You guys want to see some strange looks on faces, look at people when they look over and see my F-550 4x4, and see the V-10 badge on the fender!! Just blows them away, wondering why a V-10. I also have a F-250 CC with the PSD. Both trucks are excellent and will pull all I ask them too, just decided on the 550 to go with the V-10, no regrets, plus the added benefit of the looks and questions.

 

Ford 'pushes' the PSD for the obvious reason, the most profit. After spending a while in the car business we salesman learned that the money was in the options, a $6,000 diesel option has probably $2,000+ profit to add to the bottom line. That leaves $4,000 to the factory. So lets say the PSD is wholesale maybe $5,000, and the V-10 is $4,000, there's an extra grand in the factories pocket. I remember when the Expeditions came out, Ford was bragging about clearing $10,000 on each one, that's around 25% of the price as profit. Granted that may not have included developmental costs, but that's a heck of a dip.

I see the 300hp ratings of the new 3-valve 5.4, but I tell ya, I sure have a hard time feeling it. The original 235 hp 5.4 was underpowered for it's rating I thought, the 260 hp variant felt the same. And until you get the new 5.4 up on the pipe so to speak, it feels the same to me as the others. Maybe the trannys were programmed differently, but they all felt wheezy and sloppy. The second I drove my V-10, I was sold, no doubt about it, I loved it. It felt tight, torquey, the fan wasn't on all the time fighting the engine like the 5.4's always felt like. There was instant pedal to speed feedback. I tell ya, it's big, bulky, ill handling, hard to park, blah, blah, but when I nail it, even with the older V-10, and with it even being a van with the lower hp ratings, I still LOVE IT ! I love that sound the 10 cylinders make, I love the revs, I love the torque. I just couldn't get behind the diesels, they were cool for what they were, and I started buying them before they were trendy, I had a 6.9 so after an ATS turbo and a bunch of other stuff I had to go back to a 460 in an 89 SC 4X4. In 91 the gas mileage took it's toll and I bot a new SC 4X4 F-150 with a 5 liter and a Mazda 5 speed. A new 24' bunkhouse demanded a 7.3 non-IDI 4X4 F-350 crew. But, who can leave well enough alone ? 36" Buckshots, a 4" lift, light bars, all that and I was getting beat out of the lights by school busses. So a new 95 PSD came my way, but the bloom was already fading off the rose and the diesels had worn me thin. I had custody of all three kids by then so a conversion van came home with me. We flat wore that dude out, 275,000 miles. That little 302 stayed together I have no idea how, it towed our camper, it made 100 mph trips to the coast, it was awesome, but, the strain wore it out, so a V-10 was next. I love it to death, I've had it longer than any of my previous Fords, I just can't part with it, not yet, it only has 106,000 on it.

 

For me one of the biggest reasons was the $4500 extra the PSD cost and the rebate was $2500 for the gassers and only $2000 for the PSD so it came out to a 5k difference to get PSD over a V10. It seems like Ford is pushing the V10 with the lower price and higher rebates. I would have thought they were trying to flood the market until I read the below post about only 15% being V10's.

With the V10 only $600 more than the 5.4, it's easier to justify the power for $600 vice $5k. Best bang for the buck!<O</O

 

My V10 does not get less gas milease than my former F150. I can tow my boat better (sometimes I almost forget its there) and my wife feels very much secure in it after rolling over in a Ford Explorer two years ago.

Less of a technical reasoning, when I bought my F250 V10 45x4 I got an excellent deal on it which more than makes up for some of the gas price increases. (the guy I bought it from owed Ford $5000 more than I paid him for it)

Everyone has their own reasons for using these larger trucks but until we get serious about alternate transportation sources and fuels we're stuck.

 

Not to forget the fact that the V10 engine plant is constantly at capacity.

 

They are also using the v 10 in industrial applications. I work on generator sets and see quite a few v 10 engines powering up these generators. granted though they are fueled by natural gas or propane, but they also are turbo powered. Wich gets me to think about adapting one to my v10 excurcsion. Lotta work but sure would be cool.

 

wylecoyote

Hey "S u p e r G e n i u s" You must get some detaile pictures of turbo charged V10 and the complete generator maunal, schematics, and any other data you can on that gen set.

Some day I think I may do a 2V V10 plain small sized truck with twin turbos and you have access to a great starting point.

Post up every scrap of info on one of those V10 generators. Create a gallery here at FTE for the photos and spec sheets please.

