The way I see it, you would have to supercharge a V10 to get the performance a 6.0 gets with about $1500 in mods, 450hp/820tq conservatively. This is also done without hurting mileage as long as your foot is out of it. (flame suit is on now).

Also take a V10 to 8000ft above sea level and watch it choke as it starves for air. To put it into perspective, a V10 at 8000ft has about 235hp because there is no forced induction to compensate. This only matters to people who live or travel to high altitude areas.

I buy a 35-40k vehicle to enjoy it and having diesels out pull me and out accelerate me while getting better mileage isn't my thing. That is why I bought the PSD. I am a huge fan of gas engines, just not in big trucks.

Question is to go PSD or not? IMO, yes!

On edit: after re-reading the post you admitted to being upsidedown, in that case keep the V10!

 

I don't make a ton of money and wasting $5000 on an engine upgrade just for bragging rights that I'll never get my money's worth on isn't my thing. Most of the diesel owners I know personally don't even own trailers-they just have the extra $$ to own top of the line and use them as daily drivers and errand runners.

I only need to pull a trailer which weighs around 6500lbs several times a year and I'll promise you guys that no stock diesel will out acclerate a stock V10 with that load by as wide a margin as a alot of diesel fans would like to think, if at all...certainly won't be $5000's worth of extra acceleration.

Real heavy loads, the diesel will really start to shine, but then again I doubt I'll ever have to pull 10000lbs. But of course if I do, the V10 will handle it.

 

So you paid $5000 bucks for a PSD then added $1500 in mods and it now runs better than a V10 but you can not tow with it? Yeah that was smart! $6500 in a V10 and it will flat out kick you PSD's butt, then again who cares? I don't race I tow and Ford says the truck with the highest (250 350) tow rating they make has a V10 in it not a PSD. In fact the 6.0 is not even offered in the bigger trucks because it is not a work motor but the V10 is, so again a really great choice, you bought a $5000 motor that is not even rated to work.

 

Mountainhound is right and Vegas Su[per Duty is wrong. I am at about 13000 gross (truck and trailer) and I do all the passing. The V10 will flat out blow the doors off the PSD. However, this scenerio will probably change if I were to run a much heavier load. That's when the PSD makes sense.

 

I had a 95' and a 99' PSD, both F-350's and both had dumps, and both pulled better then my 76' F-250, I now have a 04' F-350 V-10, with the 6-speed and 4:30 LS, and it pulls just as good as the PSD I had, all with the same trailer and load,, PSD's got a little better milage,,, but thats it, only alittle, like 2 to 4 mpg better,,,thats not much for a $ 5000.00 extra cost !! And what if you have injector trouble I heard there like $300.00 bucks each,,,,,, I love this V-10 so far, and it would kill the PSD's I had,, I know, I owned both !

Later,,,,,,,,,,Mark

 

Well guys,.....

It's my opinion that gas engines are WAY underrated in these days of trendy diesel trucks.

Both engines have their uses, advantages, and disadvantages.
For me it is important to make use of the most advantages you can according to your own situation.
I am not biased one way or the other- in fact I do not own either of these engines, so you all know my opinion is'int one based on justifying my own purchase choice here.

To me a diesel simply does not make sense for most people- especially not for me. In my own situation the gasoline engine is far SUPERIOR to any diesel engine offering.

I work construction for a living, and I'm almost always stop and go all day long(material supply house, job site, Home Depot, Showroom shop, lunch, home, supermarket, etc.) My next ride has got to have the advantages of;

1.) Drivability
2.) Cheap convenient fuel
3.) Power
4.) Low maintenance
5.) Low cost

For all of these reasons my next ride will be a V10 SD350 SRW 6 spd manual transmission Reg Cab XL w 4.30 axle ratio.

As much as I work a truck I simply cannot justify the added 5000.00 cost of the diesel engine- it also requires WAY more maintenance than I care for. Diesels are not the be all to end all that they are made out to be.
Diesel fuel in my area is a good .10 cents higher than 87octane is.
Couple this with the additional cost in oil changes and the fact that I usually put about 18000 miles a year on my truck and you can see it would take me way too long to re coup the initial investment.
Yes all else being equal a properly maintained diesel will out last a
gasoline engine, a diesel with 100,000 miles on it still has lots of life left-but what about the rest of that truck? It's still going to show the same useage/wear whether gasoline or diesel powered.
Besides at 200,000 miles with a V10, if I really wanted to, I could simply throw in a rebuilt engine for less than what the diesel option would have cost me up front. MPG the diesel by all accounts is not that far ahead- 3-4MPG maybe 5 with full loads.

