Where am I at?

[Cheapthrillb2]

89 crew srw 7.3 5 spd stock I think with 4.10's suppose to be about 120K on it
Just purchased

Yesterday was towing my Truggy on my dual axle trailer would guess the total weight to be in the 7000lb department (truck and trailer combined). I was rolling up a small grade (hill) not very steep or to long. Truck was at about 2500 rpms in 4th gear at about 55mph. Couldn't quite hold the speed and up the hill, was just barely loosing momentum/speed. Didn't matter throttle position. Really didn't want to down shift and jump the rpms over 3.

Would this be about normal for pulling similar situations or should I have down shifted and jumped the rpms up?

I am new in the world of diesels, never grew up around them, never worked on them. But I am auto tech with 10 years in a independent repair facility, just no diesel expeirence.

 

[seawalkersee]

Very usual from what I have read from others. I do not do a lot of pulling with mine as it is more of a driver. The common fix for that is to put some sort of forced induction on it and then it runs better.

SWS

 

[freebird01]

dont hessitate to let it spin....

mine started doing better when i would drop a gear and let it rev. these trucks are capable of running on the throttle stop as long as you got a pyro to watch

 

[Cheapthrillb2]

Haven't gotten one installed yet but is top of the list of things to do once the truck is more up to par for more frequent use.

 

[6 Nebraska IDIs]

Yep, spin it up. My brown truck hauled countless 21,000lb trailer loads of hay before I bought it, and it was N/A for all of it. They dropped a set of 4:10's in the rear and said they never had an issue with pulling. Ran in the upper RPM band though.

 

[RLDSL]

So your towed load was about 7000 combined with your truck which is about another 7000 for a crew cab , so you were grossing around 14000. That;s getting up there a bit. As a general rule of thumb to stay out of trouble, if you can't accelerate at 2/3 throttle, you need to drop a gear to keep from lugging the thing. Much better to back out of it and let the thing wind up in a lower gear to where there is less load on the engine.

 

[Cheapthrillb2]

Wasn't sure just how safe it was to wind it up over 3K being it red lines so low. Like I stated I'm a newb. Need to get the EGT gauge bought and installed.

 

[LCAM-01XA]

Redline is at 3800 rpms, and mine can stay up there just fine while flying low with a 30ft car hauler behind it You'll be alright revving her up.

 

[towcat]

if you're running a load on it, you can run pinned on the governor.
you gotta rev these motors in the hills.

 

[dyoung14]

Driving a diesel is much different than driveing a gasser, when driving a diesel and you come apon a hill when it begins to strugle start lookin fo a lower gear i have learned in mine that when im hauling heavy and climb the mountain as soon as i hit the foot im usaully doing about 60 i will give it third gear right then which is about 3600 rpm the about half way up the mountain i will have to drop to second and i can come over the top doing 30-35 at about 35-3600 rpm, i do it all the time it dont hurt mine, sometimes i be mean to my truck and will peg it on the governer in first secong and third forth is to fast to peg but i know if i blow my engine it was my own fault not anyone elses but im pretty confident it wont blow

 

[Andylad13]

If you want to pull with the torque of the engine, and if the load allows it, pull at 1600-2500 rpms. you'll get the torque of the engine pulling the load rather than the horsepower, meaning you'll be getting better fuel economy than at high rpm's. But sometimes you need the extra throttle to do what you need to do, other than getting less fuel mileage, winding up the engine is better than lugging it!!

 

[Cheapthrillb2]

Thanks for all the replies guys. Yeah I was told that the IDI's like the 2000 rpm range for cruisin and best mpg. I wasn't sure about the lugging/winding it out. But now I know.

Its nice to be able to ask a stupid question on a forum and not get 15 replies telling me I am an idiot or to search first (I have spent the better part of the last few days just reading your tech articles and doing ALOT of searching in this section of the site).

Big thumbs up to all you guys for treating a newbie good.

 

[dyoung14]

i have tried using the torque power band does not work for me when i pull the 8 % grade mountain all it does is make more smoke than normal( which it does all the time lol) and shoot egts threw the roof and really really loose speed

 

[91f2504x4]

I just made a 350 mile round trip on saturday, and with my truck running 36" tires I was turning 2300 rpms at 70 mph, I noticed if I tried to go any faster, that my mileage went all to crap, I could also gain a little by slowing down to about 65 but I was getting ran over on the interstate so I sped up to 70mph. I ran that spead pretty consistently and it done well averaging 18.9mpg. I had around 800-1000 pounds in the bed so I wasn't loaded all that heavy. It seems to me as everyone said that if you keep them around 2000 rpms it is best for mileage but the best perfomance seem to be above 3000rpm, I believe the rated HP of these engine is at 3300 rpms.

 

[Cheapthrillb2]

Okay Summit lists EGT gauges and Pyro Gauges.....whats the difference and what do I want with a non-turbo 7.3