Maybe I’ve got it wrong but it seems to me any turbo charged vehicle with a gas engine the factory doesn’t want you pulling a trailer or gives you a tiny capacity.
I first noticed it with Porsche, later GM, and then started to look for the exception.
EcoBoost F150 is like 9,000 pounds towing capacity
F-150 Towing Capacity
The towing capacity of the 2018 Ford F-150 ranges from 5,000 lbs. to 13,200 lbs. depending on how the vehicle is configured.*
That's straight of Fords website.
*Ford truck towing capacity maximums are calculated using the base model, the F-150 XL
In reply to John Welsh : You are right but then why are older gas turbo’s limited or prevented from pulling trailers?
In other words, what did Ford do different?
Mostly because of tuning and marketing.
They assume that you're not buying a turbo truck for towing. The lion's share of the market goes to people who need a truck but don't want 12mpg. They are therefore tuned for how you normally drive a street vehicle - short bursts getting up to speed. But putting 5000 lbs behind it and holding your foot to the floor going up a mountain? They're not really engineered for that kind of heat.
That's not to say they couldn't be, just not their forte.
In reply to Curtis :
OK but Porsche must have known they could sell a lot of SUV’s with Turbo’s to people who wanted to tow their Porsche race car with A Porsche tow car. And you can, just not one with a turbo.
Same with GM etc.
Let’s say I have a Chevy pickup and want to turbo it to pull over the Rockies. Assuming I stuff a big radiator and intercooler in it would it still blow up quickly?
Nonetheless, all manufacturers are pushing their truck designs to ever higher maximum towing numbers. Once again, the claimed maximum towing ratings generally belong to 2WD trucks with shorter cabs. Here is how they stack up in terms of maximum towing capability.
ConfigurationMax Towing
2018 Ford F-150 3.5L V6 / 10-speed auto 13,200 lbs
2019 Ram 1500 5.7L V8 / 8-speed auto 12,750 lbs
2019 Chevy Silverado 1500 6.2L V8 / 10-speed auto 12,200 lbs
2018 Toyota Tundra 5.7L V8 / 6-speed auto 10,200 lbs
2018 Nissan Titan 5.6L V8 / 7-speed auto 9,740 lbs
Ford definitely looks like an outlier in the turbocharged camp, but honestly finding a 1/2 ton truck comparison of tow ratings is harder than it should be.
In reply to RevRico :
I’m not particularly concerned over say 5000 pounds. I just want to get some turbo experience under my belt and trying to figure out how to do it affordable.
I figure if I can reliably trailer something across country and back I should be able to put something on the racetrack and not develop any issues
frenchyd said:In reply to Curtis :
OK but Porsche must have known they could sell a lot of SUV’s with Turbo’s to people who wanted to tow their Porsche race car with A Porsche tow car....
Hmmm, maybe not so much. Clearly, most of the market just needs it primarily to tow their own ass over to the Prada store. I suspect much of the Porsche race car towing market either has a full truck tow rig, or has someone else take the car their.
There probably really isn’t much of a market for it and I don’t think their marketing points that way at all (honestly have not seen any Porsche SUV marketing though).
Turbocharged vehicles can tow just fine, as long as there are enough electronics to turn the boost down when the simpleton behind the wheel tries to hold 80mph into a heavy wind with a thirty foot RV on the bumper.
Think about temperatures and pressures. A two liter four cylinder engine can be tuned to produce 250 foot pounds of torque using turbocharging quite easily. You can produce the same amount of torque using a four liter six cylinder engine with either no boost, or a whole lot less. A six liter eight cylinder engine can produce the same torque easily. The smaller engines have to create a whole lot more cylinder pressure, so they create a whole lot more localized temperature, which can spin out of control pretty quickly and cause melted stuff in very important places.
