Precarious
Powerboost Ramblings
I'm about a month (1300 miles) into the swap from my 2018 KingRanch and so the data-comparison is starting to shape up. So I thought I'd share a few things as I go and maybe it will have value, maybe not. 
I can tell you a few of my favorite Gen2 3.5 Ecoboost/10r80 differences, as well as anything I don't like as much.
Top billing is the increase in oil pressure at idle and low-torque demand cruising! Yaw have suffered my oil pressure rant for more than 3 years, so I won't re-hash, but this truck idles and cruises at 36-40psi. SO MUCH BETTER than 22-26. (I fully admit that I have no expertise on the subject, but oil pressure in the low 20's at 70mph would creep me out)
Second billing is the ECT Temps. It's already nasty hot down here in the tropic of coastal Texas. 95-100F with the heat index hitting 105F on the trucks ambient temp gauge. But where the KingRanch operated in the 208-216F ECT range, this truck is in the 187-196F range. I'm stunned. I really really want to know what Ford did?
Note: I haven't towed anything yet, so please don't think I am implying........
I'm only saying that this truck stays below 200F in typical daytoday use.
Obviously I do not know what role the electric motor assist plays in the ECT's. I DO however know that it is part of the equation in what I describe as an irritating clumsiness from a dead start in "Normal Mode". The truck attempts to be an EV truck, but since that electric motor isn't strong enough to provide the torque request of "let's go", the ecu changes its mind and says "let's go ICE", at about the same moment that the transmission has been told to skip 2nd gear and go to 3rd. The whole thing is just clumsy. Irritating.
Ironically, Normal mode doesn't skip 4th and 6th like the KingRanch did. Which is GREAT! Other than the clumsy start, Normal mode is actually just fine for normal driving. Go figure. That's definitely a substantial change in Fords 10r80 strategy.
There ARE 2 different things that I can do to mitigate the stumble. First I can just be intentionally aggressive with the throttle from a stop and force the truck to completely give up on the idea of even trying to be EV. This also causes Normal Mode to use 2nd gear, therefore the truck doesn't skip any gears, just like Sport mode on the KingRanch. Or I can take off intentionally like an old geezer and the truck will not only use 2nd gear, but may even stay in EV mode for a little longer and as a result have some momentum before it switches to ICE, which is completely transparent most of the time.
By the way, Sport Mode seems to nix EV altogether and the truck is a completely normal ICE truck with a 10-speed, albeit with considerably increased tip-in throttle mapping. Even more aggressive and "Sporty" than the ICE only KingRanch.
In summary, increased oil pressure, decreased ECT's, and a Normal mode that is better AND worse than the previous truck.
From what I have heard, the actual motor itself is the same Gen2 3.5 Ecoboost between the two trucks. Including the cheap cast pistons and poor ring-pack. But there does seem to be significant changes in the software at least. And there's definitely a substantial engineering difference in the 10r80 to accommodate the Hybrid hardware and the re-engineered transmission cooling.
![172823]()
Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk
I can tell you a few of my favorite Gen2 3.5 Ecoboost/10r80 differences, as well as anything I don't like as much.
Top billing is the increase in oil pressure at idle and low-torque demand cruising! Yaw have suffered my oil pressure rant for more than 3 years, so I won't re-hash, but this truck idles and cruises at 36-40psi. SO MUCH BETTER than 22-26. (I fully admit that I have no expertise on the subject, but oil pressure in the low 20's at 70mph would creep me out)
Second billing is the ECT Temps. It's already nasty hot down here in the tropic of coastal Texas. 95-100F with the heat index hitting 105F on the trucks ambient temp gauge. But where the KingRanch operated in the 208-216F ECT range, this truck is in the 187-196F range. I'm stunned. I really really want to know what Ford did?
Note: I haven't towed anything yet, so please don't think I am implying........
I'm only saying that this truck stays below 200F in typical daytoday use.
Obviously I do not know what role the electric motor assist plays in the ECT's. I DO however know that it is part of the equation in what I describe as an irritating clumsiness from a dead start in "Normal Mode". The truck attempts to be an EV truck, but since that electric motor isn't strong enough to provide the torque request of "let's go", the ecu changes its mind and says "let's go ICE", at about the same moment that the transmission has been told to skip 2nd gear and go to 3rd. The whole thing is just clumsy. Irritating.
Ironically, Normal mode doesn't skip 4th and 6th like the KingRanch did. Which is GREAT! Other than the clumsy start, Normal mode is actually just fine for normal driving. Go figure. That's definitely a substantial change in Fords 10r80 strategy.
