Gas vs Diesel

[bobbywalter]

My dads e250 with 351 with 200k on it loaded to the top with tools got 17

wow. my 351 e250/e350 with 410 and e4od got 9 town 14-15 hiway the c6 truck did 9 town 12-13 hiway. the 300 six truck was worse...all of those trucks were beat though. not like i had them from new.


i have used/seen 351 broncos that got 21 hiway and 1/2 ton pickups in hi teens. way way rare.

diesel ford pickups get the worst mpg of the diesels in my experience in the general. the chevy and dodge do much better.


my psd van unladen from a trailer, but weighing 9k with tools and equipment with 2-300 foot of ladder and picks on the roof....runs 16-21 hiway....never out of teens town.

3.55 gears with 235 85 tires, e4od.



i have noticed for some reason in pa guys get way better economy then we do in flatland michigan. i dont know if its simply the oxygenated fuel or the terrain differences.

 

[country0001]

I'm not a fan of the 351W. I have had one in my 92 F150, and my 302 was a lot better. When my truck was still 2wd, I averaged 16mpg. There was one rare occasion that I got 20 mpg. But I had a heavy tailwind.

Now onto newer motors, my gf's truck is a '12 F150 4 door with an ecoboost 3.5. Those trucks are awesome. It averages 22 mpg on the highway. I have towed my B2 on a 16 foot trailer with it and got 17 mpgs.

My new work truck is also a '12 F150 extended cab with the new 5.0. I'm averaging 16 mpg with it running for a straight 8 hours. It'll get over 20 on the highway.

 

[Ozwynn]

I'm not a fan of the 351W. I have had one in my 92 F150, and my 302 was a lot better. When my truck was still 2wd, I averaged 16mpg. There was one rare occasion that I got 20 mpg. But I had a heavy tailwind.

Now onto newer motors, my gf's truck is a '12 F150 4 door with an ecoboost 3.5. Those trucks are awesome. It averages 22 mpg on the highway. I have towed my B2 on a 16 foot trailer with it and got 17 mpgs.

My new work truck is also a '12 F150 extended cab with the new 5.0. I'm averaging 16 mpg with it running for a straight 8 hours. It'll get over 20 on the highway.

see, no need for a diesel unless you're gonna tow heavy or brew your own fuel.

 

[jrpdash9]

Not going to stop me from using one for a daily

 

[bobbywalter]

see, no need for a diesel unless you're gonna tow heavy or brew your own fuel.

thats summing it up these days till you look at the diesels they could use and dont.

 

[Schnot]

If you can afford it buy a diesel. Preferrably a standard trans. With some searching you'll be able to find a great 2wd truck for less than 10k.

It'll tow anything you want, wherever you want, and will last a long long time if you take care of it. 6000 lbs is a joke. I'd hardly know that was behind my f350. I pull 23000 every day down the road at 70mph and drop to. 55 on steep hills. The truck that I use for work has about 609,500 miles on it.


Cost of ownership in the long run works out to be less than a gasser because of the longevity. I run conventional oil at 5k changes but I know guys running synthetic with centrifugal oil filters running 20-50k oil changes. The oil doesn't break down it just gets full of the black soot that wears parts.

My trucks are
2001 f350 4wd crew cab long bed, zf6 standard trans. 220,000mi ~19mpg empty
2001 f350 2wd dually extended cab zf6 500,000mi ~22mpg empty
2000 f550 2wd crew cab 4r100 automatic 609,000 miles ~15 mpg empty (low mpg because of the 4.88 rears)

They're all modded and chipped. If you want to know more feel free to ask.

 

[markwilliam429]

Diesel fuel has a higher energy density than gasoline. If you are going for towing, yearns for good fuel economy and plans to rack up loads of miles. Diesel is for you!!

 

[MastuhWaffles]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't diesels now have a special fluid you have to run in them now? I believe you have to get it changed every 5k miles... I know Dodge doesn't use it, thats what they sell on.

