First Drive: 2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor 6.2

MotorTrend

We hit the desert with Fords new 411-Horsepower V-8 to find out if the Raptor 6.2 truly is the Porsche 911 GT3 of pickup trucks.

Transcript

00:00 Now, I've always thought of Ford's F-150 Raptor as a Porsche 911 GT3 of pickup trucks.

00:13 Now, bear with me with this.

00:15 Like the Porsche 911 GT3, this is a race-bred piece of machinery you can drive every day

00:21 on the street.

00:23 And when you take it on the track, or in this case, off the track, it makes you feel like

00:27 a driving superstar.

00:30 Now I've also believed you can never have too much of a good thing, which is why this

00:34 particular Raptor is a very special truck.

00:37 You see, under the hood is Ford's new 6.2-litre V8, and it has 101 more horsepower than the

00:44 5.4 that powered the original Raptor.

00:48 So does this make this truck the Porsche 911 GT3 RS of pickups?

00:53 Let's take it for a drive and find out.

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01:29 The Raptors are built using the biggest brakes and the strongest half-shafts in the F-150

01:48 parts bin, along with the heavy-duty rear axle, boasting 11.4 inches of travel up front

01:54 and 12.2 at the rear.

01:55 The Fox Racing shocks help the Raptor shrug off monstrous high-speed off-road impacts

02:00 that would pop the springs through the fenders of a regular truck.

02:03 Yet, they deliver such sublime body control, the truck rides like a Range Rover on the

02:08 blacktop.

02:09 It's that good.

02:10 But there's one thing the Raptor's been missing, power.

02:14 That is, until now.

02:16 Ford's new 6.2-liter V8 is the engine the Raptor was always meant to have.

02:21 Built at Ford's Romero engine plant, the new 6.2 is a conventional iron-block aluminum-head

02:26 V8 with single overhead camshafts, variable camshaft timing, and two valves and two spark

02:31 plugs per cylinder.

02:33 The engine pumps out 411 horsepower and 434 pound-feet of torque in Raptor trim.

02:39 That's a useful 91-horse bump in power and a 44-pound-foot increase in torque.

02:44 The other big change has been the transmission calibration for the six-speed automatic, which

02:48 will now hold a lower gear on the entry to corners if you're driving hard.

02:52 We drove 5.4 and 6.2 Raptors back-to-back along the same desert track, a challenging

02:58 mixture of soft sand and scattered rocks and stomach-churning bumps, linked by a constant

03:02 string of fast and slow-speed turns.

03:05 The 6.2's crisper throttle response, how it punches harder out of turns, and how it blows

03:10 through deep sand drifts that leave the 5.4 struggling are all instantly noticeable.

03:15 The revised transmission calibration delivers faster, more authoritative shifts, yet holds

03:20 a lower gear when you lift off the gas and pitch the truck sideways into a corner.

03:25 The extra power and torque make the Raptor more adjustable, more fun to drive in the

03:29 rough stuff.

03:30 You're more able to change the truck's attitude mid-turn, lift off the gas to get

03:34 the nose to tuck into the apex, or punch it to kick the tail wide.

03:38 It might weigh more than the 5.4, but the 6.2-liter Raptor feels lighter and nimbler.

03:44 We tried it in 4x2 with the diff locked and 4x4 with the rear diff open.

03:48 In two-wheel drive, the Raptor is spectacular, sideways and spitting sand everywhere, but

03:53 it requires pro-racer reflexes to keep the momentum up through the desert.

03:57 Four-wheel drive is the hot ticket for most drivers in most conditions, the extra power

04:01 and torque helping the front wheels pull you out of turns, particularly in the soft sand.

04:06 The 6.2-liter engine is a $3,000 option.

04:09 Worth the money?

04:10 You betcha.

04:11 In fact, once the Raptor 6.2 starts to hit the streets, we wouldn't be surprised if

04:15 demand for the 5.4-liter slowly dries up.

04:19 And what will SVT do for an Encore then?

04:21 Well, with a bump in the compression ratio, a revised cam profile, new headers, and a

04:26 remapped engine management system, this 6.2-liter V8 is good for a reliable 500 horsepower

04:32 and 500 pound-feet.

04:33 The engine's already been race proven in the Baja 1000 when installed in the Raptor

04:38 R. So perhaps a Raptor R for the street?

04:41 Now that would be one hell of a truck, and the line starts right here.

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04:54 (rock music)

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