There ARE 2 different things that I can do to mitigate the stumble. First I can just be intentionally aggressive with the throttle from a stop and force the truck to completely give up on the idea of even trying to be EV. This also causes Normal Mode to use 2nd gear, therefore the truck doesn't skip any gears, just like Sport mode on the KingRanch. Or I can take off intentionally like an old geezer and the truck will not only use 2nd gear, but may even stay in EV mode for a little longer and as a result have some momentum before it switches to ICE, which is completely transparent most of the time.
By the way, Sport Mode seems to nix EV altogether and the truck is a completely normal ICE truck with a 10-speed, albeit with considerably increased tip-in throttle mapping. Even more aggressive and "Sporty" than the ICE only KingRanch.
In summary, increased oil pressure, decreased ECT's, and a Normal mode that is better AND worse than the previous truck.
From what I have heard, the actual motor itself is the same Gen2 3.5 Ecoboost between the two trucks. Including the cheap cast pistons and poor ring-pack. But there does seem to be significant changes in the software at least. And there's definitely a substantial engineering difference in the 10r80 to accommodate the Hybrid hardware and the re-engineered transmission cooling.
Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk
1081 - 1095 of 1095 Posts
So worth it though.
I'm not one to smack on the Pirell. It's a premium tire. So is the Hancook Dynapro on the luxury builds.
In fact the Discount Tire current listing has the following pricing for the OEM size: (basically $10 spreads)
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And the OEM Pirellis were just as quiet and performed very well in the dry. Smooooth too.
But, they came with considerably less tread depth. (is it a myth that the oem have less depth than the retail replacements? Assisting the manufacturer with weight and EPA numbers?)
Regardless, the Michelins immediately gave me that additional "muting" of road irregularities. They don't make them dissappear, but they feel like they are rounded off or have less of an edge?
I know these tires so well over the years.
And although it's a small sample, it's the most repeatable trip I have been making for better than 2 decades. That extra rubber/tread didn't appear to cost me fuel. It's all good.
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I'm not one to smack on the Pirell. It's a premium tire. So is the Hancook Dynapro on the luxury builds.
In fact the Discount Tire current listing has the following pricing for the OEM size: (basically $10 spreads)
And the OEM Pirellis were just as quiet and performed very well in the dry. Smooooth too.
But, they came with considerably less tread depth. (is it a myth that the oem have less depth than the retail replacements? Assisting the manufacturer with weight and EPA numbers?)
Regardless, the Michelins immediately gave me that additional "muting" of road irregularities. They don't make them dissappear, but they feel like they are rounded off or have less of an edge?
I know these tires so well over the years.
And although it's a small sample, it's the most repeatable trip I have been making for better than 2 decades. That extra rubber/tread didn't appear to cost me fuel. It's all good.
You won't brick your truck. Especially since you are at 3.5.2
A lot of OTA activity recently with 2021 trucks and they have been catching up with the 2022-2023 with the 4.2.x series of updates.
To be honest with you, if you were to get 3.5.3, you'd be done with the series that matters because the 4.2.x doesn't bring features of any kind and have actually caused some issues with some folks music streaming.
What is your schedule for auto updates set to? Set it to something other than midnight. Leave it for 7 days a week.
Since your battery is in good shape, do you know of any place that you can hang out with a strong AT&T signal?
This routine (below) is not for triggering updates, but it is something Ford put together to trigger an update for Bluecruise map data. It's a shot in the dark, but maybe it'll cause a quick handshake with the cloud and 3.5.3 might shake loose?
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A lot of OTA activity recently with 2021 trucks and they have been catching up with the 2022-2023 with the 4.2.x series of updates.
To be honest with you, if you were to get 3.5.3, you'd be done with the series that matters because the 4.2.x doesn't bring features of any kind and have actually caused some issues with some folks music streaming.
What is your schedule for auto updates set to? Set it to something other than midnight. Leave it for 7 days a week.
Since your battery is in good shape, do you know of any place that you can hang out with a strong AT&T signal?
This routine (below) is not for triggering updates, but it is something Ford put together to trigger an update for Bluecruise map data. It's a shot in the dark, but maybe it'll cause a quick handshake with the cloud and 3.5.3 might shake loose?
I just tried the above BlueCruise update request. This is the only message I see.
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Well technically that is what that routine was supposed to get you. But I was hoping it created the necessary handshake conversation between your truck and the cloud servers, and that might parlay into an OTA getting queued up for you.
Still might. Give it a couple of days. Maybe 3.5.3 will get downloaded? It's a beast though. I think 5+gigs?
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Still might. Give it a couple of days. Maybe 3.5.3 will get downloaded? It's a beast though. I think 5+gigs?