 

[bobbywalter]

dodge uses it

 

[Schnot]

It's urea injection into the exhaust. It basically cleans up the exhaust to help the environment. And you don't change it. There's a tank that you put the fluid in. It lasts a long time but I don't know for sure how long it lasts. I think it depends on the particular motor and how hard it's used.

And dodge/cummins now uses it as of their 2013 models. Prior to that, they were the only ones that met the emission standards without using it.


Sent from my iPhone.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

I've looked into this topic a lot....and I have pretty much decided on a big gasser. Cheaper buy in, cheaper matinence, cheaper fuel, etc etc. I tow a 7000 lb camper and I think my next tow rig when my 77 needs to retire will be a 92-96 with a 351/460 or a super duty with rge V10.

 

[Will]

We have a 15-passenger van with a diesel. We took it to Florida in March with 7 people, a motorcycle and 6 bicycles on the back, 2- 12' ocean kayaks on the roof and the gear of a lot of other people, piled in the place where the removed 4th row goes, that flew down instead of driving. We made 21mpg. That's over the mountains in Tennessee and the works. My wife's Honda Pilot gets 22mpg empty.

The 5.8--I have to tell this story again: probably 10 years ago several of us from down here in the Southern Indiana area made a trip to Wellsville, Ohio--360 miles each way. We both had similar B2s on similar 16' utility trailers--the type made of angle iron with rails. One truck was a '96 2wd F250 auto with a 5.8. The other was a '90 2wd 2500 Chevy with a 6.2 diesel and a Banks turbo.

What happened was, well, bad. The 2500 went a steady 70 up and down hills and made 16mpg. The F250 went 85 down the hills to keep up and got 8mpg. The 2500 never filled up and the F250 stopped twice for fuel. The F250 would pass the 2500 on the downhills then recede into the slow lane and the diesel would cruise past on the uphill. I used to tow my B2 with a 5.7 2500 and had the same experience. Lots of downshifting and revs on hills and really bad mileage.

I like gas motors and they have their use. They start easier in the winter. The parts are cheaper. They are better for short work and the suffer neglect. But if you are serious about hauling, gassers really suck. The magic is in the turbo. You can't do real work with a normal gasser and a turbo, but the direct injection turbo motors, like the Ecoboost, show promise.

But there are chinks in the armor of Ecoboost. Why isn't it sold in the Superduty? it was advertised with all those amazing videos of it doing crazy things, but it's only in the F150. And then there is THIS

Like I said, the magic is in the turbo. If Ford really had it figured out, the F350 would have the Ecoboost 3.5 in it--it's definitely powerful enough. Their marketing people think it can handle the bass boat F150 crowd, but not the track loader F350 crowd. Maybe it's too big a step for even the F150.

But no naturally aspirated motor is going to make it with me when it comes to towing. And none are going to give the mileage of the barely working 7.3 Powerjoke designed for Class-7 trucks and pushing a 9,000# van down to Florida on vacation.

 

[bigmark303]

The Cummins is the only thing that sells Dodge. Great engine but the rest of the truck is unreliable and expensive to maintain. Almost every guy on the crew I work with has had a Dodge at one point and they sold for Powerstroke Fords mostly for the reliability and cheaper parts.

The 1994-1997 F250 and F350 with the 7.3L Turbo IMO is the best all around truck. Had and still have many in the company and they have been nothing but dead reliable and beyond cheap to maintain when compared to Dodge and Chevy. All of them are chipped and tuned for better power and mileage. Tuning the diesels yeilds a lot in engine performance and mileage gains. Way more than gas engines.

But on the other hand the 1994-1997 F250 and F350 with the 460ci Gas engine is an even cheaper and just as reliable alternative to the diesel 7.3L. Had and still have a bunch of the 460ci trucks and they make the same power as the Turbo diesels in stock form. They get 15mpg at best unloaded and 7-12mpg when hauling. Not really a large drop from the diesels mileage. I have had those trucks tuned as well after installing the pre emissions era 460ci heads and pistons from the old Lincoln 460ci engines I had. The 460ci are pushing about 360hp and 520ft-lbs now and still getting 12-14mpg unloaded and 6-9mpg loaded. Very Very reliable and ridiculously cheap to maintain and run. The only expense ive had with 460ci trucks has really just been fuel cost over the years.

