Im not ramming the ecoboost idea down anyones throats, Im simply stating the fact that it could work and it could work well in a Raptor. You guys act like turbos are made out of glass and that a slight bump in the road is going to break it. Thats not the case.
If turbos are so unreliable why do they put them on long haul rigs? Why do they put them on construction equipment? How can my buddies 1997 Subaru Legacy GT (non-diesel) have over 400k on the original turbo with zero issues? Why would Porsche, Audi, BMW, Subaru, Mitsubishi, etc put them on their non-diesel cars? Ive seen plenty of non-diesel turbo motors with over 200k+ miles with ZERO issues. Its not comparing apples to oranges because there are diesel and non-diesel turbo motors that have zero issues with a ton of miles on them so why wouldnt it work on the Raptor? Because it might get a little dirty on the trails? Because someone might be a little rougher on it than a street car? Highly doubt it. There are plenty of people that run the crap out of their turbo cars on track days AND use them as their DD and have no issues. Turbos are not a new invention, they are not made out of glass, they do not break at the slightest vibration or bump from offroad use.
I didnt come to this forum to push an Ecoboost agenda, I came here to discuss and debate over the possible new Raptor because thats the one Im buying. I thoroughly research everything I buy whether its a washer/dryer, car, truck, or a filter for my fridge because I like to buy the best and not have any surprises down the road. To be honest it frightens me to buy a new re-tooled Raptor because a lot of the times new re-tooled anything has problems down the road. Just like the 2010-11 Raptors that had bent frames and they fixed that problem in 2012, everything new has issues.
No one is saying a Turbo is unreliable. What they are saying is that it adds more things to the mix that "could" go wrong. Comparing a a long haul rig, Turboed Cat, or porsche to a Raptor is just stupid. None of the latter can do, or more specifically were designed to do what the Raptor was.
I farm. I'm no stranger to Turboed machinery. In fact I'll be spending the entire day today hauling corn with a Freightliner running a turboed mercedes diesel. Farm rigs, between the grain dust, gravel roads, and soft dirt fields (while loaded to the max) see some of the harshest conditions a big rig can face. And even then they are not subjected the stresses a Raptor was designed for. So to look at one and say if it's reliable here then certainly it will be reliable there, is kind of foolish.
All I'm saying is there is a reason you haven't seen an Ecoboosted production Raptor yet. Ford isn't dumb. They know there is a market for one. So why not offer one yet? There's some other issue in play preventing it from having happened, yet.
Huck's right about the ecoboost disguised as a Raptor (I've read it somewhere as well), but that's a race truck and if you're saying a highly tuned and turbo boosted race truck could go 200k+ milles with Zero problems you really are smoking some good shit.
As for the "bent frame" issues... there is no issue. Do your so called "research". The Bent frames occurred when running an extremeley rough course at high speed. Ford did add a little extra reinforcement in the 2012-14 models, but if you push it (or any truck for that matter) beyond it's design limits (like occured in the "Raptors have bent frames!!!" rumor) you'll likely end up with a bent frame or other problems, reinforced or not.
Seriously... You like to research so much, get out there and talk to ACTUAL ecoboost owners. Ask them about their offroading experiences. How extreme do they go? What maintenance issues have they had in doing so? Find someone who runs (or has run) an ecoboost offroad like a lot of the guys here do on the various Raptor runs. That'll probably answer all of your questions.
Personally, I think the ecoboosted Raptor is inevitable, but I don't see the v8 going away completely, either. In reality, the smartest thing Ford could do would be to make a large twin turboed V-8 (5.8 or bigger) and then offer a standard 5.0 V-8 and/or a tuned V-6 ecoboost. That would probably satisfy everybody. What will they end up going with? Who the hell knows. All I do know is that I'm never selling my 6.2! I may get a Gen 2 when it comes out (as a Daily Driver) but my current Raptor is never going away.
