v10 torque vrs diesel

427435 wrote:

michelb wrote:

427435 wrote:
...
Again, a 300 hp diesel engine won't climb a hill faster than a 300 hp gas engine moving the same load----------at least at altitudes under 3000 ft. Turbocharged engines (gas or diesel) do have advantages at higher altitudes.

The small gas engine is not irrelevant------------it serves to prove the point about the differences between hp and torque.

I would strongly disagree with this. Our 275HP (might even be 325HP) gasser will not keep up with a 300HP ISB, ISC or CAT 3126E.

Our old 98 Pace Arrow 36B gasser weighs about 20k lbs on the road and is MUCH slower climbing hills than in our 03 Phaeton DP (330HP) even with the DP pulling a toad on a dolly (total weight easily over 30k lbs).

I'm not saying that everyone needs to buy a diesel as the gas engine will get you over the hill and it does what it needs to do but there's a huge difference between a gas engine with 300HP/400 ft.lbs torque and a diesel with 300HP/600 ft. lbs or even 900 ft. lbs of torque.

I suspect you weren't willing to run your gasser at 4000 rpm when climbing a hill. I'll routinely hold my V10 at 4000 to 4500 rpm when climbing hills. Works great.

FWIW, I'm sure I had pedal to the floor and let it climb as fast as it could (which on some inclines was probably 15-20 mph by the time we got to the top).

It's possible that the engine needed a tune-up (although it seems to run fine).

I'm just comparing my personal experience with a 98 PaceArrow 36B (Chev 454 Vortec - roughly 20k lbs on the road) and with a 03 Tiffin Phaeton 40RH (CAT 7.2 - roughly 31k lbs with dolly and toad). Both engines have roughly the same HP but there's a huge avantage in climbing in the DP even though the DP is more than 50% heavier on the road. As someone else mentioned, the 6 speed Allison on the DP vs transmission on the gasser could be a significant part of the difference.