The tires were bigger (35") on the 7.3 but I was also running over stock size (33"). Mine fairly new to the 7.3 with some miles on them. You are actually saying this difference in tire size is why the 7.3 could not get over 35mph the whole way up?

The weight was not to offset the tire's or engine! It was to offset the configuration (i.e. CC/LB, CC/SB vs SC/SB) difference only.

 

Here, getting rid of your 7.3 is like abandoning your child. Took me 2 years to find a clean one with only 100k. Talking to some mechanics at the ford dealer that got closed down, if there were a 7.3, 6.0, 6.4, and 6.7 lined up and they could choose any truck for free they would get the 7.3. I just wish i could get a 7.3 with the 2011 body and interior.

 

Gasoline is from $.25-$.40 less than diesel is here.
The 7.3L truck was a '96 Supercab SRW with a manual trans.
The 6.8L truck is an '06 Supercab dually with the Torqshift.
What was wrong with it? It ate 3 pistons in the original 7.3L with only 170K miles on it. The reman'd replacement had just over 130K miles on it,and after the 2nd turbo and about a half dozen injectors-the boss got tired of paying the repair bills. Fixed it and sold it. Good riddance. The first 100K miles were commuting miles-it was the boss's personal truck that he towed a boat around with some,and had maintained regularly like the rest of our fleet.
To be totally fair,that's the only bad experience I've had with a 7.3L. But it was enough to prevent us from buying another diesel for work here.
JL

 

No, "all V10 guys here say how they can tow better" is NOT TRUE. We (most of us) aren't saying that. What we are saying is that we can tow AS WELL or CLOSE TO as well.

You mean those "hot shot" 5-car haulers that are overweight? Let's not even go there. Let's stick to the SUPERDUTY, with a PSD or a V10 WITHIN WEIGHT RATINGS.

Yes, let's take my V10 and "see all the diesel trucks fly passed". Sorry, I live in New York, ain't gonna be me But I daresay, you might get a V10'er to try it - or better yet, tell you how they already did it.

 

I have said that at least 50 times.


It was a CC/LB vs a super crew short bed and the weight was to even that out.
I argee with you on though.

Anything would. What makes you think that it will show any more than a PSD?
Its just as durable and even more reliable.

I would for any amount of weight that an F550 or smaller can pull.

 

second that motion. i would rather have a 2005 truck with a 7.3.

 

I have said many times that in 3.55 vs 3.55 the diesel has the advantage getting the load moving or in auto vs auto with the same gearing. I don't deny that one bit. BUT, the v10 having the ability to turn more rpm's allows it to run steeper gearing and still be usable. Put a 4.88 in a psd and you will be able to pull a house off the foundation in 1st gear, but you will be in 5th gear by the time you hit 40 mph. Kajtek can barely run 70-75 with his with only a 4.30.

Now, to your question. If you have a 7.3 with 870 tq at 2,000 rpm then you are making 331 hp at 2,000 rpm also. Let's say you have a 4.10 and a manual. At 2,000 rpm your tractive force is going to be 20,452. At that same point my 5.4 is going to be making 7,415. In this case I won't even be able to sniff what yours can pull. You aren't going to get very far or go very fast mph wise with that kind of gearing and only 3,000 rpm though. You will be shifting to 2nd when I am just hitting my powerband. When mine is in 1st at 4,500 rpm yours will be in 2nd at 2,300 rpm(I will assume 850 tq since it will be less than peak). With you in 2nd at 2,300 rpm and me in 1st at 4,500 rpm our tractive forces are 10,229 for yours and 7,112 for mine. Still a big gap, but not as big as it was before. I can pull another 1,000 rpm in 1st easily, at which point you will be in 3rd at 1,500 rpm(unable to downshift to 2nd due to the wide gear spacing between 2nd and 3rd, trust me, I own the truck with a 4.10). Since your turbo needs time to spool up and peak tq is at 2,000, I will assume you are making about 800 tq here. Mine has pulled a couple hundred rpm past peak hp, so I will subtract 15 hp from it. Our tractive forces are now 5,274 for you and 5,475 for mine. At this point I have to shift and yours is going to spool up and triple me in power again. Then we repeat the cyle again.

