Quote:
Originally Posted by RM7
No, it's a truck and it needs torque, especially torque down low and in a usable curve. If it was NA, it would need relatively big cylinders to make decent torque, like the old 4.0 V6 (not enough for full size) or a 6.0+ engine. There are a few other tricks to make torque, but in general with a smaller displacement engine, it's going to need to rev much higher to reach full potential and the rest of the torque curve suffers greatly due to this. It's relatively easy to get more HP, but torque with small cylinders is difficult. While that could be fun in a light sports-car...it's a truck. V6 TT gives a much richer torque curve (more area under the curve) and is undoubtedly better than shrinking the current V8 to get more efficiency.
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Gas turbos make little sense in a truck as the truck is constantly in some level of boost, thus killing mpgs. Then there's the whole lag thing. Most any Ford tech would tell you the 5.0 is the motor to buy for light truck stuff, not an Ecoboost.
The Tundra 5.7 was very outdated and wasn't even DI. Direct injection alone is worth around 10% in power. That alone would have taken the 5.7 from 381hp/401tq to around 420hp/450tq. Add in newer gen valve timing and a variable plane intake runner manifold and they could have squeezed another 5-10% in power. Then team that with a well geared 8 speed auto vs the long geared and lazy 6 speed auto plus the 10-20% improvement in MPGs from DI, and you're looking at one hell of a solid performer with exceptional performance at all rpms and much better mpgs. And the engine would have far less parts than that quite complex and almost Audi/VW levels of complexity with that 3.5 twin turbo V6. They could have offered a smaller displacement V8 and the 5.7.