Ford F250 6.7 Powerstroke Diesel Review

She is a lengthy one. No doubt it’s got the long box, the crew cab, you lose minimal heat energy as well as minimal pumping energy, and so a lot more of that energy is transferred directly into mechanical energy. To turn that turbo and give you more power. So I really like why Ford did this. It makes complete sense.

Well, we got another snowy morning here and what do we have them driving? Well, we have a 2022 F-250 Super Duty with the legendary six seven power stroke, and I cannot wait to get into here and show you guys what I think about this six: seven Power Stroke as a licensed diesel mechanic. So, let’s get into her! Thank you, sir foreign. Well, we made her to the shop.

The weather is not the kindest out there, but yes, this is the well. This is the truck right here. She is a lengthy one. No doubt it’s got the long box, the crew cab, it’s really just a work truck, but it does have the six seven Power Stroke, which is what I wanted. It’S still not a bad looking truck for being.

Basically, like a um, I don’t know what they call it: a Tradesman trim or whatever um but uh yeah I mean you got power stroke, dual exhaust there always a uh, a key feature of the power strokes. I mean the one thing that always looks weird on these things is the massive chin splitter, but I guess I get it if it’s just a work truck, you might as well get that fuel economy. If it was my personal truck I’d. Take that thing right off. I don’t care how much fuel economy it saves, but uh yeah, we’ll let this thing drip off here.

I’M going to finish my coffee and then uh, we’ll pop the hood right there and get down to some business. So I’ve given reviews on the six seven Cummins, the 66 Duramax, so I figured it was time for me to get my hands on these six seven Power Stroke see what it’s all about and that’s exactly what we’re gon na do today we’re going to firstly go Over just the specs of the engine, what it’s all about maybe go over some things I like about it and then obviously go over some issues and then finally, give you guys my conclusion of what I think about this six seven Power Stroke as a licensed diesel Mechanic wow so right off the bat, the six seven Power, Stroke debuted in 2011, it replaced the 6-4 Power Stroke, which was really not the best built engine, nor was its predecessor the 6.0 power stroke. In fact, in my opinion, the 6-0 was probably better used as a boat anchor than an actual engine, and so this is the first in-house Ford built power stroke engine now. I say this because before that Ford had a very strong relationship and built engine in coordination with International and specifically the Navistar division.

In fact, they made the legendary 7-3 Power Stroke which ran from 1994 to 2004, but because of the 6-0 as well as the 6-4 issues, four decided to cut ties with International and build a engine completely on their own and so far it seems like. It was a great decision. After Ford cut ties with Navistar, it seems like the international Navistar engines continued to have their downfall and they just were not very reliable engines, whereas these six seven Power Stroke was really impressing. People with its power, durability, reliability, fuel economy as well as actually longevity. So it seems like it was a really good decision by Ford to actually invest a lot of research and development into making their own engine, and it seems like it’s paying off some dividends.

So, since 2011, there have been three generations of power strokes. In 2015, they kind of tweaked the engine a little bit revamped it a little bit, gave it more power and then in 2020 they they really boosted the numbers they gave. This thing some monstrous power numbers. This engine right here is sitting at 475 horsepower as well as 1050 pound-feet of torque, which is a little bit wild, and I can say firsthand that this truck is actually really really really fast. It’S the fastest truck I’ve ever driven, and I believe the 0-60 time on a normal length.

F250 is like 6.1 seconds, so it is really quick and, what’s even more shocking, is in 2023 this year they are going to be releasing a high output version of this 6.7 Power Stroke, which is going to have 500 horsepower and 1200 pound-feet of torque, which is Going to be something to see that thing is going to be quick and have tons of power, so this engine is very powerful. So today I’m going to focus on the 2020 plus six seven power strokes, just because well we have the truck right here. So, let’s go over what change in 2020 to give this engine that much power.

So one of the two big changes in 2020 with the 67 Power Stroke, is Ford change the Pistons in this engine. Originally they were a lunar alloy Pistons, which is pretty standard across this whole segment. But Ford went with steel pistons in this engine. Now there’s a couple benefits of going with steel. Pistons number one obviously is strength.

