i have a 00 ex, 7.3 with an intake, exhaust, bullybog chip, aih delete, and a boost fooler. the rest is stock except for a big trans cooler and 285 goodyear sa.tires. im racing at a differant track that is alot further away, 70 mi, and i haul a 10000gvw enclosed 30ft trailer. question is what do i do to make this ex tow stable? i have a weight distributing hitch, but it seems like a little unstable at 70 mph. also i cant pull a grade in any chip position other than stock without my egt going up to 1400. how can i keep this down? should i put 410 gears in it to get some torque back i lost with the bigger tires? 6.0 intercooler? any ideas or incite into your setup would be appreciated. thanks

 

I think your mods may be incompatible with heavy towing. You could try new gears, but you've got a lot of trailer there. I'd remove the chip/tune first. It's probably adding a bunch for fuel to get more HP/torque, which drives up the EGT. The 7.3 should be able to handle that trailer without a chip.

 

At the risk of sounding like an old man......I'll address this portion of your post...


SLOW DOWN!

Towing that much trailer at 70mph...man your stones are much larger and harder than mine!

Seriously...I'm not sure why the need for running that fast in the first place...I've towed my 9000# travel trailer all over this country...I run 63 most of the time and when needed for short periods I'll run 70...but it is not the norm...63-65 is my normal cruising towing speed...and I actually feel that is a tad too fast...but I need to make some time...

If the problem is that at 65 you are out of the power band for your motor...I'd say your big tires have done you no favors...either re-gear to regain the 3.73 final drive or change to smaller tires...

Is the trailer stable when you slow down? Have you been to a CAT scale to verify that you have minimum 10% of the LOADED trailer showing up as tongue weight?...12-13% would actually be better...but you have to balance the tongue load to stay within the receiver rating in WD mode (your receiver is very likely rated at only 1000#'s tongue in WD mode since you have a 2000 model year Ex...but that is just a guess...check the sticker on the reciever to be sure).

Also have you visited the CAT scale to insure that when you are hitched up with WD engaged...you have returned your front axle weight to its pre-hitched weight?...this is very important from a stability standpoint.

Also...are your tires E-range tires or D-range?...another big influence in stability and what tire pressures are you running?

What tire pressures are you running on the trailer?...are they ST rated tires you have on the trailer?...if so...they are only speed rated to 65mph...

Do you have a rear sway bar on the Ex?

Have you had your ball joints and other front end components looked at recently?...how many miles are on the Ex?

Does the trailer handle the same both going to and returning from the track?...meaning...is loading the same both ways from carried fuel, water, food or other expendible items gone on the way home and is the stability handle any better or worse on these different legs of the trip?...there may be a clue here...

There are many factors that can contribute to instability...speed tends to accentuate a poor setups instability...thus slowing down really helps keep things in check...you say you are using a WD hitch...do you have any type of sway control on the hitch?...friction bar would be the absolute minimum you should have...but ideally a Dual Cam device or Equal-I-Zer BRAND hitch would be much preferred for that much weight.

Hope this helps...and I'm only 44 years old...so I'm not that much of an old geezer!

Joe.