There is a big difference between building a bunch of power to go fast away from that stop light, and building a bunch of power to tow your ski boat to Saskatoon from Florida. (I can tell you the Astro van story if you care to hear it, and it doesn't even involve a turbo.)
aircooled said:frenchyd said:In reply to Curtis :
OK but Porsche must have known they could sell a lot of SUV’s with Turbo’s to people who wanted to tow their Porsche race car with A Porsche tow car....
Hmmm, maybe not so much. Clearly, most of the market just needs it primarily to tow their own ass over to the Prada store. I suspect much of the Porsche race car towing market either has a full truck tow rig, or has someone else take the car their.
There probably really isn’t much of a market for it and I don’t think their marketing points that way at all (honestly have not seen any Porsche SUV marketing though).
In the ~15 years since the Cayenne came out, I've yet to see one pulling a trailer, of any type.
RealMiniNoMore said:aircooled said:frenchyd said:In reply to Curtis :
OK but Porsche must have known they could sell a lot of SUV’s with Turbo’s to people who wanted to tow their Porsche race car with A Porsche tow car....
Hmmm, maybe not so much. Clearly, most of the market just needs it primarily to tow their own ass over to the Prada store. I suspect much of the Porsche race car towing market either has a full truck tow rig, or has someone else take the car their.
There probably really isn’t much of a market for it and I don’t think their marketing points that way at all (honestly have not seen any Porsche SUV marketing though).
In the ~15 years since the Cayenne came out, I've yet to see one pulling a trailer, of any type.
I do have the exception to the rule,even though I agree with the "Nobody buys a Porsche to tow" idea- There was a guy showed up at Race City in Calgary with a 944 in a low roof aluminum trailer behind a Cayennea number of years ago.
Only one I've seen.
In reply to RealMiniNoMore :
I'm not sure I've seen one with a hitch.
Tow ratings are highly tested, carefully researched by engineers using ASE standardized tests, and punished throughout the prototype process. .... Then marketers mess it all up. It's not so much that the turbo can't tow, its that Porsche didn't tune the turbo in their SUVs to be very good at towing.
Some marketing genius (sarcasm intended) likely had the thought process of "turbo + towing = warranty claims" so they derated it.
Classic example I use a lot. 96 Caprice with a 4.3L baby LT1, 2.73 gears, and drum brakes on the rear is rated to tow something like 5000 lbs. 96 Impala SS (same car) with 3.08s, stiffer springs and shocks, steering cooler, additional fluid coolers, 5.7L LT1, and rear discs is only rated to tow 3000. Marketers knew that people weren't buying the SS to tow, so they derated the tow capacity to reduce warranty claims and liability, all the while knowing that it wouldn't hurt sales.
In some cases they do the opposite. Towing 13,500 with an F150 is just ludicrous. Truck companies are in a constant battle for who can tow the most, and now they are claiming near-CDL tow capacities on a 1/2 ton truck.
If you always listen to the factory tow capacity, you'll be accepting market-adjusted lies, basically. The problem is, without accuracy from the manufacturer, the real answer is unknown. Can you tow a lot with a turbo porsche? Maybe... but I'm not going to be the one to try it first. I'll let someone else potentially melt their turbine before I do it.
Streetwiseguy said:Turbocharged vehicles can tow just fine, as long as there are enough electronics to turn the boost down when the simpleton behind the wheel tries to hold 80mph into a heavy wind with a thirty foot RV on the bumper.
Think about temperatures and pressures. A two liter four cylinder engine can be tuned to produce 250 foot pounds of torque using turbocharging quite easily. You can produce the same amount of torque using a four liter six cylinder engine with either no boost, or a whole lot less. A six liter eight cylinder engine can produce the same torque easily. The smaller engines have to create a whole lot more cylinder pressure, so they create a whole lot more localized temperature, which can spin out of control pretty quickly and cause melted stuff in very important places.
There is a big difference between building a bunch of power to go fast away from that stop light, and building a bunch of power to tow your ski boat to Saskatoon from Florida. (I can tell you the Astro van story if you care to hear it, and it doesn't even involve a turbo.)