Number two is the heat resistance that steel has over aluminum and finally, number three is the fact that steel does not expand as much as aluminum does when it gets hot, so you can actually make the tolerances in the cylinder bore much much tighter than you could With an aluminum alloy piston, so that is one of the reasons why Ford was able to get so much more power out of this engine. Now the biggest downside of Steel versus aluminum is obviously weight. Steel weighs a lot more than aluminum, but Ford being smart. What they did is they actually Shrunk the Piston down, so the Piston is actually a very short piston, it’s very thin um and they understood that steel. Yes, it is very heavy, but it’s also very strong, so you don’t need as much of it versus aluminum, so they got away with having much less steel but still having a steel piston, and the end result is that the Piston actually weighs pretty much the exact Same as an aluminum piston, it’s a little bit heavier, but it’s really really close, so very smart from Ford for doing that, the other benefit – I guess the fourth benefit, if you will, is the fact that since the Piston has shrunk down so much, there is a Lot less friction between the piston and the cylinder wall, and this is just going to allow a lot more energy to be transferred into mechanical force versus Heat.

Friction energy loss in a normal, aluminum piston. So again, another way that Ford is able to make that much power out of this engine now. The second big change for 2020 is the fueling system, or the fueling system was revised. This truck right here has a fuel system that can get up to 36 000 PSI. That’S a 6 000 PSI increase over the 2019 engines, so it is a fair bit of pressure and because of that added injection pressure, it just means the diesel fuel is going to be atomized that much more efficiently.

It needs a more clean burn which adds more power as well as reduced emissions, so it’s kind of a win-win situation. In 2024 it also revised their vgt turbo. They went with a Honeywell, fully electric vgt turbo, whereas before from 2015 to 2019, it was an electric over hydraulic, vgt turbo, and what would happen is if the engine was cold or if the climate was cold. Since it was hydraulically actuated, it would be a little bit slow in those colder temperatures now with a fully electric vgt. It’S really going to minimize any lag whatsoever and it’s just going to be a much more efficient power producing unit now.

Finally, in 2020, Ford added some strength to the engine. They actually added strength to the block they revised and added strength to the heads themselves, as well as adding strength to the connecting rods because of the different Pistons they needed to go with a different, connecting rod. Anyways, but this connecting rod is beefier than the previous one, so quite a bit done in 2020, and that is why this engine can produce that much more power than the previous generations of six sevens. So there are five things that I really like about this V8 Diesel power stroke and the number one thing is the fact that it is an under square engine. Now what that means is the fact that the stroke is actually larger than the bore of the cylinder.

Now I like that, a lot for diesels, because under square engines just naturally make torque very easily and very well because of the long crank, throw and just gives the engine a mechanical advantage and therefore it makes torque very easily. Now almost every V8 engine comes with. What’S called an over Square engine, meaning that the bore is actually larger than the stroke of the piston and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s actually really good for high revving engines, because those engines tend to have a lot less Mass on their rotating assembly, which means those engines can rev very quickly and rev very high. So there is a time and a place for them.

There’S nothing wrong with it, but in terms of a diesel engine, that’s meant to be pulling and produce a lot of torque in over Square engine is just not really what you’re looking for. So it’s really really cool that Ford actually put an underscore Square engine in here now Duramax they have an over Square engine and they seem to produce torque just fine, but with an under square engine. It just makes it so much easier. So that’s one thing that actually surprised me and that’s one thing I really like about this engine here, so the second thing that I really like what Ford did with this engine and also very unique to this V8, is the fact that they reversed the flow of Air into this engine, so what I mean by that is normally on a typical V8. Your intake comes from the inside of the bank, so the intake kind of comes here – and here now with this engine, they’ve reversed that so actually your exhaust comes out into the center of the engine and the intake actually comes in from the outside of the banks.

Obviously, because you have one bank here, One Bank, there V8 right, so you have your intake on this side and your exhaust comes into the actual center of the engine. Now, there’s a couple reasons: why Ford did this so with a V8 engine that is just naturally asked respirated, it makes complete sense to have your intakes on the inside, as well as your exhaust on the outside just for ease of piping. Now, when you put a turbo on here, it makes things a little bit more difficult, because if your exhaust is on the outside, you have to kind of wrap it back around. Usually the turbo sits in the center of the banks on most engines. So you kind of have to wrap the exhaust around and it just it makes for a lot of intricate piping.

Like we see in the Duramax now with this setup, the turbo is still dead center smack between the two Banks, but because the exhaust comes out through the inner side of the bank, the exhaust doesn’t really have to be piped around the engine. It’S just. It goes right into the turbo so with that there’s a lot of thermal efficiency saved as well as, what’s called pumping loss on. Let’S say the Duramax that exhaust gas has to come out and around back up to the turbo and you lose some energy as well as some heat energy there. With this setup, you lose minimal heat energy as well as minimal pumping energy, and so a lot more of that energy is transferred directly into mechanical energy, to turn that turbo and give you more power.

