So,

We picked up a travel trailer about two weeks ago and had our first outing. In preparation for the job I have had some stuff done to the X. New Shocks, Hellwing Rear Sway Bar, Air Lift 5000 air bags, SCT Tune from Mike @ 5 Star and a new Kenwood DDX672 with a rear view camera (made nice for hitching up).

In total drove 320 miles, through some hills and some flats, LOTS of 30+mph winds. The Excursion handled it great, no issues with handling or being pushed around. Still need to dial in the hitch a little, but no major issues.

With the V10 I found on the flats around 55-60 I could roll along at 1800rpm with the 89 tow tune. There was one hill around 7% that is about 1-2 miles long, I was able to hold 55 up it turning 3800rpm. Tranny temps stayed around 180 in the hill climbs, then dropped back down to 160ish. I averaged right around 8mpg for the trip.

I can see with the V10 why guys recommend the 4.30 gearing now. There was a few times where I either had to speed up or slow down to find the RPM sweet spot. Would like to turn 2100-2200rpm @ 60, those RPM's I seemed to get the best fuel mileage and still could accelerate some if needed.

Trailer is a 2006 Pilgrim 267BHSS, it's advertised as 30' with a dry weight sticker of 7100lbs. I had a full tank of water, propane, and roughly 500lbs of other stuff so Gross Weight I would guess around 8000. That puts the GCVWR right around 15,000lbs.

I noticed on this trip at 3500rpm + I get a nice ticking noise which I believe is those darn exhaust manifolds, so may use that as an excuse for some headers. Beyond that the 4.56 regearing will run around 3k up here, so not in a rush to do that after this towing experience.

Hopefully this will help some looking for an X as a tow vehicle for RVs.

 

Nice towing report!
Glad to hear that the V-10 is working well for your towing needs, we love ours.

 

Good post.

Yes, that dead spot with the 3.73's is very annoying! Did that for one year hen went to 4.30's......money well spent!

Also my trailer is 7100lbs dry and loaded for a trip is 9200lbs! So don't be surprised if your trailer is heavier than you think!

 

The ticking is detonation/pinging/whatever...
I have it too. Have yet to find what causes it. Might just be coil boots or a bad coil.
I usually don't push it as hard as you. Going up 7% w an 8000lbs trailer at 55 mph isn't bad at all. Did you floor it ?
Did the misfire counter go up ? (if you monitor obd2)
Is it a cali/obd2 model ?

 

So, help me understand the re-gearing. I understand the concept of it keeping the engine in it's RPM band to help keep power to the ground. Now what confuses me is people say it actually increases the "applied" torque to the ground.

When you went from 3.73 to 4.30 did you actually gain additional torque to the ground where you can pull grades better? I saw a post a while back talking about the Engine Power X Transmission X rear gear = actual torque to the ground, but it just didn't quite make sense. They were saying the 4.30 gearing would give it the "applied torque" of what a stock 7.3 Diesel would have.

 

Well, this time I ran 90 octane with the 89 Tow tune. Last time pulling the camper to storage I had the 87 Tow Tune and it did the same thing. Brother has the same sound in his engine and he said he has two bolts that are broken on his manifolds.

I monitored the transmission and engine temps via the SCT X4. I do also have the Torque App via OBD2 which I could toss up on my phone while driving to see if I am getting a bunch of misses.

What I did to pull at 55 was give it enough throttle we will say 75% to get around 3800RPM. That that RPM my transmission temp stayed at 180 and engine temp was at 194. If I floored it I noticed the transmission temp got as high as 200.

First trip out so I was monitoring engine temp / tranny temp / speed and RPM to try and find the sweet spots with the 3.73 gearing.

 

So, the ticking gets worse with more rpm's ? Mine disappears depending on throttle. Sometimes I give more throttle and it disappears. Usually going uphill.

Yes, I use the torque app to monitor the misfires. They usually increase at higher rpm's./speeds.

 

I had the same noise on my 01 F250. Depending on the speed it would come and started to happen more when towing. I found the passenger side had 1 broken manifold bolt then after a while a second one so I decided to remove and replace with new ones. After taking off the manifold I ended up with 8 bolts still in the head, 6 where sticking out enough to get them off with a bolt extractor, but the other two where below the head. That is a frustrating job but solved the problem once I replaced with new gasket and bolts. I want to replace all on the driver side before it has the same problem and i'm sure once I start some of those bolts will break.

 

Good time for headers!

 

YES!!! That is on my list after the gears go into tomorrow. I had called about the 4.88 liked you mentioned in another post but it would take another couple weeks to get them as they are booked out so I'm gong to keep the 4.56's. Hoping I don't regret it later. I guess they'll be a lot better than the 3.73's I have now.

 

I called around for the 4.56's with the 285/75/16's, going for 2900 up here. Will need to convince the wife over the winter to let me get the headers and the gears done. Amazon is selling the Doug Thorley headers that will actually ship prime (free) to Alaska.

 

I called around here too and Jack-It a local 4x4 shop wanted 2500.00 and said I may need a new carrier ( which I don't think is correct ) so I called Six States and they said 1850.00 parts and labor and all they do is axles/gears etc. Hope all goes well. I'll be having that same conversation with my wife over the winter. I think when I replace the driver manifold I will express the pain and agony it is and we really should install headers so we don't have the same problem in the future. Hopefully it works!

 

Glad to hear the trip went well! I've found O/D to be totally useless with 3.73's. You have more self restraint then me i still like to run the speed limit or 5 over which keeps my foot in it a lot, with my foot mashed to the floor most of the time haha

I want to go with 4.56's also but the cost is up there. I have not heard a lot of good things about the Doug Thorley headers for the V10, most go with Banks it seems.

 

Yeah I called over to Young's Gear and they wanted 2900, Alaska Transmission and Gear quoted around 2400 for the 4.56. I was surprised with the 89 tow tune I could hold 55-60 in OD on the flats, didn't think I could do that. Going out again this weekend going to drop it to the 87 tow tune and see how it does. I can't image the tune is adding that much power, more shift strategy / torque management.

Eventually I want this thing to just see tow duties and bad snow days. But for now it's a daily driver so I really don't want to re-gear since I see a lot of highway driving right now.

 

It's amazing what the tune does for the transmission, much better use of power.

It's been a long time since i even towed with mine, my F-150 has been doing all the towing this summer. I'm debating going up north this weekend for one last camping trip.

I've used Alaska transmission and gear a lot, hard to get a hold of them and get something in but they do good work and stand behind it.