Warrantees are the same on the little Turbo’d FordF150 as on the big 6.2 ( or the 5.0) plus they all need to comply with EPA regulations.
I’ll give Ford the benefit of doubt that their turbo engines won’t blow up the week after the warranty runs out otherwise Fords resale value will go in the toilet. To the vast majority of owners they don’t care what they have as long as it works.
If they know their $40,000 + truck was going to cost them a new engine every 50,000 miles, I doubt Ford would sell as many.
frenchyd said:Let’s say I have a Chevy pickup and want to turbo it to pull over the Rockies. Assuming I stuff a big radiator and intercooler in it would it still blow up quickly?
Not if you do it right. The big things you'll have to tackle are points of heat soak; exhaust manifold, turbine/housing, intercooler. If you engineer it right, you can hold your foot down all day and tow what you want. A turbo setup in a car like (for instance) an STI is designed for zooming up to speed, letting off the throttle, braking, etc. You can use a small intercooler because you have 70% of your time off-boost. Towing is a whole different thing where you spend a considerable amount of time at WOT. It doesn't take long for components to get superheated and fail, or at least fail to deliver cool intake air.
In your porsche example, if porsche engineered their turbo setup to be good at towing, it wouldn't drive much like a porsche. Boost threshhold would likely be too high. John Q. Porscheowner wants to be planted in his seat right away.
Curtis said:Tow ratings are highly tested, carefully researched by engineers using ASE standardized tests, and punished throughout the prototype process. .... Then marketers mess it all up. It's not so much that the turbo can't tow, its that Porsche didn't tune the turbo in their SUVs to be very good at towing.
Some marketing genius (sarcasm intended) likely had the thought process of "turbo + towing = warranty claims" so they derated it.
Classic example I use a lot. 96 Caprice with a 4.3L baby LT1, 2.73 gears, and drum brakes on the rear is rated to tow something like 5000 lbs. 96 Impala SS (same car) with 3.08s, stiffer springs and shocks, steering cooler, additional fluid coolers, 5.7L LT1, and rear discs is only rated to tow 3000. Marketers knew that people weren't buying the SS to tow, so they derated the tow capacity to reduce warranty claims and liability, all the while knowing that it wouldn't hurt sales.
In some cases they do the opposite. Towing 13,500 with an F150 is just ludicrous. Truck companies are in a constant battle for who can tow the most, and now they are claiming near-CDL tow capacities on a 1/2 ton truck.
If you always listen to the factory tow capacity, you'll be accepting market-adjusted lies, basically. The problem is, without accuracy from the manufacturer, the real answer is unknown. Can you tow a lot with a turbo porsche? Maybe... but I'm not going to be the one to try it first. I'll let someone else potentially melt their turbine before I do it.
Exactly, which is what I thought I would do. It seems when people Turbo something they hustle over to the dyno to do a quick pull or two and then it winds up in the back of the garage for bragging rights.
Look at the trouble GRM had with their LeMons Miata, Ok but the principle is the same.
Toss a turbo on a pickup, do it properly, will the thing be reliable or one problem after another?
My mind says it should be just as reliable, but my gut tells me it will be one issue after another.
If I make a round trip or two ( about 5000 miles per trip) that tells me it is practical to race one.
T.J. said:In reply to RealMiniNoMore :
I'm not sure I've seen one with a hitch.
I have and yes it had a 356 on the trailer but it wasn’t the turbo version.
frenchyd said:Curtis said:Tow ratings are highly tested, carefully researched by engineers using ASE standardized tests, and punished throughout the prototype process. .... Then marketers mess it all up. It's not so much that the turbo can't tow, its that Porsche didn't tune the turbo in their SUVs to be very good at towing.
Some marketing genius (sarcasm intended) likely had the thought process of "turbo + towing = warranty claims" so they derated it.
