With 60-70 percent of Super Duty buyers opting for diesel and with a lot of news being made recently by competitors in this space, it's no surprise that the Power 6.7-liter turbodiesel V-8 has undergone a thorough freshening while retaining the essential architecture that first appeared for 2011. Ford will no doubt spend most of the months between now and the Super Duty's fall 2019 on-sale date tweaking and tuning the engine (and truck) to ensure its power, torque, payload, and towing numbers trump those of all competitors. For now, all we can tell you is to expect the numbers to improve from today's 450 hp, 935 lb-ft, 7,640 pounds, and 35,000 pounds. The current target is the Ram 3500, which launched in January and raised those bars to 1,000 lb-ft, 7,680 pounds of payload, and 35,100 pounds of towing. GM has yet to divulge the numbers for its newest HD, but expect Ford to try to top them all. The more interesting news is on the gas-engine front, where Ford seems to have taken an "Even if you beat 'em, join 'em anyway" approach. The Blue Oval owns 44 percent of the commercial truck market, handily outselling its domestic rivals, and yet the company is putting its modular 90-degree Triton 6.8-liter SOHC V-10 engine out to pasture in favor of the competition's preferred pushrod V-8 configuration. After 22 years, Ford's Modular/Triton architecture is reaching the end of the road, and the Super Duty team acknowledged the power- and torque-density advantage held by the cam-in-block setup GM and FCA have used all along. Oh, and we confirmed the new V-8's internal "Godzilla" code name when we found it printed on a valve-cover ID tag in a test vehicle. Here again, power, torque, payload, and towing stats have yet to be disclosed. A third engine offering, at least at the beginning on base models, will be the carryover 6.2-liter Boss SOHC 16-valve V-8, which will likely continue to produce 385 hp and 430 lb-ft of torque. "SUBSCRIBE NOW" goo.gl/y9bfwm

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