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Creating The Quietest Truck With The Best-sounding Powertrain
The new 2004 Ford F-150 is the quietest truck in its class. How did the engineering team do it? Through long hours of listening, testing, fine-tuning and attention-to-detail engineering. The team's success is reflected in the number of NVH improvements made throughout many areas of the truck -- magnesium cam covers, with sound damping properties and rubber mounts; fully inset doors that reduce wind noise; a special laminating process for the instrument panel and oil pan; extensive wind tunnel testing and design work on the exterior mirrors; double-sealed doors; and liquid-filled engine mounts are just a few examples. Not all sound is undesirable, though. Some just needs to be refined. Engineers incorporated three large resonators in the design of the air inlet tube on the new 5.4L 3-valve V-8 engine to create a pleasing linear sound to customers when accelerating, producing sound smoothly, giving customers a sense of more refinement, rather than alternating between loud and soft. The F-150 team set its target after benchmarking other vehicles and surveying customers who told them what a tough truck powertrain should sound like.
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*Retired.
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