I think the auto update Grey out might be only during the OTA procedure?
Again, 3.5.3 is a monster in size, especially for the LTE method in use.
There's not much you can do to guarantee success, but you CAN keep that 12V battery above 12.3V (manually charging), and help the truck be parked in a nice AT&T cellular zone?
I'm NOT telling you to do this (below), but I am a hopeless geek about the onboard network in these trucks. It's fascinating to me.
Anyways, you can enable an engineering screen in Sync4 that displays some of the modules current "state", as well as if you are currently "connected" at some threshold with the LTE access point on a local tower.
The icons look like this:
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The center icon is the LTE connection and I can drive down my private road and find a spot where it will go red for a moment. If I continue forward for about 50 feet, it returns green.
What's interesting is my AT&T smartphone does NOT lose connection at the same spot, but does drop a bar. Keep in mind 2 things though.....
1. The phone is using a 5G connection while the truck is LTE. They are NOT using the same cell/band on the tower.
2. If the icon goes red, but it actually is still connected, that implies Ford has a connection strength threshold of some kind that they are measuring and that it's green only when meeting that threshold.
So you could enable the icons in Sync4 and verify that your truck is parked in a sweet ENOUGH spot to download that update.
Also note that there's evidence that the truck will most likely download after the truck has been in use for some time. Probably because it increases the SOC of the 12V battery and diminishes the likelihood of draining the battery while powering the TCM and GWM while the truck is off.
Since you have a Powerboost, you have advantages over the ICE only F150 needing that update. You can simply go start it up. Disable the 30 minute idle limit. Enable the Eco-idle feature that raises idle RPM in Park to 1300 rpms. Then go back in the house.
Your truck is literally charging the 12V battery even when ICE is off.
Since you don't have a voltmeter or pids to monitor SOC, just give it an hour. Your ICE probably will have ran less than 5 minutes total (unless it's a coldstart) and your battery got as much as a 14.4V 20Amp charge for an hour!
Now shut it down and cross your fingers and those 5-6 gigs will flow in.
If you login to the 72hour PTS account, I think refreshing it will show any OTA change in status.
Again, 3.5.3 is a monster in size, especially for the LTE method in use.
There's not much you can do to guarantee success, but you CAN keep that 12V battery above 12.3V (manually charging), and help the truck be parked in a nice AT&T cellular zone?
I'm NOT telling you to do this (below), but I am a hopeless geek about the onboard network in these trucks. It's fascinating to me.
Anyways, you can enable an engineering screen in Sync4 that displays some of the modules current "state", as well as if you are currently "connected" at some threshold with the LTE access point on a local tower.
The icons look like this:
The center icon is the LTE connection and I can drive down my private road and find a spot where it will go red for a moment. If I continue forward for about 50 feet, it returns green.
What's interesting is my AT&T smartphone does NOT lose connection at the same spot, but does drop a bar. Keep in mind 2 things though.....
1. The phone is using a 5G connection while the truck is LTE. They are NOT using the same cell/band on the tower.
2. If the icon goes red, but it actually is still connected, that implies Ford has a connection strength threshold of some kind that they are measuring and that it's green only when meeting that threshold.
So you could enable the icons in Sync4 and verify that your truck is parked in a sweet ENOUGH spot to download that update.
Also note that there's evidence that the truck will most likely download after the truck has been in use for some time. Probably because it increases the SOC of the 12V battery and diminishes the likelihood of draining the battery while powering the TCM and GWM while the truck is off.
Since you have a Powerboost, you have advantages over the ICE only F150 needing that update. You can simply go start it up. Disable the 30 minute idle limit. Enable the Eco-idle feature that raises idle RPM in Park to 1300 rpms. Then go back in the house.
Your truck is literally charging the 12V battery even when ICE is off.
Since you don't have a voltmeter or pids to monitor SOC, just give it an hour. Your ICE probably will have ran less than 5 minutes total (unless it's a coldstart) and your battery got as much as a 14.4V 20Amp charge for an hour!
Now shut it down and cross your fingers and those 5-6 gigs will flow in.
If you login to the 72hour PTS account, I think refreshing it will show any OTA change in status.
I know, right?
I'm amazed that with the amount of time I spend sitting in the truck idle, while I dig into some of the questions asked or questions I have myself, that I still can get close to or even better than EPA estimates.
This is the current tank:
(The time is the tattle tale for goofing off)
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I'm amazed that with the amount of time I spend sitting in the truck idle, while I dig into some of the questions asked or questions I have myself, that I still can get close to or even better than EPA estimates.
This is the current tank:
(The time is the tattle tale for goofing off)
1081 - 1095 of 1095 Posts
