I think the Ford Super Duty engines compared well with the competition for the most part. They were among the first big-inch gassers that had become popular in the late 1950's. The story is that moonlighting engineers from International helped design it, and based the design off of the big Lincoln V-8. The competitors to the Super Duty was as follows: International had the V-401, V-477, and V-549. These were pretty good performers, maybe not quite as reliable as the SD's. Some 549's had dual ignition, with twin distributors and 2 plugs per cylinder. The Internationals suffered from cracked heads and oil leaks, and International tried to make a diesel out of the 549. About as good as the Olds 350 diesel! Dodge used heavy duty versions of the 361 and 413 to power their heavy trucks. These were great engines, but more in the league of the Ford 361 and 391 FT V-8's. Dodge offered the International 549 as a special order option in the late 60's. GMC had their V-6's. These went all the way from a 305 inch job for the small truck to 351, 379, 401, 432, and a 478 for the large trucks. I think these were about as good as a large truck gas engine ever got, and the 478 was equal to the 534 Ford in performance. Very short stroke for their displacement allowed them to build torque fast at low R.P.M.'s. Way overbuilt, the larger versions were 900+ pounds, and the crank was very short and fat. The 305 didn't do much in the pickups but eat a lot of fuel. GMC made diesel versions of the 351 and 478, and they didn't need to beef up the block. From 1960-65, GMC offered a 702 cube V-12, which was basically 2 351's end to end with a common block, crank, and cam. Monster had 4 cylinder heads. Pretty rare, usually only found them in large fire trucks and Air Force mobile missile launchers. In 1966, the V-12 was dropped, and GMC added 2 more cylinders to the 478 creating a 637 V-8. This was built as a gas or a diesel. 600+ ft. lbs.. Chevy had the 348, 366, 409, and 427. They were all pretty tough, but again more like the FT Ford V-8's. Chevy used some of the GMC 478 V-6's in the larger trucks. There was another large gas V-8, the REO. I don't remember the displacement, but I heard tell it was quite an engine. White used it in later years after they bought REO out.
You're talking about the DV550 & 9.0 diesel. The earlier DV550s seemed to have a bad rep the latter 9.0s were decent, but not great. They did start well in the cold. Heard plenty of good stories about the 266,304, 345, 392s but none about the 549. Id put the Ford 534 over the IH 549 also.
I almost bought a low mile 60s GMC with a Toro-Flow diesel recently heard they were not great on power, but did great on fuel.
My FIL had a mid 70's Ford (F700 I think, maybe F600) Grain truck out on the farm. I used to help him by driving it during harvest time. He had the 370 gas V8 and 5 speed standard (Clarke?), 2 speed axle and I recall when it was fully loaded you couldn't miss a shift or chances are, you would have to stop and build up the momentum, once again.
I used to think that the little old 370 cube V8 was too small for the heavy grain loads (overloads?)...but it really was the little engine that could. It did the job.
I never understood the 370. I used to drive a boxtruck that had one. No power, no torque. When getting on the freeway, plan to yield or get killed. The thing had an automatic tranny, and was always revving at it's absolute max to keep moving. It drank gas, and couldn't get out of it's own way. What the hell was Ford thinking? Destroke the marvelous 429, put lousy crap heads on it with tiny valves, and call it a truck engine? This had to be one of the worst mistakes Ford ever made.
By contrast, I once drove an old U-Haul field manager's rig (remember the old U-Haul rigs that had trailers stacked up top and bottom like a car hauler?) It was a '63 Ford with a 330 and a governor. That freakin' thing would haul, and if you stood on it a few seconds after the governor kicked in, the governor would give up and it would really rev. I had a ball driving that truck.
I never understood the 370. I used to drive a boxtruck that had one. No power, no torque. When getting on the freeway, plan to yield or get killed. The thing had an automatic tranny, and was always revving at it's absolute max to keep moving. It drank gas, and couldn't get out of it's own way. What the hell was Ford thinking? Destroke the marvelous 429, put lousy crap heads on it with tiny valves, and call it a truck engine? This had to be one of the worst mistakes Ford ever made.
By contrast, I once drove an old U-Haul field manager's rig (remember the old U-Haul rigs that had trailers stacked up top and bottom like a car hauler?) It was a '63 Ford with a 330 and a governor. That freakin' thing would haul, and if you stood on it a few seconds after the governor kicked in, the governor would give up and it would really rev. I had a ball driving that truck.
The 370 I drove was in a Grain Truck, with the standard transmission. It was working real hard, but as most grain truck , only was on the highway when we took it to a grain elevator , which was not too far. Mostly it was moving in first to third gear on the fields and around the farm yard, or down old mud farm roads.
