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PowerBoost rough charging idle.

toyko joe

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Before I go whining to the dealership I want to know if anyone else has a rough idle with what sounds to be a misfire when the truck is parked but "on".

I have noticed this multiple times when the truck is parked and we are trying to get the kids loaded up, have the A/C running and its running off the battery, then the engine kicks on and starts to charge the battery back. The engines idle is rough and sounds like it is missing or misfiring during this time but then it kicks up the idle sounds fine right before shutting off and back to battery mode.

Does anybody else experience this?
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If it's a Coldstart, which I think is what you describe, yea the 3.5 Ecoboost isn't exactly refined at idle. It's got a LOT on its mind charging the battery and trying to heat up those cats to meet EPA. And if you were to scope an Ecoboost at idle, it isn't unusual for cylinders to be missing here and there either. The Gen1 was far worse being Direct Injection only. The Gen2 (2017+) is more refined because it can idle using port injection.

Now if you feel it is running too rough at idle after your coolant temps have reached normal (180ish) then that's another story and perhaps you do have an issue with a coil/boot/spark plug?
 

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I have noticed the rough idle as well, and I think its a weird ECU programming edge case. I have EcoIdle on, which when I start the truck in my driveway, kicks it up to 1.3/1.4K RPM, which is what it should do. But sometimes when the truck is in electric mode and kicks on the engine, most common has been waiting in line at a drive thru, it only runs at about 800 RPM and feels/sounds awful. I think what is happening is the engine is starting due to demand to charge, but “forgets” it will have a charge load on it. So the engine is trying to idle like it was just a 3.5L EB sitting in neutral, but the truck is loading the engine to charge the battery, So it runs like garbage. Kind of like a lawn mower or something going through way to thick grass, engine just gets rough and shaky.

That’s my suspicion anyway. It isn’t something I am going to go to the dealer for, as reproducing it is going to be super difficult and it doesn’t really bother me as it isn’t a safety issue or anything. I am also 99.9999999% sure they don’t have a “fix” for it Now, but may in time. So it will just be a waste of time and a dealer maybe telling you to try different gas.
 

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My truck does this. I have 25k miles on my truck and this has only gotten worse. I have built race car engines before and have diagnosed cylinders with low compression at low engine RPM before. This started at about 5000 miles on the truck, shortly after I rev'd the truck to redline a few times on a huge patch of ice. At the same time, I noticed there was a low RPM misfire when allowing the adaptive cruise to accelerate from 50 to 75 MPH. This engine miss is noticeable enough for me to video, which I will post on this thread later.

If I put the truck in manual mode and 10th gear at 50-51MPH, and hold the accelerator on the floor, the engine dips on every cycle of the ignition system, until the engine RPM gets to approx. 2100-2200 RPM. But then even above 2100 RPM, with the petal on the floor, you can feel a few engine misses here and there as the speed increases above 75MPH.

My truck has the P2C23 MIL on even after the TSB required computer re-flash. It is my understanding there is an exhaust heat exchanger bypass valve signal that isn't coming in properly, so it throws the error code. Funny that my truck had 12,000 miles on it before the error code popped up.

Does anyone know what happens to PB engine performance if the heat exchanger bypass valve performance isn't nominal? Would there be an engine miss?

Toyko Joe: Could you please tell me if you are experiencing this miss when allowing cruise control to accelerate from 50-75? Could you try both methods to replicate the issue?

1. when you accelerate lightly or let cruise control resume from about 50MPH.
2. 10th gear manual mode with wide open throttle from 50 MPH.

It has really troubled me since this is a brand new truck, and now that someone else has mentioned the rough idle thing (which goes hand in hand with a low compression at low RPM issue), I would really like to know if others have experienced the low RPM engine miss.
 
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toyko joe

toyko joe

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My truck does this. I have 25k miles on my truck and this has only gotten worse. I have built race car engines before and have diagnosed cylinders with low compression at low engine RPM before. This started at about 5000 miles on the truck, shortly after I rev'd the truck to redline a few times on a huge patch of ice. At the same time, I noticed there was a low RPM misfire when allowing the adaptive cruise to accelerate from 50 to 75 MPH. This engine miss is noticeable enough for me to video, which I will post on this thread later.

