is wrong?
 
dnewton3 said:
guy pulled over. The oil light went out and so he started to drive again
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If the light went out - then how was it abused. Should the light not stay on? Not sure how I feel about that, but I think it should stay on?

As for Ford, read Iacocca's biography. They knew the pinto could explode, and new they could fix it for like 7 bucks. The beancounters at Ford calculated it would be cheaper to pay out for a few deaths than fix the cars. Those notes came out in a lawsuit and the jury awarded punitive damages - almost bankrupt Ford.
 
Makes me appreciate my 2v modulars. I should pick up more vehicles with them. Driven right off the crank snout. That seems like the right way to do it. I guess a chain driven pump is also okay.

It seems that multiple companies had had issues with oil pump drives over the years. I know a lot of Ford vulcan engines and later Jeep 4.0 engines died when the oil pump drive from the fake distributor failed and either stopped spinning because the gear wore on the cam or wore on the distributor.

We had a powertech 3.7 die when the oil pump drive broke on a cold start. Apparently there's a long shaft that snapped.
 
why not a crank driven pump or at least a chain, but rubber belt for a critical component?

I know there are a lot of high mileage engines out there but what happensto runner with are? 10-15 years with age? Age + Rubber + Heat + Cold is a recipe for disaster.
 
Number_35 said:
The thing that prompted my comment about Nader was that he was the one who realized that the most efficient way to increase profits at Ford was to cut production costs. I'm paraphrasing, but he is said to have said something like "If we can save 10 cents per car and build 100,000 cars, that's $10,000. Around here we'll kill for a buck (per car)".

Now think of all the times you've been frustrated by a cheap broken factory part, and thought "What would it have cost them to have made this just a little bit better?"
Click to expand...
This is getting in the weeds but I FREQUENTLY ponder that as I tear into vehicles. The amount of apparent design, engineering, production and assembly time for little things like under-seat cladding, trim, myriad safety locks on electrical connectors that aren't important etc is seemingly astonishing.

And yet massive problems that are literal show stoppers are given the apparent shrug with a, "Meh, good enough" attitude.
 
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