So I really like why Ford did this. It makes complete sense and it’s awesome to see the third thing I really like about this power. Stroke is the strength of the engine. Now I’ll be the first one to admit, I’m, not necessarily a forward guy. I like Chevy, I I obviously like Rams.

So I really just really didn’t pay too much attention to this engine and when I was digging into it for this video, I found it very interesting how much strength for were actually put into this engine. So, first off, like I mentioned earlier in 2020, they strengthened the block and the block is a composite graph line. Iron style block very strong and it’s also a deep skirted block again tons of strength there. The crankshaft is a forged crankshaft. Now what holds that forged?

Crankshaft in place is a cross bolt design main cap that has six bolts and that’s a lot of bolts. To put that in perspective, the Duramax only uses four bolts and the Cummins uses two. Now that can be a little deceptive, because even these big 15 liter engines, they only use two bolts per main cap. So I guess it depends how big the bolt is, but it is interesting. It just kind of shows how serious Ford is in terms of you know, really adding that bottom end strength by using six bolts.

The main bearing caps are fractured caps, which I talked a little bit with the Duramax. It is the strongest style of main Journal cap. You can even get so so again. Ford is serious with that bottom end strength and then, lastly, in terms of the head bolts, so Ford employs six head bolts per cylinder, which again is the most out of the Duramax and the Cummins. So the fact that Ford uses two more head bolts per cylinder just goes to show that this engine can take a lot of stress.

It’S gon na be able to take a lot of abuse, which is what I think you know the customers, as well as Ford, really wanted to do with this engine. The fourth thing I really like about this power stroke is a smaller one, but I think really important. It is the fact that, when this engine is, idling, it’ll actually bump itself up to a thousand RPM kind of like a high idle, and this does two things. So, first of all, with any Modern Diesel, you’re gon na have an after treatment system and when you’re idling it just creates a lot of soot and ends that idle. A lot of the time are just gon na have issues with their after treatment system.

Now, if you put the truck in what’s called high idle, it will limit the amount of soot going into your after treatment system and just give you more longevity on the truck. So I like that. The second reason why you want some Hiatal is because of what’s called like turbo slobber again engines that idle a lot. They just tend to pass a lot of oil through their turbo. If you put the truck up into high idle, it will limit that once again, I feel like a lot of Manufacturers, are going to start employing this, because it does make a difference.

All the big trucks here they all have just a high little switch in the dash. I was always shocked why the pickup truck diesels never just had a high idle switch. I think it’s really helpful now. The fifth thing that I really like about this engine is the valve train, so the previous generation of engine, the sixth floor power stroke. It had a lot of valve train issues specifically with the rocker arm.

Filecrum would just tend to wear, and just it would cause a lot of issues. So what Ford did with the six seven? Is they completely redesigned the the uh, the valve train, so every single valve has its own rocker arm, as well as its own push rod. Now, despite this, this system being very complex, it has actually proved to be extremely reliable. So those are some things I really like about the 67 Power Stroke, but it is that time.

We need to talk about some known issues about the power stroke and I’ll talk about some things that I just don’t like about it either. So, let’s dive into that, so the number one issue and my biggest beef with this engine right now is the Bosch cp4 fuel pump that Ford runs with this engine um. It is just not a very reliable pump and when it does fail, it takes out the whole fueling system, which can run you anywhere from like 10 to 15 000 in repair. It’S a big job and it’s a big problem now granted Ford has not had as many Bosch cp4 fuel pump failures as let’s say, GM or Ram, but still it just. It boggles my mind that you know Ford obviously can see what’s happening with the competition and when GM went with the cp4 and I believe in 2011, with their LML Duramax.

That was a complete nightmare. I think they ran it for like six years or five years and there’s still class action lawsuits against GM for that fuel pump. Obviously we saw with ram they implemented the cp4 in 2020 as well as 2021, and they were a little bit smarter than GM and you know discontinued it after only two years, going back to the CP3 pump it. It kind of balls my mind that that Ford still sticks with it, even knowing what they know today. You know a decade later.

The one argument I’ve heard is that Ford has a factory lift pump about 55 PSI and apparently that really helps the cp4 pumps, which I can believe because, as I mentioned, there just hasn’t been as many failures as let’s say GM or Ram. But it would make me very very uneasy, driving a truck with a cp4 fuel pump, knowing what we know today now the best thing you guys can probably do to try and avoid having a cp4 fuel pump issue or failure is to use high quality diesel fuel. So these fuel systems are extremely complex and they run at very, very tight tolerances and even the slightest amount of debris or water can cause Havoc to these things. So fueling up at your Backwoods fuel station, just really isn’t the best idea. I would want to be fueling up at a well-known, numerous fuel station that has a lot of diesel volume getting sold every day.

