Hey guys,

As some of you are aware, we had another comparison meet in Millersburg, OH yesterday(see thread HERE). As we've done in the past we met up to talk trucks, pull some weight up some hills, and have a great time. This was no exception!

We started out by meeting at Wal-Mart, and then we drove to Mike's house a few miles away to get the trailer.



Here are today's players:

Mike(Monster-4) - 2000 F250, 6.8L V10. 3.73s, FRPP headers and exhaust, 3.73s.
Matt(I eat hybrids) - 2006 F350 6.0L PSD. Powermax turbo, stock tuning, and 3.73s.
Steve(KC8QVO) - 2011 F350, 6.7L PSD, 3.55s.
Steve(Dim Sum) - 2011 F350, 6.7L PSD, 3.31s
Matt(2000silverbullet) - 2011 F350 - 6.2L V8, 4.30s.








Mike was nice enough to rent a 14-foot dump trailer which was well equipped for our needs with 7K axles. Chad, the guy who blew his Cummins engine last time we did this, provided the gravel we used as ballast for the event. He did not participate in the pulls though, he was too busy today.

Matt's 2006 6.0L truck was up first, and the first stop was the scale to see how much weight we had.



Uh oh...NOT enough! We wanted to at a minimum match the 11,580 we had last time. Chad was nice enough to meet us at his gravel pit to load up some more ballast!



August 28, 2011 11:21 AM - YouTube

We then weighed it on Chad's platform scale, and the results exceeded our expectations! 13,800 on the trailer axles! We calculated around 1,500 lbs tongue weight which places the trailer weight at over 15,300 lbs!



We then set out for Buffalo hill with the heaviest trailer any of us has ever pulled. Matt's truck has been out here a couple times and has always performed well, but this time he upgraded to a Garrett Powermax turbo. He did not get the truck tuned for this turbo, and it was having a real problem building boost at low RPMs. He powerbraked the launch to build boost, but he still really struggled until his RPMs could come up.

August 28, 2011 11:58 AM - YouTube

His VSS sensor wasn't working for much of the pull, and we believe this hindered the transmission's ability to keep the truck in the proper gear. Once his speedometer started working again 3/4ths of the way up the hill it downshifted and pulled stronger(see 2:28 on video). 40 MPH at the top of the hill. Had this been working the whole pull I think his truck would have run stronger.

We went back to Mike's house and enjoyed lunch.



After Mike's tasty burgers we hooked up Matt's(2000silverbullet) 6.2L truck. I was very anxious to see how this one does, as I thought it would be a very strong truck up the hill even with it's disparity in low end torque compared to the diesels.



August 28, 2011 1:48 PM - YouTube

This was the biggest surprise of the day, it pulled at 48 MPH at the top of the hill as well as making 27 MPH on the steepest part of the hill. The 4.30s were what made this performance on the steep part possible, and we were all blown away with how the 6.2L performed! I was monitoring temps in the back with his Torque app on his tablet, and coolant temps never exceeded 215 and his fan never came on.

Next up was Steve's 2011 6.7L truck.

August 28, 2011 2:49 PM - YouTube

The massive amount of low-end torque allowed him to easily accelerate the fastest on the steepest part of the hill and he attained 30+ MPH far faster than the other trucks. He achieved 50 MPH at the top of the hill, but the faster acceleration at the bottom of the hill enabled the truck to complete the run in a significantly shorter period of time.

Last up was Mike's venerable 2000 V10 truck. Now before you watch this, I want everyone to know that he was overloaded by over 50% of his rated trailering capacity. His truck was rated for 10,000 lbs trailer weight with 3.73s, and Mike had no problems hooking his truck up to over 15,000 lbs for this test and flogging it up the hill.