Classic example I use a lot. 96 Caprice with a 4.3L baby LT1, 2.73 gears, and drum brakes on the rear is rated to tow something like 5000 lbs. 96 Impala SS (same car) with 3.08s, stiffer springs and shocks, steering cooler, additional fluid coolers, 5.7L LT1, and rear discs is only rated to tow 3000. Marketers knew that people weren't buying the SS to tow, so they derated the tow capacity to reduce warranty claims and liability, all the while knowing that it wouldn't hurt sales.
In some cases they do the opposite. Towing 13,500 with an F150 is just ludicrous. Truck companies are in a constant battle for who can tow the most, and now they are claiming near-CDL tow capacities on a 1/2 ton truck.
If you always listen to the factory tow capacity, you'll be accepting market-adjusted lies, basically. The problem is, without accuracy from the manufacturer, the real answer is unknown. Can you tow a lot with a turbo porsche? Maybe... but I'm not going to be the one to try it first. I'll let someone else potentially melt their turbine before I do it.
Exactly, which is what I thought I would do. It seems when people Turbo something they hustle over to the dyno to do a quick pull or two and then it winds up in the back of the garage for bragging rights.
Look at the trouble GRM had with their LeMons Miata, Ok but the principle is the same.
Toss a turbo on a pickup, do it properly, will the thing be reliable or one problem after another?
My mind says it should be just as reliable, but my gut tells me it will be one issue after another.
If I make a round trip or two ( about 5000 miles per trip) that tells me it is practical to race one.
One advantage OEMs like Ford have with their Ecoboost project is a massive R&D budget along with a few miles of wires and sensors to control how things function. You'll need to start a steep learning curve on how to do it right. You'll likely have to oversize things a bit. Larger turbines are cooler, but don't start giving boost until higher throttle positions and RPMs. VATN turbos would help give you a broader range of boost while maintaining enough flow at higher loads, but the turbine control can fail, and careful tuning has to go into how to control the boost. Big, unrestricted exhaust will keep EGTs lower. For intercooler, think big. More mass of aluminum means that heat soak will take longer and the large real estate will shed it faster. You could rig up a water jet to hose down the intercooler, but that is added complexity/failure points. Same goes for water/meth injection. It's a good way to keep things cool, but relies on other complexity and filling another tank. I'm a fan of doing it right so that it's the least complex and won't suddenly run out of water trying to get to Denver from Vail.
Unfortunately, that's about as far as I can take you. I got hot and heavy into learning about turbos for a 302 Ford project years ago but never really did much more than initial research.
RealMiniNoMore said:aircooled said:frenchyd said:In reply to Curtis :
OK but Porsche must have known they could sell a lot of SUV’s with Turbo’s to people who wanted to tow their Porsche race car with A Porsche tow car....
Hmmm, maybe not so much. Clearly, most of the market just needs it primarily to tow their own ass over to the Prada store. I suspect much of the Porsche race car towing market either has a full truck tow rig, or has someone else take the car their.
There probably really isn’t much of a market for it and I don’t think their marketing points that way at all (honestly have not seen any Porsche SUV marketing though).
In the ~15 years since the Cayenne came out, I've yet to see one pulling a trailer, of any type.
Joey Seeley of E-Motion Engineering tows his g body 911 with a diesel Cayenne. Literally the only one I've seen.
In reply to Curtis :
Every add-on gas truck turbo I’ve seen has had problems with heat. I had a friend turbocharge a GM chassis motorhome with a 454 and in addition to the engine doing a lot of knocking and pinging no matter what he did there was also no airflow to get the heat out of the engine compartment. He was constantly replacing rubber and plastic bits that were being baked to death. The only one I saw run halfway decent was a 460 powered pickup that had the hood punched full of vents and had all the turbo and exhaust parts coated.
Turbos mean more cooling needed to keep from melting things. N/A is where it is at for long haul slogging.
