We Dig Deep Into the 2021 Ford F-150 Raptor's Coolest New Tech
Inside the tech that makes the Raptor tick.
Ford's desert-race darling Raptor has offered two frames before, but that was to accommodate different cabs. Now offered in SuperCrew configuration only, the 2021 Ford F-150 Raptor gets a separate frame just to handle the beating it will take from the new Raptor 37 variant's Big Foot 37-inch tires when bounding off rocks and across arroyos. Let's examine the frames, the Live Valve Fox Shox, the "trombone exhaust," and other technical highlights that promise to make this third-generation Raptor the baddest of them all.
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Two New Frames
All 2021 Raptor frames differ greatly from those of their lesser F-150 brethren to accommodate the longer-travel independent front and all-new five-link, coil-spring, live-axle rear suspension setups. In front are taller, stronger shock towers and a unique rear lower control arm pivot. At the rear, there are the control-arm mounting brackets, upper spring perches, and reinforced shock mounting locations
The Raptor 37 frame is further modified with reinforcements to areas like the rear jounce-bumper mounts to better withstand the forces generated by the massive and massively heavy 37-inch tires. And it's modified to accommodate a 37-inch spare tire. This involves altering a crossmember and the winch plate that lowers the spare. A different trailer hitch, bumper, and tow hooks were also required, but this structure is shared with the base Raptor.
Rear Suspension Details
Replacing the rear leaf springs Ford has equipped the F-Series with forever are a pair of trailing arms on each side, a set of 24-inch variable-rate coil springs, and a Panhard rod in back for lateral positioning. Before they're installed, those springs measure 0.4 inch taller than those on the Ram 1500 TRX, ranking them as the industry's longest. They feature variable taper and variable pitch to achieve three spring rates throughout the suspension's full range of travel. This setup saves 11 pounds of mass overall and reduces unsprung mass by an impressive 40 pounds.
Front Suspension Revisions
Increasing suspension travel means adding rebound travel. Up front, this required raising the upper control-arm mounts 0.4 inch and relying on new knuckles and control arms that locate the upper ball joint 0.7 inch higher and the lower ball joint slightly lower. The ball joints are also new, as are the front half-shaft inner CV joints, to allow for the more extreme angles experienced at full suspension droop.
Two New Sets of Fox Shocks, Revised Live Valve Tech
This next generation of Fox shock provides double the compression control, which results in considerably higher internal forces. The tubes are made of thicker metal to handle the added stress. Inside, they feature nine zones of damping tune with internal bypass valving that varies with the position of the piston. The front shocks feature 1.0-inch-diameter piston shafts (up from 7/8-inch) and all utilize a new lower-friction shock fluid that better resists heat buildup. The range of authority of the electronically adjustable dampers is roughly doubled to provide upward of 1,000 pounds of damping per corner at desert speeds. Front and rear shocks all do their own sensing now (the rears used to take input from the fronts), and the damping rate can be changed in 80 milliseconds—the time it takes a human brain to process visual info. The Raptor 37 gets unique shocks tuned for the increased unsprung weight and revised travel.