 

OK I will. Give me some time to get the info together and I will post it for you.

 

dito man! are they 2 valve or 3 valve motors?

 

I am assuming they are 3 valve motors due to the fact that they are new. I will get some more info and get back to you guys.

 

Probably all water pumps and generators are the 2 valve versions.

The real benifit of the 3 valve with variable plenum was street and tow ability. Most pumps and gen sets are run at a constant rpm and governed to add or reduce power as loads change.

Evey wonder why they would use a big V10 on pumps and generators?

Power to weight, and fuel consumption. AND the V10 has a smoother power shot and can make a generator much more stable over a broader range of loads. The 60 Hertz AC voltage does not float between 58-62 hertz like many generators are prone to.

 

Actually the ability for a generator to hold its stability (60Hz) is in the govener. An elect gov will keep the generator at 60 Hz while a mechanical gov can be preset and thats about it. With the mechanical gov it will hold a certain amount of load for a certain amount time until the load increases so much it takes the engine down with it because there is nothing to give it more fuel, with the elec gov the gov controls the throttle to give it more or less fuel to componsate for load.Most of the newer gensets have an electronic gov, Its been a long time since I have seen a linkage holding the throttle open on a genset. At least gas anyway, there are still alot of diesels out there with mech gov's with a preset rpm range. Usually around 61Hz and as the load increases the cycles start to drop to around 60 Hz at 1/2 load to 59 Hz at full load.. Sorry I guess I am rambling on. I should have some info on that turbo v10 tomorrow.

 

Someone here at this forum posted some links to the V-10 Ford gensets, it's been probably 3 years, but I saw them here, after I bot my first V-10.

 

My only previous experience with a diesel is my current 95 Chevy Silverado 3500 6.5 turbo . It had 65,000 miles on it when purchsed 2 years ago. Since then I've gone through several fairly large repair bills, related to fuel problems, etc.

But, when I finally decided I couldn't rely on this truck like I need to for my business, I ordered a new F350 4by4 dually with V10/auto. As I'm waiting for it to show up {a couple weeks from now} I've revisited this site to reconfirm the wisdom I had in choosing the V10 over the 6. liter.

I've seen plenty of guys tooling down the road actually using their diesels in ways they needed the diesel for. But I've seen far far more who just wanted the diesel for "other" reasons...obviously. I say get whatever you want for whatever reason.

But, besides all the problems I've read about with this current Ford diesel, there is the extra care, treatment, and attention one needs to pay in maintaining the thing. And I've just started to notice all the commercial vehicles on the road, which use nothing more than V10s 0r V8s...vehicles which work far harder, on a daily basis, than most guys using their trucks do. Gas milage aside, which seems to be to close to factor in given diesel's current cost, and the tendancy to greatly inflate the MPG by some diesel owners, I think it's obvious which choice ultimately makes the most sense from strictly financial and reliability considerations.

Anecdotally....I have a friend with a mid 90s Ford cube van with V10 which has 197,000 miles on it. It sounds great. The biggest thing he's ever had to do is replace the radiator. And my mechanic, who is completely diesel trained and certified, said he'd never buy one unless he was hauling major loads reqularly. These last 2 bits of info sent me over to the V10 {not to mention the five grand "thing"}....after ofcourse reading bunches and bunches of posts from Ford 6-liter diesel owners who may even still "love" their diesels, but are discussing all the little problems they are having with them> I don't really want to own a truck as a hobby...I just want to get into a comfortable reliable truck, start it up and go...to work, to work with it, to get fuel ANYWHERE they sell fuel, And know as long as I maintain it...100,000 miles from now it will sound and run just as good as my 98 Ranger V6 does 106,000 miles later.

Whichever one decides to go with, it's great how far vehicles have come since the dreaded 70s-80s.

Last thot is, this Ford Truck site is by far one of the greatest reasons for an internet.

 

The Power Stroke in the E-series chassis is only rated at 235hp and 425lb due to the smaller engine compartment. The intake ducting is cramped and restrictive, and they cant run with the F-series diesels because of cooling problems at that level of performance. So the E-series Power Stroke is under rated, not saying its bad but the performance isnt what you would expect. Oh and the other thing the E-series PSD isnt intercooled like the F-series. Not sure why the V10 is used in so many of the larger motorhomes though. My boss has one with a V10 dont think hes gonna be using it much this summer.