You don't need a real power house for this application. We also used to have a '50's International grain truck, probably the equivalent to something like an F500 of those days. The cornbinder had a 226 inch straight IH six.
I can't imagine a medium duty F series with a 370 and one of those old automatic transmissions-what a power sapper that must have been.
I never understood the 370. I used to drive a boxtruck that had one. No power, no torque. When getting on the freeway, plan to yield or get killed. The thing had an automatic tranny, and was always revving at it's absolute max to keep moving. It drank gas, and couldn't get out of it's own way. What the hell was Ford thinking? Destroke the marvelous 429, put lousy crap heads on it with tiny valves, and call it a truck engine? This had to be one of the worst mistakes Ford ever made.
By contrast, I once drove an old U-Haul field manager's rig (remember the old U-Haul rigs that had trailers stacked up top and bottom like a car hauler?) It was a '63 Ford with a 330 and a governor. That freakin' thing would haul, and if you stood on it a few seconds after the governor kicked in, the governor would give up and it would really rev. I had a ball driving that truck.
I think the 370 & 429 had the same stroke: different bores
Hi there, new to the board also... I am a volunteer firefighter and have driven many different firetrucks with different motors in them. I figured I would throw my 2 cents in on this topic. I can remember a Ford C/Hamerly tanker I drove.. it pulled 2,500 gallons of water through a 5 speed transmission.... it was slow as sin... I mean SLOW (as has been noted here)...you used to try to come up with the best way to get to calls without doing hills. It was retired in 1998 with 38,000 miles on it, it still ran but it was starting to limp pretty badly. The Kennett Fire Department in Chester County, Pa had another Ford C tanker (with a Bruco body) that had the 429 Ford in it... they said that it drove much better than thier pumper (which had a 534 in it) and would routinely go faster than it (the pumper carried 1,000 gallons of water compared to the 2,000 on the tanker). Both seem like good motors to me..... I have another friend that has a 1961 Ford F-700 with and American LaFrance body on it... it is supposed to have a 332 in it.. but everyone who looks at it says that there is no way it is a 332.. it is to small and it is Gold in color (which I guess the 332 never was)... it moves the truck pretty well though (300 gallons of water in a 1,000 gallon tank). Moving to Cornbinder power... there was a ladder truck at one of the fire schools around us that had an I-H 549 motor in it.... it was very loud and sound like it was moving pretty well... but it was also slow. Plus it had TERRIBLE overheating problems... on a fire department ladder truck... a hydraulic pump is run off a PTO from the transmission... so the drive engine also powers the ladder on it. The engine runs at about 1,700rpms when you are using the ladder (activated by a high throttle switch)... if you ran the ladder for more than 10 minutes the manifold would glow red and you could cook on it. I couldn't imagine this was normal... but I saw it in another piece that had the International 549 motor in it.. if you pumped with it (pump is PTO driven) for any amount of time the manifold would glow red and you would have to keep the engine covers open (which didn't help that much it didn't seem). Continental made alot of large gas engines for the fire service as did Hall-Scott, Waukesha and Lycoming... Lycoming motors were standard in American LaFrance fire trucks from 1948 through 1959 (the 700/800 series pieces).. most of them were Lycoming J V12 motors with dual ignition (of course).... they were airplane motors basically.. if you lost your engine book from American LaFrance... you were up a certain creek without a paddle.... the only person who could really tune it up was an airplane mechanic.... another gashog but a very powerful motor. FWD, Ward LaFrance, Hahn, Peter Pirsch and Maxim all used Waukesha gas motors as standard equipment on thier pieces (unless you speced a diesel at which point you got a 6'71 Detroit). Those were all some very tough, bulletproof motors (although the Waukesha had a problem with throwing rods and/or self destructing if worked to hard). The 543 Ford always seemed a bit doggish for it's functions.... if you compare it to some of the GMC V-6 motors of that time it is sort of hard to fight for the Ford motor... although they were built tough. I can remember having a Ford C/Hahn pumper that I drafted (pulled water from a pond and than a river) with for 6 hours... we moved 3 million gallons of water in that time.... she was running pretty high up in the RPM range (around 1,900 or so) but it didn't overheat or cause problems... it just pumped merrily away. That piece had a Ford 534 in it as well... good motors for the fire service.
Back in 2000 before gas went through the roof I borrowed a friends 370 powered short dumptruck to haul some filldirt. All I had to do was fill it back up when I was finished.
I couldnt believe how much gas it drank; even for a medium duty is was really bad: using that truck with todays gas prices would make a fat wallet thin !
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