This should be fun. New Jersey to Austin to New Orleans to Danville VA then back home...34', two race cars, Lord knows how much GCVW...watch the news!

https://www.facebook.com/MaximumAttackMotorsports/

 

WOW! Putting that 7.3 to work! Good luck to you and stay safe out there.

 

We didn't die. At least not yet.

Trip from NJ to Austin then to New Orleans was mostly uneventful. Truck pulls GREAT with the DP tuner, trans temps never above 155 in current weather (6L cooler). Brakes are incredible, mostly due to the three axles. We put it across the scales and that trailer is right around 15,000 pounds, all 34' off it.

Swaying was a bit troublesome around trucks. Typical Excursion assy-ness. Rear Helwig, rear airbags, HD Roadmaster, load bars and friction anti-sway and it was still a constant sawing back and forth. We think it's the 16" wheels and tires? That's really all that's left.

We left the rig down there and will be coming home after a race in New Orleans next month. I found some 20" wheels and 10-ply "E" tire take-offs from a 2017 F-250 down there, bought 'em and will be shipping down wheel spacers to try for the drive home.

Thing pulls dang nice, though.

 

Adding the "Reese SC Weight Distribution System w Sway Control - Trunnion - 10,000 lbs GTW, 600 lbs TW Item # RP66151" when pulling my 24' dual torsion trailer, towing with my 04 Navigator fixed the sway issue. Have yet to tow the trailer with the EX. The Nav has 17" rims with Michelin tires.

 

How much tongue weight do you have? That's a lot of trailer for a friction sway bar.

I have great doubts your solution will be found by adding larger wheels and tires.

 

Only guaranteed way to stop sway with that is with a propride 3P or Hennessey arrow hitch. They are cumbersome but I have the propride and it does eliminate all sway.

 

That giant trailer most likely has more tongue weight than the 1400lb rating of both the Pro-Pride and Hensley Arrow. My 41' TT has 1480lbs of TW with an 11,300lb trailer weight.
"Cumbersome"? How so? I think that my Hensley is easier to hook up and deal with than my old trunion style WD hitch, no messing with mounting spring bars and super simple tensioning of the bars.

 

Plenty of tongue weight, estimated 2,000-2,500#.

The swaying is aerodynamic. If we're cruising down the highway solo, we can run it at 70mph no problem, no swaying, changing lanes, curves, whatever. But if you see a truck coming in the rear view mirror it's time to ride: about midway up the trailer the front of the trailer gets pushed right so the nose of the Excursion goes left and you're steering right, then it flattens, then it goes the other way and you're steering left. Once the truck passes and you correct it causes a yawing oscillation that's easy for the driver to get behind (pilot induced oscillations).

Edit: BTW, for reference I have a similar swaying prob pulling my 28' 10k trailer, and my buddy that owns this 34-foot trailer loaded the same way says it is rock solid behind his Chevy dually. Unfortunately, that Chevy is his work truck so we couldn't leave it down there for the three month duration of this tour.

I got my two buddies riding with me to rock sideways on the quarter panel of the Excursion as we sat at the fuel pumps, and the two guys were easily able to move the *** of the truck sideways six inches. You can really see the tire sidewall flex. That truck just doesn't have the lateral stability of, for instance, a dually.

Wheels/tires may not be the perfect answer, but if nothing else it gives me a fine "safety" excuse to my wife for better-looking wheels... We'll see how it works out in March when we go down to New Orleans.

Any references for decent 2" steel spacers for those 2017 F-250 wheels? I'm aware of WheelAdapter.com but they're pretty proud of those. Also see I can get steel from Stahl's Steel.

 

Following along to see how this all works out. Quite intrigued.

 

Nice results! I know what you mean about when a truck passes and pulls that big windsail you are dragging towards it

Had it this summer with 35' camper behind our Excursion.

Be very aware of underpasses, too- especially when on flat open ground with some wind, then a rising bank/wind block on both sides for the other road to rise up and cross over.

I didn't have a sway bar, which I'll be adding. Ran out of time in this new setup for drilling and mounting, etc.

What is the Excursion hitch rating for all that tongue and trailer weight? I've heard of some replacing it with a different hitch, but not much about it- could have been damaged hitches, too?

Those 3 trailer axles look to be positioned to take a lot of the weight, which should help a lot. But makes the Excursion look tiny. We had the same thoughts when we hooked up our camper. The Ex always looked huge before hitching up

 

The friction sway is definitely not helping your case. Back in the day, even dual friction sways were better than one for a longer trailer, but ideally that isn't the right setup for a long, heavy trailer.

If your WD bars are curved on the back ends, you can move to a dual cam setup pretty cheaply. Mounting them on the tongue does require some drilling, but I suspect you have the tools on board to do that.

I find now that the whole rig moves side to side, as one solid unit, in the lane when passing a truck, but the wiggle isn't too bad. If I haven't pulled in a while, it takes some getting used to, but after a couple hours, I'm back in the groove and planning ahead for it. It might be due to tire sidewall flex, I'm not sure. I'm running stock size 265 Michelins with factory rear axle sway bar.

This brings up a good question- what are your tire pressures at? I would say for hauling that kind of tongue weight, I wouldn't have them any less than 70.

 

80 psi in the rear, 70 in front. Cooper Discoverer H/T Load E; 8-ply I think? Stock size as well, 265/75-16. The ones I bought are 275/65R20 on 8" wheels.

I'm using the stock Class IV hitch. Technically only rated to 10k. Edit: Just looked it up: Class IV good for 14k/1400 when using weight-distributing.

I run a Reese dual-cam on my 24-footer, and I still get sway. Not as bad as this big sail, though...don't recall if Ed's hitch and load bars are curved...

 

Sweet. At least we can rule out low pressure sidewall flex.

I believe the factory hitch is only rated for 1200 lbs tongue weight. Bent the receiver tube on mine with 1700 lbs of tongue weight, so I don't trust them for a lot of weight.

 

BTW, this is a great discussion, thanks for putting in all the info, still following

 

I have 2" aluminum spacers from Performance Wheeladapters, they are well made with grade 10.9 studs and are hub centric, I have towed with them several times, not a single issue. As with any wheel spacer they have to be installed properly, the factory studs can not stick out past the mounting surface of the wheel, the rear was fine but on the front I had to trim about 1/8" off of the studs. I put thread locker on the inner studs and torqued everything down with a torque wrench, be sure to pull the wheels off and check the inner lug nuts after a couple hundred miles of driving. 95% of wheel spacer failures are caused by improper installation, or using the wrong spacer for the application.
Ford 8-Lug Wheel Adapters