F350 Super Duty vs 3500 Denali vs The Ike Pulling 30k lbs

Cummins12V98 wrote:
4X, how much do you think these 10 speeds help with the Diesel engines compared to their previous 6 speeds? Lets say the Ford with todays HP/TQ with 6 speed would it do as well as the 10 speed or???

On this last Ike run the Ford's 10 speed did nothing for it. The truck ran at 2200 rpm. Had it downshifted it would have jumped to 2600 where it would have had an additional 52 HP. That additional power would have allowed it to accelerate up to over 2800 rpm where the power starts dropping off again. So down shifting could have brought the rpm to 2600. Then, even had it accelerated to only 2800 rpm, it would have taken about 20 seconds off the time up the mountain. The Ram with the Aisin transmission should have enough powe to pull the hill in 3rd gear. 3rd gear at 42 - 48 mph will have the engine revving between 24500 and 2800 rpm .... so that should be pretty ideal. The 6R140 with a 4.10 rear end could have been in 3rd gear running at 2540 and accelerating instead of 2200 rpm in 5th with the 10 speed/3.55 gears. Then on the lower less steep part of the grade the 6r140/4.10 could have been running at 2268 rpm in 4th instead of 2200 in 6th with the 10 speed.

So like I said the 10 speed in manual mode could have been an asset but in drive it was a disadvantage over a properly shifted 6 speed.


Edit: Although the above is all true, I am not going to be racing anyone up a mountain so I like the idea of the Ford running at a lower rpm even though it takes a little longer up the hill. If I really felt the need to get to the top of the hill as fast as possible I wouldn't mind manually shifting.