If I put the truck in manual mode and 10th gear at 50-51MPH, and hold the accelerator on the floor, the engine dips on every cycle of the ignition system, until the engine RPM gets to approx. 2100-2200 RPM. But then even above 2100 RPM, with the petal on the floor, you can feel a few engine misses here and there as the speed increases above 75MPH.

My truck has the P2C23 MIL on even after the TSB required computer re-flash. It is my understanding there is an exhaust heat exchanger bypass valve signal that isn't coming in properly, so it throws the error code. Funny that my truck had 12,000 miles on it before the error code popped up.

Does anyone know what happens to PB engine performance if the heat exchanger bypass valve performance isn't nominal? Would there be an engine miss?

Toyko Joe: Could you please tell me if you are experiencing this miss when allowing cruise control to accelerate from 50-75? Could you try both methods to replicate the issue?

1. when you accelerate lightly or let cruise control resume from about 50MPH.
2. 10th gear manual mode with wide open throttle from 50 MPH.

It has really troubled me since this is a brand new truck, and now that someone else has mentioned the rough idle thing (which goes hand in hand with a low compression at low RPM issue), I would really like to know if others have experienced the low RPM engine miss.
I will attempt to re-create your experiences when I have a chance. I don't have to travel at highway speeds regularly.

How many trips to "FORD" have you taken to try and get this resolved? I would imagine your build date on your truck is something like 10/20?

So much more to find out about this technology/engine&motor pairing...
 

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I personally don't like the idea of 10th gear at 50mph. That's my definition of lugging this motor.

If I'm in Normal mode, I don't necessarily shift manually, but I do lock out 8-10 (all are overdrive) and add them back in only if speed is enough to warrant it.

Normal mode on this truck is in WAY too big a hurry to get to 10 for my comfort.
 

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I will attempt to re-create your experiences when I have a chance. I don't have to travel at highway speeds regularly.

How many trips to "FORD" have you taken to try and get this resolved? I would imagine your build date on your truck is something like 10/20?

So much more to find out about this technology/engine&motor pairing...
I have owned enough fords to know that I wasn’t bringing it in for something difficult to reproduce. I was waiting until now, when it’s always noticeable.
 

AutonomousHybridF150

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I personally don't like the idea of 10th gear at 50mph. That's my definition of lugging this motor.

If I'm in Normal mode, I don't necessarily shift manually, but I do lock out 8-10 (all are overdrive) and add them back in only if speed is enough to warrant it.

Normal mode on this truck is in WAY too big a hurry to get to 10 for my comfort.
I’ve driven manuals my entire life. Lugging the motor in high gear is a sure fire way of exacerbating an engine miss-fire issue without pulling plugs and performing compression test, or performing a proper leak down test of the cylinders.

This was just a suggested testing method for a couple of Hybrid truck guys to help each other out. Since the typical engine “lug” would be significantly reduced with the hybrid battery fully charged assisting the acceleration, 10th gear just keeps the revs below 2000 and 50MPH allows you to get into 10th gear on my truck. So, 50 in 10th gear, WOT, has been performed over 200 times in my truck, and the issue has gotten worse.

Once the eco gauge on the Speedo depletes, I can immediately feel the engine misfire get worse. This is telling me once the battery can’t help turn the engine over, the true misfire issue is just able to be felt more until you let off (in 10th gear from 50 MPH).
 
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toyko joe

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I have owned enough fords to know that I wasn’t bringing it in for something difficult to reproduce. I was waiting until now, when it’s always noticeable.
Did you buy from World-Ford? I agree don't bring it in until you can identify the issue and reproduce it with 75% success rate. I have a left turn signal that does not return to center after left turns but I can only reproduce it 33-50% of the time.
 

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I’ve driven manuals my entire life. Lugging the motor in high gear is a sure fire way of exacerbating an engine miss-fire issue without pulling plugs and performing compression test, or performing a proper leak down test of the cylinders.

