gear changes for better towing
I just took a trip with my new fifth wheel and I am beginning to see that my truck is somewhat lacking in the power department. On even the slightest hills interstate overpasses my speedometer would k...
Forum Discussion
I don't understand why so many have such a hard time grasping the concept the gentlemen is after. As his truck sits now, and although he not comfortable with it, his truck tows better at 70 mph than it does at 60 mph due to his gearing being too high. When towing at 70 he's into the power band better. Dropping a gear in the trans isn't always the most desired way as he already can't tow in top gear and in any adverse conditions he's probably dropping 2 or three gears. Think of gearing as nothing more than a big cheater bar. The longer the bar (shorter the gears), the more leverage and Torque amplification you have. Then again the longer the bar the slower it is to spin it around so there is a catch 22 here. He want's to put more torque/power to the ground at a slower speed and is thinking a combination of gearing and or smaller tires will do the trick and he's right!
I've been there done that and bought the tee shirt. My 03' F250 V10 had 3.73s with oversized tires which effectively changed my gearing to basically 3.55s. The truck towed better at 70-75 mph than it did at 60-65 mph as my rpms were up a little closer to where my power band was. Even with a drop in gearing I was still 600 rpms short of the peak torque rpm of 3200. A drop all the way to 2nd was too far and I was turning to many rpms and had to slow down to 50-55. Simply put, it wasn't happy at 60-70 mph which is the speed I wanted to be able to tow. I wasn't willing to drop the tire size as the stock 265's look pathetic (but not as bad as the GMs with 245s ha ha) so I had 4.56s installed strictly based on what I wanted to see for RPMs while towing. This made a significant difference in the power delivery, I can now tow in OD if the wind isn't blowing at 2400 rpms instead of 1800 and if I need to down shift a gear for hills or wind it puts me in the sweet spot at a tick over 3000 rpm which I can run at indefinitely if needed and be at the torque peak for my engine. The only downfall I've found is on a 8% grade and into a head wind I needed to downshift to 2nd which the truck does happily and can again accelerate up the hill, the downside is I don't like turning 5k so I end up slowing down to 45-50mph just to maintain a reasonable RPM. Before the gear change I modified the exhaust, added a custom tuner and tried a few other power tricks which all helped a little but didn't produce the results I was looking for. Ultimately the Gear swap is what made the world of difference. I won't even go into what I tow as I don't need to hear from the weight police of this site. What I can say is considering what the OP is after and how his truck currently acts, a gear change will accomplish his goals or at least make it much better. If you like the tires that are on it and don't want to drop sizes jus drop another ration on the gears since your changing them anyway! Just make sure to do all of your checking of rpms and so forth for what you desire and don't short your self on gearing by not going deep enough. There is a reason the tow rating goes up on most trucks when ordered with deeper gearing and no other changes are made and it's 100% based on performance!
I've been there done that and bought the tee shirt. My 03' F250 V10 had 3.73s with oversized tires which effectively changed my gearing to basically 3.55s. The truck towed better at 70-75 mph than it did at 60-65 mph as my rpms were up a little closer to where my power band was. Even with a drop in gearing I was still 600 rpms short of the peak torque rpm of 3200. A drop all the way to 2nd was too far and I was turning to many rpms and had to slow down to 50-55. Simply put, it wasn't happy at 60-70 mph which is the speed I wanted to be able to tow. I wasn't willing to drop the tire size as the stock 265's look pathetic (but not as bad as the GMs with 245s ha ha) so I had 4.56s installed strictly based on what I wanted to see for RPMs while towing. This made a significant difference in the power delivery, I can now tow in OD if the wind isn't blowing at 2400 rpms instead of 1800 and if I need to down shift a gear for hills or wind it puts me in the sweet spot at a tick over 3000 rpm which I can run at indefinitely if needed and be at the torque peak for my engine. The only downfall I've found is on a 8% grade and into a head wind I needed to downshift to 2nd which the truck does happily and can again accelerate up the hill, the downside is I don't like turning 5k so I end up slowing down to 45-50mph just to maintain a reasonable RPM. Before the gear change I modified the exhaust, added a custom tuner and tried a few other power tricks which all helped a little but didn't produce the results I was looking for. Ultimately the Gear swap is what made the world of difference. I won't even go into what I tow as I don't need to hear from the weight police of this site. What I can say is considering what the OP is after and how his truck currently acts, a gear change will accomplish his goals or at least make it much better. If you like the tires that are on it and don't want to drop sizes jus drop another ration on the gears since your changing them anyway! Just make sure to do all of your checking of rpms and so forth for what you desire and don't short your self on gearing by not going deep enough. There is a reason the tow rating goes up on most trucks when ordered with deeper gearing and no other changes are made and it's 100% based on performance!
