Ford has been teasing us with videos of the new F-150 Raptor taking on all sorts of rough terrain. Now it’s time for them to the performance numbers, which is what the fans of 2017 Ford Raptor really care about as it gives them bragging rights during those bar argument with fellow pickup owners.
Things didn’t look very good for the enthusiasts when it was revealed that 2017 Ford Raptor comes with a 3.5-liter twin-turbo high-output EcoBoost engine. That ‘eco’ in the name of the engine somehow made it look weak and unattractive. Now the hard-core truckers can rest easy because as it turns out this EcoBoost delivers more power than most of the big V8s in this segment: 450 horsepower and 510 lb.-ft. of torque.
That power is delivered to all four wheels via a new 10-speed transmission and exclusive transfer case governed by a six-mode Terrain Management System. All of this sits amid a military-grade aluminum alloy body and a fully boxed high-strength steel frame which make the 2017 Ford Raptor up to 500 pounds lighter than the previous model. And what the means is a 23 percent improvement in EPA-rated combined fuel economy compared with the old one.
“Raptor was designed to be a no-compromise, off-road performance machine,” said Matt Tranter, Ford Performance engineering supervisor. “That is why we made the switch from the cast-iron V8 to the aluminum block, high-output GTDI V6 EcoBoost engine that our team tuned to add 39 horsepower and 76 lb.-ft. of torque for today’s Raptor.”