This was just a suggested testing method for a couple of Hybrid truck guys to help each other out. Since the typical engine “lug” would be significantly reduced with the hybrid battery fully charged assisting the acceleration, 10th gear just keeps the revs below 2000 and 50MPH allows you to get into 10th gear on my truck. So, 50 in 10th gear, WOT, has been performed over 200 times in my truck, and the issue has gotten worse.

Once the eco gauge on the Speedo depletes, I can immediately feel the engine misfire get worse. This is telling me once the battery can’t help turn the engine over, the true misfire issue is just able to be felt more until you let off (in 10th gear from 50 MPH).
I didn't mean to imply that you were doing anything wrong or asking others to. It might have sounded that way but I was just sharing my opinion about how Ford's shifting strategy for "Normal" mode is way too committed to the gods of fuel efficiency ratings, and in my opinion, at the expense of the long-term health of the motor.

The 3.5 Ecoboost is already a harsh enough combustion chamber environment for sparkplugs, it doesn't need any more help creating a misfire. :)
 

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AutonomousHybridF150

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I didn't mean to imply that you were doing anything wrong or asking others to. It might have sounded that way but I was just sharing my opinion about how Ford's shifting strategy for "Normal" mode is way too committed to the gods of fuel efficiency ratings, and in my opinion, at the expense of the long-term health of the motor.

The 3.5 Ecoboost is already a harsh enough combustion chamber environment for sparkplugs, it doesn't need any more help creating a misfire. :)
Thank you for clarifying.

Yes. A lot of people don't understand the damage low revs and low engine temperatures do (175-180 degree thermostats, I'm talking about you). Until an engine builder pointed out that Ford engineer's spec these engines to run at a specific temperature, and at that temperature everything works perfectly together. When you lower that temperature to prevent pre-ignition, you also increase to lifetime wear on the motor because everything is running in a lower than operating engine temperature.

The give and take of the "big race car parts make big race car part noises" life.

10 years ago, if you had anything making near 400-500 HP it made a lot of funny noises and idled real funny. Im saying that in appreciation to your previous posts because a lot of people don't consider the lift of these cams, etc, vs what a typical 70's pushrod motor had to work with to idle reasonably.
 

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All excellent points.
I'm old, so a motor like the 3.5 Ecoboost seemed like science fiction to me when it first arrived. So much so that I just couldn't make myself immediately come to terms with it. I finally dipped my tows into one when the 2.7 was released in 16 and I became a believer. Then the Gen2 3.5 was released and I grabbed an 18 when Ford quietly put the bigger (HO) turbos on it.

Most people don't consider that these are 100HP per liter motors. In a mass produced pickup truck for crying out loud. It wasn't that long ago that only Japanese sport motorcycles achieved that kind of HP to Cubic Centimeter.

Having said all that, it's actually the software that I am most impressed with. (probably because of my technology background) These trucks are insanely sophisticated software wise. But like I mentioned earlier, Ford as a manufacturer has incentives that I as the OWNER don't always line up with. I'm all for fuel efficiency. Afterall I purchased the new Powerboost. But that last 10% of gas-sipping software coding is where Ford and I separate.

I don't like their shifting strategy in Normal mode (it's almost in-discernable from eco-mode) and I think the variable oil pressure pump is complete overkill for the tiniest fuel savings, and..... I have a few others. But I don't want to come across as too negative. I absolutely LOVE this truck. It's AMAZING.
 
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toyko joe

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All excellent points.
I'm old, so a motor like the 3.5 Ecoboost seemed like science fiction to me when it first arrived. So much so that I just couldn't make myself immediately come to terms with it. I finally dipped my tows into one when the 2.7 was released in 16 and I became a believer. Then the Gen2 3.5 was released and I grabbed an 18 when Ford quietly put the bigger (HO) turbos on it.

Most people don't consider that these are 100HP per liter motors. In a mass produced pickup truck for crying out loud. It wasn't that long ago that only Japanese sport motorcycles achieved that kind of HP to Cubic Centimeter.