I've contemplated this for awhile. I have been actually thinking of three trucks;
1.) GMC(Not Chevy) 2500HD 8.1L 2wd 6 speed manual
2.) Ford SD350 SRW 2wd V10 6 speed manual
3.) Dodge 2500 2wd Cummins diesel 6 speed manual
( I would not personally even consider the duramax or 6.0L PSD)

As you can see I'm not brand biased at all. In fact my brother just recently opened his own small business shuttling horses to different race tracks and sales events, he also watches these horses during the nights of the sales. When he asked me my thoughts on what truck would best suit his needs, I without hesitation told him "Dodge 3500 Cummins diesel / 6speed".
He did buy this truck and has been happy with it-for him it was a no brainer- he will put well over 40,000 miles on that truck by the middle of this year. He took advantage of what diesels have to offer- consistent performance at high altitudes, and better fuel
milage.
I cannot say the same thing. I know the diesel will not suit my needs as well as the gasoline truck will. I put way fewer miles on my truck than my brother so I will not benefit from fuel savings like he will, also my miles are much harder miles-lots of in town stop and go- with a 5000 lb trailer, and a bed full of equiptment.

It is also a fact that the V10 will out pull the 6.0L diesel with 4.30 gearing. I suspect that if two comparable trucks were consistently pulling deliberately overloaded trailers- WAY overloaded-that the diesel would probably have a perfomance edge-at the least it would last longer under this additional stress-but within the capabilities of the trucks that these engines come in the V10 will pull the load better than the diesel will to a point.

Many diesel buffs would consider this heresy on my part, but it is a fact. In fact the GM 8.1L will outpull ANY diesel pickup being offered today, but it just so happens that I like the SD truck a bit better-enough for me to buy it over the GMC.
This is what I mean by gas engines being way under rated today.
Diesel owners think that no gasser will pull like their diesels will-that's simply not true. The advantage of the diesel is not that it will pull more-it won't, it's that it will last longer doing the same job a gasoline engine does and offers better fuel milage while doing it, in addition to better performance at altitude.
For sheer pulling capacity, which is within the GCWR limits that these trucks were designed for- the V10 and 8.1L are actually slightly better pullers.

For me the choice is as clear as it was for my bro-and I will be getting a SD 350 with V10.

 

You guys have seemed to miss some important issues in my post.

*A V10 will lose about 3% per 1000ft elevation in power.
*Horsepower and torque can be increased in a PSD without affecting fuel economy.

Each to his own but put 10,000 lbs behind a V10 and a 6.0, drive them over the Eisenhower Pass at 11,000ft and lets see who pulls better. I don't only drive my truck in Vegas. I drive high in elevation sometimes and a non-forced inducted truck will lose power. And yes I know there is only so much a stock turbo is going to compensate for.

I don't look at it as a $5000 price difference. Everyone negotiates different deals, some may pay 5k more, some may not.

The V10 is a great powerplant. I just feel the PSD works better for my needs which is power in any altitude and the ability to add big power for very little cost and keep great fuel economy.

 

I have an actual use for my PSD so in my case "bragging rights" is not even a consideration.

 

If you pull the grades often, then the diesel is a better choice. It is great that you are happy with your decision. My V10 would be miles behind you if I had the same trailer as yours.

The only problem I have is most diesel owners flat out bad mouth the V10 and I automatically go on the offensive. I may have over reacted to you - sorry. The bottom line is that both engine have an equal amount of positives and negatives. I do believe that the V10 is under rated and as a result - often ridiculed.

I pull a puny 4000 pound trailer and a 2000 pound boat ( I have a doubles endorsement). I was camping and a bunch of diesel owners were bad mouthing my little V10. They shut up big time when I hooked up the combination. SInce I was on a roll, I did not have the heart to tell them that it was only 6000 pounds for the two trailers

 

I have always given the nod to the PSD if mountains are in the mix but in Louisiana, well the biggest hills are made by ants.

 

Well, thats 6000lbs more than 90% of the diesel owners I know locally pull...because they don't own any trailers and have never even towed with their powerful diesel pickups!

Of course that doesn't stop them from telling me how much more powerful their diesels are than my gasoline powered truck every time I talk to one of them!

Oh I almost forgot. My one neighbor has a really powerful '02 GMC Duramax he uses to pull a 2-place Waverunner trailer. I loaned him a hitch bar and pin so he could go pick them up. Think it weighs about 1500lbs.

 

That's silly...

The 6.0L will probably be offered later down the road but Ford needs all the parking lot & pavement queens to pay for the tooling first.

PSDs can work. I think gassers are chosen in some applications to keep the GVWR in line when more equipment used by the end consumer is loaded onto the platform.