I've been thinking about going to the 4.30 gears. Can't wait to read results.

 

I feel your pain on trying to find a 4:30 equipped truck on a dealers lot.. I looked for quite some time and then gave up. About 5-6 months after I stopped looking, I had been walking on a dealers lot whom I was previously on and they happened to have a F250 cc sb with a 4:30 set-up. I spotted the truck on a Sunday and was there the next day to test drive it but I wasn't super impressed..

 

Other than Ford's tow ratings, etc, I often wonder what the bottom line is. I have the 4.30's, but really do not have anything to compare it to. maybe I could run the 3.73 in 5th gear towing the 11.5K fifth wheel and get along the same.

I really have not come to any concrete conclusion since i saddled up with the 2012 with 4.30s.

 

4.30's are good for getting loads moving off the line and getting those loads up to hwy speeds.
They will also be better for towing/hauling in town and through towns.
At speed, the tranny can be used to compensate for final drive ratios.
I had 3.55's in the F150. It came off the line well but never jumped. The 4.30 equipped F350 jumps off the line and spins 1st gear up very quickly.

 

The 6.2 is impressive when new but very impressive after a little break in time. The computer does a lot of adjusting to driving conditions and loads so you really can't get a feeling for what it can do until you really work it hard so it can get its legs.

Denny

 

The only comparison between 3.73 and 4.30 gears I have had is with my V10. I had 4.30s in my work truck and another contractor had 3.73 gears in his, I could pull more and get better mileage all around than he could, I also weighed 2K more than he did.

Denny

 

As of last week I've got 950 miles of fully-loaded experience with the 4.30 gearset behind a 6.2. So, not a lot, my opinion might not be worth spit, but...

Pulling my load up hills I'd see the tranny downshift routinely as conditions and my desired speed dictated. The truck spent most of its time in 5th going all the way down to 2nd a couple of times when I got hung up behind really slow-moving semi's. With a 3.73 gearset I imagine that on the same hills the tranny is going to drop down one extra gear to account for the higher ratio, which means in a couple places I'd have seen first gear at around 35 MPH and on most hills the truck would stay in 4th. Sixth wouldn't even be seen going downhill as the tow/haul mode will actually downshift the tranny to keep the downhill speeds under control. Just an additional thought since I hadn't seen this mentioned in this thread so far.

-Joe