Hey everyone,

As many of you know a few of us met up in Millersburg, OH on Sunday like we had 6 times before:

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Here's who came out:


bthr22 (Ryan) - 2000 F250, 2WD V10, 3.73 gears
2000SilverBullet (Matt) - 2011 F350, 4WD 6.2L V8, 4.30 gears
Senix (Scott) - 2008 F250, 4WD 6.4L PSD, 3.73 gears
i eat hybrids (Matt) - 2006 F350, 4WD 6.0L PSD, 3.73 gears
Tom - 2013 F150, 4WD 3.5L EB, 3.73 gears


Present but declined to tow:
Maxium4x4 (John) - 2003 F250, 4WD 6.0L PSD
Monster-4 (Mike) - 2000 F250, 4WD V10, 3.73 gears

The day started out at Wal-Mart where we met up:





We went back to Mike's house and got to check out the trailer he lined up for today's activities. It was a deckover dump trailer loaded up with gravel:



And it wasn't light, this is the weight on the trailer axle:



Assuming 10% tongue weight the trailer came in just over 15,100 lbs. Good thing I brought my trusty F150!




First up was Matt's 6.2L truck:




We were all impressed how well Matt's truck did considering it was handicapped by larger tires. It was able to achieve 25 MPH at the first bend which is no small task pulling nearly twice the truck's weight.

Next up was Scott's 6.4L diesel truck:



(Note: we tried to get the neighbor to hitch up the Suburban in the background, but sadly he declined. )

On the hill with Matt's F350 as a chase vehicle:


2008 F250 PSD hill pull - YouTube

Scott's truck amply demonstrated why modern turbodiesels are awesome to tow with. His abundance of torque made for a much faster acceleration up the steepest part of the hill, and the truck had no issues performing the task. I think his temps were a bit hotter than I remember my 6.4L truck getting under similar circumstances, but Scott has since dragged his 15,000 lb camper back home without issues, so all is well.

At this point it was time to stress out my new F150. We gave my truck no favors for this pull, we waited for the hottest part of the day(85° IIRC), had 4 of us in the cab, and made the pull with the A/C blasting:







I was very impressed with how my little 3.5L V6 handled the pull. It got a bit warm at 239° coolant temp, but at no point did the gauge indicate an overheat or reduce power; note that it was pushing the full 16 PSI of boost all the way to the very end. We then rolled over to the scale to get weighed. Here is what the whole rig weighed with all of us in the cab:



Yup, that's right...21,480 lbs. Axle weights were as follows:

Steer: 3,240
Drive: 4,540
Trailer: 13,740

We swapped drivers around a few times before heading back to the house, and everyone seemed pleased with the way my truck handled that much weight. I did have a new product installed on the truck called StableLoad, and it made a noticeable improvement on the way the truck handled while towing such a heavy trailer. Tomorrow morning I'll be posting up a review thread and I'll post a link for those who are interested.

Next up was Matt's 2006 diesel truck. Note that he was running tuned and he couldn't keep the throttle pinned without risking dangerously high EGTs. In my humble opinion it was a bad idea to run tuned, but with a watchful eye on his EGTs he didn't blow it up!



2006 F350 PSD hill pull - YouTube

The truck performed strongly, and as you can see from the times when he was at full throttle a tuned 6.0 is a force to be reckoned with! I think it was pulling harder than a stock 6.7L truck, but of course it couldn't be sustained due to the ~1,450° EGTs that occurred within seconds of full throttle.

Last up was Ryan's 2000 F250:



It's important to note that his front springs were replaced recently, so the rear end sag wasn't as bad as it looks. Being a 2WD truck with beefier front springs it rode nose high without a trailer.



2000 F250 V10 hill pull - YouTube

Unfortunately his 3.73 gears really hindered his truck for the first portion of the hill; there just wasn't enough torque multiplication available to break 5 MPH. The truck did the job just fine, and I suspect this would have been very different if he had the optional 4.30s that some trucks were equipped with.

On another note, this was Ryan's first time towing anything of significance, and this was one hell of an initiation! He did a fantastic job despite the magnitude of what we were pulling in relation to the truck's rated capacity(10,000 lbs). Despite being 13 years old and running on 3 quarts of oil() it handled the steepest hill you can ever expect to see without issue. We weren't able to monitor temps because I forgot the gauge in my truck, but his factory gauges never left the normal range.

Afterward we got together for a photo op with the FTE banner!



Of course not everything goes according to plan. At the end of the day we had to haul the gravel back to the yard and drop off the trailer. I called dibs on the trailer as my truck is a glutton for punishment:



Coming down Mike's very steep road, we had to make a sharp, ~120° left turn at the base of the hill. As I was making the turn the heavy trailer pushed my rear end sideways...I came closer than I ever had to jackknifing into the ditch. I've towed trailers for nearly 300,000 miles and have never had such a close call.

And if that weren't enough, 1/2 mile later I got a "Trailer Wiring Fault" message on the message center and I lost all trailer brakes. Something went awry with the rental trailer and we weren't able to get the brakes working. Scott(Senix) stepped up and volunteered to tow it because he had the heaviest truck there; he got it there with no issues but I'm sure it was a stressful tow!

I'd like to thank Mike for hosting the event and everyone who came for making this such a great time. Like always I had a blast and it was well worth the trip!