Ford and Navistar have had a long and arduous relationship with each other, with the latter supplying diesel V8 engines for use in Ford's largest consumer-grade trucks. Early 7.3-liter units performed fine, but the updated 6.0-liter V8 engine was notoriously problematic. That cost Ford dearly and has tainted its tenuous contract with Navistar. While the engine issues seem to have been resolved with the latest 6.4-liter twin-turbocharged units, those older mills are still giving Ford fits. A panel of judges recently ruled in favor of Kenneth E. Corder of Louisville, KY, who purchased a new diesel-powered Ford truck in 2004. Corder's truck, however, had an engine that manufactured in 2003. This isn't at all uncommon, as automakers will use the parts they have on hand whenever possible. Unfortunately, the '03 model-year engines had a rather bad reputation, and despite the fact that Corder has never had a problem with his, he brought a suit against the Blue Oval in 2005 for not disclosing the engine's date of manufacture. The most recent set of judges agreed with Corder in a two-to-one split, so it looks as if Ford will be going to court.

[Source: Automotive News - sub. req'd]

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We've known for some time now that Ford would be introducing a new light duty diesel V-8 in their trucks in 2010 and the first images have now popped up on the interwebs. An attendee at a Ford dealer show in Las Vegas this week snapped some pics of the 4.4L oil burner. The engine is reportedly based on the 3.6L diesel already offered in European versions of the Land Rovers and Range Rovers. Unlike the diesels currently offered in Ford's Super Duty trucks, supplied by Navistar, the new engine is an in-house design. According to the accompanying sign, the engine will debut in the F-150 partway through the 2010 model year with availability spreading to the rest of Ford's full-size SUVs, vans and even the Super-Duty trucks. Output is expected to be about 310hp with 15 percent more torque than the 5.4L V-8 and twenty percent better fuel economy. Fifty state Tier 2 Bin 5 compliance will be achieved by urea injection.


[Source: F150Online.com]

During the Ford 2008 model year preview at their Dearborn Development Center Friday, Group VP for Product Development Derrick Kuzak spoke about the changes that are being made to improve efficiency at Ford. Last January at the Detroit Auto Show, Ford showed off the Lincoln MKR concept which featured a new version of the corporate 3.5L V-6 dubbed Twin-Force.

While the styling of the Lincoln concept may or may not appear in production, the technology on its engine apparently will be the cornerstone of Ford's efforts to improve the efficiency of their upcoming gasoline engines over the next few years. Ford will be following a similar path to Volkswagen's recent TSI engine range in Europe, by combining smaller displacement engines with turbocharging, direct fuel injection and advanced variable valve timing systems.

Continue reading after the jump.

Ford introduced their 2008 Super Duty F-Series trucks to much fanfare a few weeks ago, and one of the most important elements of any big truck is a good diesel engine. Ford has been using diesels built by Navistar for a long time, but they have never had as good a reputation as the Cummins or Duramax diesels used in Dodge and GM trucks. The 6.0L V-8 in the last generation of the Super Duty caused Ford a lot of problems and they sued Navistar last month to recover some of the warranty costs they incurred on that engine.

Now Navistar has responded by halting production of the new 6.4L engines for the new trucks. Ford is claiming that Navistar has not shared in the warranty costs and has not negotiated in good faith. They have held back money from payments to Navistar to cover those warranty costs and that is why engine production was halted. Navistar has been building 400 engines a day and they go into seventy five percent of all the Super Duty trucks. The diesel gets better fuel economy and has a higher towing capacity than either of the available gas engines in the trucks. Ford has a stockpile of engines and may be able to go as much as four weeks before production is affected.

[Source: Automotive News - Subscription required]

The January issue of Automotive Engineering magazine has a report on the Ford Dagenham Diesel Center in England. A couple of years ago Ford decided to consolidate all of their diesel engine production at their Dagenham engine plant near London. They opened a new factory next to their existing facility and also included two 280-ft. tall wind turbines to provide power to the new plant. The two plants have a capacity to produce over 1 million diesel engines in 2007. The new engine plant is producing new 2.7L V-6 and 3.6L V-8 diesels that are used in various Jaguar, Land Rover and PSA vehicles. The new V-8 is a twin-turbo that they are building for use in Range Rovers puts out 472 lb-ft of torque and 278 hp. Unfortunately, although the engines are Euro 4 compliant, they don't yet have emissions after-treatment and won't meet new US emissions standards. The article isn't online, so you can only get if you are a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers and get the magazine or you know an SAE member. Click the Read link to see a Ford press release on the Dagenham Diesel Center.

[Source: Automotive Engineering International]

Ford is going to build an engine plant in India to produce up to 100,000 diesel engines a year. The plan is manufacture the 1.4L Duratorq diesels for use in the Endeavour sport utility and Fiesta car. The Endeavour uses only diesels and 70 percent of the Fiesta sales are also oil-burners. Ford currently builds 60,000 vehicles a year at their plant in Chennai. Ford also buys some gas engines from a division of Hindustan Motors for use in local market cars. Ford may also eventually launch a diesel version of the Fusion in the Indian market.

[Source: Reuters]

Man, I wish I spoke Portuguese. There's news out recently that Ford Brazil is looking to buy Brazilian automaker Troller Veiculos Especiais SA, which makes two models of off road vehicles, the Jeep-like T4 and the Pantanal truck. Hearing this, and knowing Brazil's ethanol-happy auto market, I thought I'd try and see if this buyout might be an under-the-radar way for Ford to boost its E85 plans in America. No such luck.

Because the Troller site is all in Portuguese, I turned to Google Translate to help out, and I discovered that Troller makes only diesel vehicles, so no help there with E85. But perhaps Ford is interested in Troller's drive-by-wire technology, which can be found in Troller's 2007 T4.

Troller is a nine-year-old company with a production capacity of about 400 vehicles a month. The acquisition should be finished soon, the O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper reported Thursday.

[Source: Dow Jones Newswires / Rogerio Jelmayer via Autoblog]

After killing off the gargantuan Excursion last year, Ford introduced a stretched version of the new Expedition to compete with the Chevy Suburban. However, unlike the Suburban, Ford has never offered a diesel engine option in the Expedition. It now appears that is going to change, eventually. According to Expedition chief engineer John Viera a diesel engine option will be available within the next two years.

The diesel that Ford is adding to the F-150 is likely to be the power unit for the SUV as well. It is expected to be a larger displacement version of the 3.6L diesel V-8 already available in Land Rover products in Europe. The diesel engine made up 60 percent of sales for the previous Excursion and is expected to be a popular option for the Expedition. Hopefully the new engine will be a quieter, more refined drivetrain than the Navistar lump in the old truck.

[Source: AutoWeek]