Power To Spare...Looking For Gears
With the exception of Nissan's all-aluminum unit, these engines are all iron- block, aluminum-head designs, with pushrods for Chevy and Dodge, two cams for Ford, and four cams for Nissan and Toyota. The 2006 Hemi uses cylinder deactivation for improved mileage.
A glance at the chart shows there's an average 1250 rpm between peak torque and horsepower, except for the 2000 rpm spread from Toyota, which benefits from twice as many valves, variable timing, and another gear over 2004 models. All make peak power a few hundred rpm shy of redline, except the Nissan, still 1300 away from the limiter. So while the Titan has the lowest power-per-liter spec, it delivers the most torque and horsepower at the lowest rpm, plus an exhaust tone that gave the correspondent Ram driver exhaust envy when it went by and could be worth a tenth or two bench racing.
All these truck/engine combos are automatic only--Chevy and Ford use proven four-speed units, the former with a tow/haul mode on the column shift and the latter a console shift that requires taking your hand off it to lock out overdrive. The Dodge has a five-speed automatic, also with tow/haul, but the first three gears are as wide apart as the four-speeds' and there are two overdrives--both are locked out with the overdrive-off mode engaged via the same switch as tow/haul. Nissan uses a floor-shifted five-speed in a staggered gate, so you can choose any gear without using any buttons (except tow/haul mode), and, like the Toyota, fourth gear is 1:1 and only fifth is overdrive. Toyota uses a column shifter, with one button for overdrive lockout and a separate button to select first gear.
With lots of power and fat tires, the Ram was first off the line and fastest to 50 mph, with the Titan and Tundra narrowing the gap as the launch-traction issue was left behind. At 60, the Titan's gears (closer and almost as short as the Tundra's) and 50-pound-foot advantage made it quickest, and it was the only truck to clock 100 mph before running out of track. While the Titan finished a tenth behind the Ram in the quarter, it completed it a full three mph faster; even the Chevy was going faster than the Ram.