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.
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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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