August 28, 2011 3:47 PM - YouTube

His 3.73s and tall first gear on the 4R100 hindered him up the first part of the hill, but once things started to level off and that big V10 could rev it delivered a strong performance. His stock cooling package kept things cool, and after the tranny came up to temp it held 210-215° for the rest of the trip back to his house. This package is clearly capable of towing far more than it's rated for when needed, and it certainly didn't disappoint! He reached 45 MPH at the top of the hill, within 5 MPH of Steve's new 6.7L PSD!

I apologize for the poor video quality; I had to fly to Ohio for this and therefore didn't have room to take my video camera. All videos were taken with my cell phone, which downgraded to 240P with the length of the videos.

Thanks to Steve(KC8QVO) for the photos, all of them can be viewed HERE for those who are interested.

All trucks did a great job with this massive amount of weight, and the gas trucks distinguished themselves by demonstrating the capacity to handle heavy loads on steep hills without any trouble. It was a great day, and we all had an awesome time.

Again, thanks to everyone who participated!

 

As always Tom excellent write-up! I want to thank everyone for coming out and spending your time and fuel to play around for the day. It's always great to BS with other Ford truck guys. Of course I always end up with truck envy for a few days but my old girl still holds her own.

Later today I will try to put together a PDF of the results again.

 

Thanks for the all the work Tom. Looks like everyone had a great time. I too am impressed with the gassers and expected the diesel to have pulled over the top at a higher speed. Not sure I would actually want to do that though but that's not the point. It's just knowing that you "could" that's important.

And another thing... What's with all the youngsters in the group? There was no one over 40 that I could tell. Where was all the wisdom and experience?

 

Thanks for the write up. It looks like you guy's had a great time.

 

Yeah seriously, where were you? lol! I needed someone to tell me that running the 6.2 at 6200rpm, for what felt like forever, is not a good idea...

 

lol! My face was getting tighter and tighter as I watched your run. You know that tense look out the side of your eye when you know something is about to blow up? Yeah that. I had no idea that engine could turn at 6,200 rpm and little hope that the transmission could handle the shift. Wow.

As my grandpa used to say when he was shaking his head at the grandkids, "Buncha young whipper snappers!"

 

HA! We just we were just breaking in his 6.2 that's all.

 

You need to come next time. That way EpicCowlick will be satisfied with the "experience" of the group.

 

You can see the look I gave my passenger when things started to smell.

I'd like to try it again in M so I can control the shift, had no idea what to expect when that thing finally dropped into 2nd (you can hear me let up on the throttle to force the shift) but I imagine I can get a little more top speed up the hill had it shifted sooner. Oh well, next time!

Yeah, I'm sure I'll get lectured (at 35yo) by the ol' man when he sees the video, you know, the ol' "I thought I raised you better/smarter than that" lecture.

 

I see that Mike repaired his lawn from the last time we were there.

 

When I told my wife I was having another truck meet the first thing she said was "Don't tear up the lawn this time!"

 

I don't think we did too much damage to the lawn.

Matt, what was your truck weight again? I think we were all shocked just how heavy the 6.2 Supderduty was. I think I want to get mine weighed with me in it to see the different in empty weight between the two trucks. I wonder how close they really are.

I'm excited for the next meet!

 

It was at 8060 with you and me in it, just over a half tank of gas (35gal tank).

I would expect a full tank with just me in it would probably put me just under 8k.

 

I am surprised the 6.2 did so well also. It completely exceeded my expectations. I still would go for a diesel, but that's just my preference. If anyone is looking in to a 6.2 and doesn't want to make the jump to the diesel they should still feel confident in their truck's abilities. Ford did a great job with the engine and transmission combo - it gets the job done. As to the gas mileage... I'll look the other way on that one.

That having been said, it appears the tuning can bring out more potential in the engine's performance in letting out more HP early in the take-off. I don't think this would be much of an issue in regular hauling through hills, but we did notice that full hp wasn't available until later and higher in RPM's.

 

Very cool. I considered the 6+ hour drive but it obviously did not happen. Looks like you all had a great time.