2023 Ford F-150 Raptor R Bring the V-8 Fury | Daily News Byte

The day started in time to scare Gordon Lightfoot, when November storms arrived early in Michigan’s Silver Lake Dunes. Later, the rain subsided, but the towering sands were so wet that the traction was almost overwhelming. Not too much for the guy in the rental Buick Encore, we guess, but enough to make even the steepest sand dunes a bit of a hassle in the 2023 Ford F-150 Raptor R. When you get 700 horsepower and 37-inch beadlocks tires, wet sand can also be thick interstate slab pavement.

The Raptor R is the long-awaited but perhaps inevitable zenith of the Raptor brand. In a world without a Ram TRX, would Ford drop a Shelby GT500 engine into a Raptor? Science tells us that the mere act of observation influences results, and we have to imagine that Ford observed Ram selling all the $90,000-ish trucks it could build and said, “You know, maybe we should do that.” And while Ram won’t say how many TRXs it’s sold, the Stellantis trophy truck is off to a healthy start with the Raptor R—we’re close to 40,000 miles on our long-term TRX.

So it’s a little curious, given the obviousness of the Raptor R’s competition, that Ford didn’t go for the horsepower in the brag. With the TRX making 702 horsepower, why not give the Raptor R 703? That was hilarious, and maybe Ram could do it. Instead, Ford comes up with even 700 horsepower at 6650 rpm, and its powertrain engineers make perfect sense when they say you can’t tell the difference between 700 horsepower and more than 700 horsepower. – horse. But trucks like this aren’t about making sense, unless you’re commuting to Mike’s Sky Ranch in Baja. They’re all about big numbers and loud noises and taking dirt here and throwing it there, and then making some sweet jumps. The Raptor R is well-equipped to handle all of that, even without the horsepower to brag about.

For Raptor duty, Ford’s supercharged 5.2-liter V-8 gets a truck tune that fattens the torque curve, delivering 640 lb-ft at 4250 rpm. The blown 5.2 gulps air so hard that Ford had to beef up the Raptor’s intake ductwork because the EcoBoost-spec plumbing distorts under heavy throttle. A new supercharger pulley gets the boost sooner, better for spinning four 37-inch BFGoodrich All-Terrain KO2 tires. Because the V-8 adds 100 pounds to the front end, spring rates are increased, and there are some stronger frame brackets, but the suspension is mostly intact. The base Raptor, with its 450-hp twin-turbo 3.5-liter V-6, is available with either 35-inch wheels or 37s, but the Raptor R only gets 37s. That costs an inch of front suspension travel but delivers 13.1 inches of ground clearance and, Ford admits, just helps it look awesome. The 35s are reasonable, but the 37 says it’s “Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!” And even if your ticket buys the whole seat, you’ll only need the side.

Blue parts mark Raptor R-specific parts–so, mostly rear brackets.

The Raptor R, like its EcoBoost counterpart, adapts gloriously to any terrain you want to attack. The transfer case offers rear drive, auto four-wheel drive, high-range four-wheel drive (physically locked front to rear), and low-range four-wheel drive. You can also lock the rear differential manually, though not in two-wheel drive. Steering effort, Fox Live Valve damper, and exhaust sound are all independently adjustable via steering-wheel buttons, with an R button for your favorite preset modes. And there are multiple driving modes to tailor responses for the situation at hand. Baja is our favorite. Wandering into Tow/Haul mode brings a shock of recognition—oh yes, it’s a truck, a useful thing that can tow and/or haul! It’s not just for sending the Raptor R into low orbit outside the Silver Lake Dunes, although it’s pretty good at that too. But so does an EcoBoost Raptor.

Where the Raptor R distinguishes itself is when you flatten the accelerator, and the twin four-inch exhausts fire a fusillade of V-8 fury, and your shoulders are buried in the Raptor R embroidery on the upper seatback as the 10-speed automatic. shuffles gears faster than a blackjack shoe rearranges the cards in the Golden Nugget. The front end rises toward the sky, and the steering wheel moves slightly in your hands as the Raptor searches for traction. Even in the sand, it feels violent. It feels, really, like an F-150 Lightning Extended Range with more noise and drama. In fact, when we asked Ford engineers whether the Lightning or the Raptor R would be faster to 60 mph, they furrowed their brows and admitted it was a good race.

Due to the well-watered state of the dunes, resolving our juvenile urge to throw sand has to run in rear-drive mode. Which is how we discovered that, in addition to the electronic locker, there is a brake-based limited-slip function for the open rear differential. The brake-based system works when one side or the other experiences a burst of wheel speed, and the brake on that side provides a squeeze to return power to the other side. This system runs in the background even when the AdvanceTrac stability-control system is completely disabled. So if, say, you want to roost some dunes in two-wheel drive, where the rear locker cannot be connected, the rear brakes will train.

Is it true? Car and Driver is staffed by a bunch of wild, half-witted lunatics, and that no normal driver would experience this particular problem (we’re paraphrasing what Ford told us). To which we say that 700-hp pickups don’t exactly appeal to left-brained thinkers among us, and Raptor R owners will want to drift it in rear-drive mode, perhaps upon exiting the dealership parking lot. So why not just allow the locking diff to engage two-wheel drive? Ford says that’s not the way it’s done right now, but the company always listens to its customers. So if you want a locking diff in rear-drive mode, petition your local Ford representative. What do we want? Rusty drifts! When do we want them? As often as possible!

If you’re looking for a Raptor R in the wild, it won’t be easy. First of all, except for its bulging hood, the Raptor R looks a lot like an EcoBoost Raptor with a 37-inch wheel package. Silver Lake trucks are also equipped with a graphics package that riffs on the Raptor’s “digital mud” pattern by making the black portion of the graphic out of small 8s. On the driver’s side of the truck, the Raptor logo renders a second “R” in Raptor Orange, which looks great unless the truck is the same color, in which case it looks like you’re driving a Rapto. (On the passenger side, the initial R is orange, so on that side you have “aptor.”) But you can remove the graphics for free if you’d rather let the 5.2-liter Predator do the talking itself.

On the orange trucks, the orange “R” graphic makes it look like you’re driving a Rapto.

There aren’t even a million Raptor Rs to be seen, as the base price is a cool $109,145. Whether about $30,000 more over a base Raptor (and $26K more over a TRX) is worth it or completely ridiculous depends on your perspective, and maybe if your neighbor has a TRX and is overdue for a FoMoCo riposte at about 6 am Hellcat starts cold. It’s tempting to think that since Ram built the TRX and Ford built the Raptor R, that’s where it ends, but we doubt it. GM, what can you say?