Can mine keep up with yours(in that set up) in a shoot out? Not a chance in hell. Won't even be close. But even though there are certain speeds you will triple me in power output, there will also be speeds where I am capable of being two gears below you and putting more power to the ground. That is comparing a wildly modified 7.3 against a bone stock 2v 5.4 though.

Edit-compared to my stock 7.3 with 4.10 gears it is a totally different story(if Bill can't have his turbo then the 7.3 can't have mods either). The tractive force for the 7.3 is 10,010 in 1st at 2,000 rpm(7,415 for my 5.4), 4,977 in 2nd at 2,300 rpm(5.4 still in 1st at 4,500 rpm is 7,112). 7.3 in 3rd at 1,550 rpm is 2,637(5.4 still in 1st at 5,500 rpm is 5,475).

 

If turning 4500 rpms is going to blow an engine up then it isn't worth sitting in my driveway, much less towing my trailer. I have a 5.0 Bronco with an automatic and 3.73 gears and trust me, it has seen more than its share of 4-5k rpm climbs and it still runs like brand new with 217k miles on it. I have seen my share of gassers blow up by 150k miles, but I have seen my share of psd's blow up by 150k miles too. Ask Bill what happens to that reliable 7.3 when you don't maintain the coolant. Maintenance, more than anything, is the biggest factor in reliablity.

No one is arguing that the diesel isn't the better option for a semi. Though I doubt any of our trucks are going to be pulling the loads a semi is. Three of my most common towing trips are from Kingsport to Florida, Kingsport to Ohio and Kingsport to West Virginia. I can count the number of times my 5.4 hits 4k rpms on each of those trips on one hand. The rest of the time it is cruising in 5th at 2000-2300.

But at the same time, if gearing isn't important then why don't those semi's have a 2.70 1st gear and get the load moving with all that low end engine torque?

 

One of the reasons bigger trucks use diesels is that the big cylinder size, and low cylinder count, are still somewhat efficient burning diesel, compared to running gasoline.

You don't see a humongous gas engine running a locomotive, because you can't burn gas in a cylinder that big without LOTS of spark plugs And you wouldn't run a 100-cylinder gas engine anyway. Diesel, on the other hand, when mixed with the air in a consistent manner, generally fires all at once (I know, that's not entire accurate, but you get the idea).

In small engines, and by small, I mean less than 10 liters, with 8 cylinders, 10, whatever, it gets to be more of a wash.

 

if we're going down that road, I would take the 5.9 Cummins in a Ford body.

 

I actually did look for a good 7.3 before buying my V10, just couldn't find one.

I also sold my 7.3 for my V10. engine was fine, but the 14 year old truck was falling apart around the engine.

 

My bad. Sorry.

 

Not me. Back in the 90's I was towing every weekend though, and we bought a 7.3 for that. Now that I don't show horses or run on any show circuits, it down to more like once a month, so I went back to gas engine.

 

Hrmm...so lots of people think Andrew's 7.3L wasn't working right that day.

That was the only 7.3L truck I've ever driven, so I don't have much to compare it to. But the CEL wasn't on, and it seemed to me that it was running as it should. Turning up his chip yielded huge power gains, and we had every intention of running the hill again with the chip turned up, but we might have burned it down if we tried.

I would really like to set up something like this again in the future, but now that I live 750 miles away it certainly wouldn't be as easy. But if we can set one up again, we should have more than a week's notice. I would invite anyone with what they consider to be a properly running STOCK 7.3L truck to come out and try and do better.

kx450frider617, you saw the videos, right? So you saw how Mike's 2000 V10 with your PSD-like 3.73 gears was able to accelerate up a 15% hill from a standing start while overloaded by at least 2,000 lbs. Am I missing something here?

 

Im saying if you ran an engine at its max TQ/ HP rpm constantly UNTIL i blows up, the one with lower rpm will last longer. Thats why diesel last longer also, they run at lower rpms which equals less wear. And ive seen a 7.3 almost last 800k when a gasser will last 200k when taken care of.