Family of 6 future tow vehicle.

anw7405 wrote:

mrad wrote:
If you like your current vehicle and have the 3.73 gearing, I would look at putting in 4.10 or higher (not sure how low of gearing you can go with that rig).

I have a 2003 V10 Excursion with 4.30 gearing. Four years ago we did a trip from Minnesota to Kansas to Colorado, Arizona and back home with our TT. My CAt scale weight in colorada was 18,990 for vehicle, TT, and 4 passengers. WE hit some pretty steep grades in Colorado. I was always able to hold 50 MPH with the X. I was pushing 4,500+ RPM's but the X held speed and tranny temp never went above 202 degrees.

I know a Diesel would most probably have held 65 mph, but I was more than satisfied with how my X pulled.

I am guessing the 8.1 would have similar (if not more) HP and torque than the 6.8 excursion. Giving it some deeper gearing would most likely give you similar results to mine. You would just have to decide if 50 ish mph on the steepest grades works for you.

Dang you were towing 11,300 with the V10 X? That's impressive.

It was close. I can't remember the exact weight of the TT. I weighed both truck and TT and then just TT and Just truck. Dry weight of the TT was listed at 8,600 pounds. It was a 16 day trip so we had the TT loaded up along with the back of the excursion.

I was more than pleased with the performance considering it was a gasser. Only engine mod was a 5-Star tuner running in 87 tow mode