For an everyday truck Fords are by far the cheapest and most reliable. You really wont get much mileage wise, gas or diesel out of a truck capable of hauling 8,000+ pounds. Youd be better off picking the more reliabel and cheaper to maintain one.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

My biggest thing about a diesel is cost. I can get a nice 99-04 super duty gasser for almost exactly the same cost as a 92-96 diesel.

 

[Will]

My biggest thing about a diesel is cost. I can get a nice 99-04 super duty gasser for almost exactly the same cost as a 92-96 diesel.

Cost to repair as well. A new Powerstroke injector cost $800--and there are 8 of them. A rebuilt one is $400. A modern diesel injection system has to deal with pressures up to 30,000psi compared to only 50psi in a gas system. The parts are shockingly expensive. Most of it is very reliable, but if you buy an old 7.3, you better be aware of what you are getting into.

The old Lincoln 460s can't burn pump gas if you squeeze them that hard. They don't work in a truck. I had one that I dropped the compression on down to 9.8 and mirror polished the chambers trying to keep detonation from having a place to start from. It still wouldn't take much timing. There's a reason truck motors in the past ran 7.5ish compression. If I had tried to do with that 460 what I do with my 6.2 it would have turned into a lump of shit.

A proper truck 460 is a 400ft# motor, but the revs at that torque are 1,000rpm higher than the diesel. That means you are down a gear from a diesel with a turbocharger on it. You have to spin it more to get the same air that a turbodiesel has available. Even my lowly 6.2 makes almost a whole atmosphere of boost. It's 379cid, but is sucking in 700cid worth of air. This fact is very hard for people to understand.

A 444cid 7.3 pulling 10psi of boost at 1,500rpm is equal to a 460, which makes suction, not boost, running at 2,600rpm. You can probably beat a stock 7.3 if you put the hammer to the floor and let the engine spin, because a 460 has a lot more revs to play with than a 7.3. But that's not useful in towing a trailer. The turbodiesel doesn't downshift on hills. It sits there right at the torque peak the whole time. It can get great mileage. My schoolbus-camper weighs 20,000# and after I regeared it for the highway, gets 13-15mpg. My 413 Dodge motorhome was lucky to get 7 mpg, and was less than 1/2 the weight. The 413 was 245hp and the bus is 185hp--but those numbers don't mean anything. What matters is the horsepower it makes in the gear you are in, at the speed you are at, at the rpm you are at. The bus has almost 5" of stroke and a turbo that makes 19psi of boost. It's moving a hell of a lot of air at 1,700psi and making a lot of power. The 413 is moving about 75% of an atmosphere through it--it pulls about 2" of vacuum at WOT, has a relatively short stroke so it has to spin fast to move air--just like the 460.

Point is, yeah, if we raced my 6.2 turbo against your 460, you would blow me out. But that's not what towing is about. I go for hours and hours. You try to keep up, you are going to be downshifting on hills to find the torque and I'm going to get 2-3X the mileage. I'm out there on the highway a lot--going to Iowa Monday in the bus, and it's a competition with both the semis and RV haulers. Very rarely does a guy with even the awesome 6.8 V10 hotrod it on the hills. They have to dig deep to use that 350+hp, and it doesn't fit the style of driving long-distance towing uses. They probably only get to see 300ft# of torque.

The magic is in the turbocharger. I would use a 460 to pull a machine locally. I would never leave town with it ahead of an RV. I don't like the stress of working the engine hard (turbodiesels don't work hard--it's very calming to sit there with the engine at low-rpm and the turbo singing).

Gas is great for a truck that just beats around and does incidental work. You don't want to set up a LTL business with it, though. You would have to sleep in the truck in the Wal-mart parking lot and eat ramen noodles.