Having said all that, it's actually the software that I am most impressed with. (probably because of my technology background) These trucks are insanely sophisticated software wise. But like I mentioned earlier, Ford as a manufacturer has incentives that I as the OWNER don't always line up with. I'm all for fuel efficiency. Afterall I purchased the new Powerboost. But that last 10% of gas-sipping software coding is where Ford and I separate.

I don't like their shifting strategy in Normal mode (it's almost in-discernable from eco-mode) and I think the variable oil pressure pump is complete overkill for the tiniest fuel savings, and..... I have a few others. But I don't want to come across as too negative. I absolutely LOVE this truck. It's AMAZING.
Can you tell me more about the variable oil pressure pump. I have this itch in the back of my mind that needs a scratch. The itch is that the truck shows 0 oil pressure in electric mode then when the engine kicks on it shows normal oil pressure, so is the oil pump constantly running and lubricating all the moving engine parts when the engine is not firing? It seems like if the was not circulating then when the engine fires then revs to 2800 rpm you would have a likely point of premature ware?
 

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Can you tell me more about the variable oil pressure pump. I have this itch in the back of my mind that needs a scratch. The itch is that the truck shows 0 oil pressure in electric mode then when the engine kicks on it shows normal oil pressure, so is the oil pump constantly running and lubricating all the moving engine parts when the engine is not firing? It seems like if the was not circulating then when the engine fires then revs to 2800 rpm you would have a likely point of premature ware?
Ford introduced the variable oil pressure pump in the 3.5 Ecoboost in 2017. The Word variable is a little misleading because it is really 2-speed. If the pcm sends it 12 volts, it pumps at the lower pressure, and if it doesn't send it any voltage it pumps at the higher pressure, which is also the pressure it would default to if the pcm control signal failed. (The new 7.3 gas motor is also a 2 stage pump, but Ford figured out how to do it 100% mechanically. Analog)

Up until our 2021 was released, the low pressure was about 20-26psi and the high pressure stage was 60-65psi, but our 2021 now have a 30-35psi low stage.
(note that I run 0-40 instead of 5-30 and my pressures read about 4-8lbs higher than Ford states in the service manual)

So I too wanted to know what happens when the Powerboost ICE motor stops running? Does it do the same thing the normal Ecoboost does during auto-stop/start? Because that motor actually does blead down to zero oil pressure over a span of a few seconds.

Interesting enough, and I still don't know how, but the Powerboost hold oil pressure at 14.8-15.4psi. The whole time the truck is in EV mode.

Here are 2 captures of oil pressure, one at low pressure stage (low torque request) and one during EV.

Ford F-150 PowerBoost rough charging idle. 20210622_085813


Ford F-150 PowerBoost rough charging idle. 20210618_151203


Here's the only reason I am hesitant to accept that somehow Ford is maintaining oil pressure at 14.79psi, as the ODB pid is reporting........
Although the first picture shows the engine running oil pressure at 39.89psi, that numerical value barely lasts for one frame of a camera shot. It's literally changing at an impressive refresh rate of multiple times per second. The actual fluctuation is about 5psi up/down.
But the EV oil pressure is static. It will literally stand at a value 2 decimals long for 4 or 5 seconds and then maybe change to another static value for 5 seconds. I can't get my head around what pumping mechanism could be that stable.

But I DO believe it is probably "holding" pressure with some kind of mechanism. I'm very curious to discover these kinds of things on this truck because I'm so far incredibly impressed with some of the engineering challenges that Ford came up with solutions for.

Note on the oem dash oil pressure gauge :
It is fake. 100% make believe. I would even say it is shameless. It can only show ONE value other than zero oil pressure because it is nothing but a graphic image that reflects a binary result of yes or no. The yes is IF the truck has 7lbs of oil pressure. The no is that it doesn't. In other words, the pressure sensor that drives that image on the dash can only report whether the truck has or does not have 7lbs of pressure.

It's a really pretty blue gauge, but it isn't a gauge. Lol
 

AutonomousHybridF150

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Love knowing this about it holding oil pressure. It uses a belt starter most of the time to start the motor, and it will crank that puppy and rev to 6000 RPM with the quickness. Makes me feel a little better about doing it now. lol
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