Diesels get away with it because they naturally run cooler due to the stratified way they burn the fuel - the burn is somewhat insulated from the pistons and water jackets by a cushion of inert air.
In reply to Knurled. :
Even modern diesels have issues with heat which is why newer trucks keep getting bigger grills.
Curtis said:frenchyd said:Curtis said:Tow ratings are highly tested, carefully researched by engineers using ASE standardized tests, and punished throughout the prototype process. .... Then marketers mess it all up. It's not so much that the turbo can't tow, its that Porsche didn't tune the turbo in their SUVs to be very good at towing.
Some marketing genius (sarcasm intended) likely had the thought process of "turbo + towing = warranty claims" so they derated it.
Classic example I use a lot. 96 Caprice with a 4.3L baby LT1, 2.73 gears, and drum brakes on the rear is rated to tow something like 5000 lbs. 96 Impala SS (same car) with 3.08s, stiffer springs and shocks, steering cooler, additional fluid coolers, 5.7L LT1, and rear discs is only rated to tow 3000. Marketers knew that people weren't buying the SS to tow, so they derated the tow capacity to reduce warranty claims and liability, all the while knowing that it wouldn't hurt sales.
In some cases they do the opposite. Towing 13,500 with an F150 is just ludicrous. Truck companies are in a constant battle for who can tow the most, and now they are claiming near-CDL tow capacities on a 1/2 ton truck.
If you always listen to the factory tow capacity, you'll be accepting market-adjusted lies, basically. The problem is, without accuracy from the manufacturer, the real answer is unknown. Can you tow a lot with a turbo porsche? Maybe... but I'm not going to be the one to try it first. I'll let someone else potentially melt their turbine before I do it.
Exactly, which is what I thought I would do. It seems when people Turbo something they hustle over to the dyno to do a quick pull or two and then it winds up in the back of the garage for bragging rights.
Look at the trouble GRM had with their LeMons Miata, Ok but the principle is the same.
Toss a turbo on a pickup, do it properly, will the thing be reliable or one problem after another?
My mind says it should be just as reliable, but my gut tells me it will be one issue after another.
If I make a round trip or two ( about 5000 miles per trip) that tells me it is practical to race one.
One advantage OEMs like Ford have with their Ecoboost project is a massive R&D budget along with a few miles of wires and sensors to control how things function. You'll need to start a steep learning curve on how to do it right. You'll likely have to oversize things a bit. Larger turbines are cooler, but don't start giving boost until higher throttle positions and RPMs. VATN turbos would help give you a broader range of boost while maintaining enough flow at higher loads, but the turbine control can fail, and careful tuning has to go into how to control the boost. Big, unrestricted exhaust will keep EGTs lower. For intercooler, think big. More mass of aluminum means that heat soak will take longer and the large real estate will shed it faster. You could rig up a water jet to hose down the intercooler, but that is added complexity/failure points. Same goes for water/meth injection. It's a good way to keep things cool, but relies on other complexity and filling another tank. I'm a fan of doing it right so that it's the least complex and won't suddenly run out of water trying to get to Denver from Vail.
Unfortunately, that's about as far as I can take you. I got hot and heavy into learning about turbos for a 302 Ford project years ago but never really did much more than initial research.
Thank you Curtis.
I converted one car to turbo’s very much on the cheap using used Saab turbo’s and it’s still running around here. However rude and crude as that was I’m not sure how using a modern EFI run by a mega squirt is a whole different kettle of fish.
Going to the races and doing sorting at the track was no big deal when entry fees were $35-50 now that they are approaching $500 I better make darn sure I can get enough track time to make it worth while. H
hence the idea to test turbo’s doing a little cross country driving.
Cayenne has a 7700 lbs tow rating
Macan has a 4400 lbs tow rating
X5 has over 6k lbs tow rating
Audi Q7 has 7700 lbs tow rating
Most of the Mercedes SUVs have over 6500 lbs tow rating ...
I see Cayennes towing on a regular basis here in Fl.
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