That way, you know the diesel in the tanks is usually going to be fresh Diesel, and it’s not just going to be sitting there. Collecting all bunch of crap and water and condensation, so that would be my number one tip. The second one is to change your fuel filters when you do an oil change as a diesel mechanic, any truck that comes in and we drop the oil. We change the fuel filters, it’s just automatic, and so you guys should be changing your fuel filters. Every time you do an oil change on these trucks.

Yes, it’s going to be a little bit costly, but trust me. It is going to save you in the end, because you have your water fuel separator again. Any water gets past that into the fuel system, not good, so that would be my two strong recommendations to really help extend the life of first of all, your engine, as well as your fuel pump in these six seven power strokes. Another common issue with these power strokes is a clogged EGR cooler now in Ford’s defense. This really isn’t that uncommon, common with any Modern Diesel running a emission system, there’s just so much soot that runs through that EGR cooler that from time to time, doesn’t matter.

If it’s a comment, if it’s a Duramax, if it’s a Detroit Diesel, you know they do get clogged from time to time, but it does seem like Ford’s EGR cooler does get clogged a little bit more consistently. So that is something to look out for, but apparently they are quite easy to replace, as well as being pretty inexpensive. So it’s not the worst repair if you were to have an EGR cooler clog up on you. Another common issue once again dealing with after treatment systems is the EGR sensor, specifically EGR temperature sensors. Now, there’s four of them on there and each one can fail, but it seems like the middle two tend to fail pretty consistently.

Now, like the EGR cooler, it does seem like it’s a pretty easy fix, as well as being pretty cheap. I think a sensor will run you like 50 bucks, so if you do need to replace two of them, a hundred bucks, it’s not not the end of the world. So, lastly, in terms of issues I want to just briefly talk about the first generation Power Stroke. So 2011 to 2014

These trucks had quite a bit more issues than what we see today. With the newer 67 power strokes, the biggest one was Turbo problems.

They had major turbo failures. The turbo bearings, for whatever reason would fail. Some people say it’s because the turbo itself was just too small for the application, and I can believe that to be true. Another common issue with those early trucks was having leaking RADS, for whatever reason it seemed like the primary radiator would just break or leak. So again, that’s just another another headache there, the knock sensors tended to fail on those earlier model of power, strokes for whatever reason and then finally, there was even stories of glow plugs, dropping into the cylinder and just taking out engines completely but again.

Luckily, those issues have kind of stayed with the earlier model of power. Strokes. The newer ones don’t seem to you have any of those issues that I just mentioned. So that’s a good thing all right, so those are my thoughts on the power stroke engine here behind me. I guess it’s time for the old conclusion.

I was actually pleasantly surprised going over and looking into this six seven Power Stroke like I mentioned earlier – I’m just really not really a Ford guy, so I never really took the time to really look into these engines. I’Ve always I heard you know Rumblings at the six. Seven was actually a really good engine, but I also knew about the 6-0 and the 6-4 Power Stroke, which I heard just horror stories about. So it’s nice to know that Ford actually took some care in making this engine, and it does seem like a very strong, solid power plant and with over a decade of real world experience. It does seem like these engines do get good longevity as well, which is never a bad thing.

Would I buy this engine over a Ram 2500 with a Cummins in it, because that just seems to be my baby? No, I wouldn’t, and that is because one reason, the cp4 fuel pump. You know you pay a lot of money for these trucks. Any decent truck is probably about a hundred thousand dollars here in Canada, and you know to have a fuel pump that is known to have extraneous issues, and that would be the reason why I wouldn’t touch the six seven Power Stroke. But that is just my opinion.

If Ford was to replace the cp4 fuel pump with another reliable pump or even go back to a CP3 fuel pump from Bosch, that would be a very hard decision, because I really like what Ford has done now. Finally, my advice for anyone looking for a used Power Stroke, I would try and stay um above the years 2015.

Worst case scenario, maybe above 2013., it seemed like the 2011 and the 2012 six seven power strokes were the ones that were the most riddled with issues anyways guys. As always, if you liked the video don’t forget to leave that thumbs up and if you like, cool stuff like this, don’t forget to subscribe, and I got lots of cool stuff planned, so uh we’d love to have you guys on board anyways enough of me. Thanks.