As you may know, pickup trucks are designed to be more utilitarian than cars. Although trucks can handle the mundane stuff, you don't usually expect a sedan to tow 12,000 pounds of cargo. Nor would you expect a sports car to go off-road, unless it's a Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato or Porsche 911 Dakar. The use case is different, and so manufacturers design their engines accordingly. As far as trucks (pickups or otherwise) are concerned, it's all about the torque, which isn't necessarily the case with cars. That explains why many pickup trucks and SUVs have the option of a diesel engine, whereas new cars (sold in the U.S., at least) are almost exclusively gasoline-only.
Essentially, truck engines are designed to handle a different kind of abuse from a sports car. If only we had a reference engine to shed more light on the topic — something that's used both in a sports car and a pickup truck.
Enter the Ford Coyote V8. Not only will you find the engine inside America's favorite pickup truck, but you'll also find it powering the world's best-selling performance coupe, the Ford Mustang. However, if you didn't know, the F-150 Coyote is not the same as the Mustang Coyote. The differences are certainly not subtle, and as mentioned earlier, mostly exist to meet the respective demands of a pickup truck and a sports coupe.
Let's take the Gen 2 Coyote V8 (2015-2017) as an example. If we observe the power and torque specs, the F-150 Coyote puts out 395 horsepower against the Mustang Coyote's 435 horses, with both engines producing exactly 400 pound-feet of torque. However, the F-150's V8 is tuned to produce peak torque at 3,850 RPM versus the Mustang's 4,250 revs. As for peak power, the 'Stang's 435 horsepower comes in at 6,500 RPM against the F-150's 5,750 revs. And that's just the spec sheet.
Things look more interesting under the skin. While the pistons, connecting rods, and crankshaft are the same, the F-150's V8 uses cast-iron exhaust manifolds, as opposed to the Mustang's stainless-steel items. The truck engine also has longer intake runners, with some sources claiming the intake manifold sits a wee bit higher than the Mustang's, which has shorter intake runners. Because the F-150's Coyote is torque-biased, the camshafts, specifically on the intake side, have shorter duration. That means the valves close sooner, which increases the cylinder pressure, contributing to the engine's low-end torque. The Mustang, on the other hand, has long-duration intake cams for better high-RPM performance.
As for compression, the truck engine runs 10.5:1 against the pony car's 11:1. Even their firing orders are different, with the F-150 using a 1-3-7-2-6-5-4-8 sequence, as opposed to the Stang's 1-5-4-8-6-3-7-2. Other differences include the pony car getting a windage tray and side-mounted oil coolers. The F-150's timing cover features fewer ribs, and both engines place the alternator at different locations. Gen 3 and Gen 4 Coyote V8 engines also have their differences, based on whether it's a truck application or something more spicy.