Hauling a heavy camper and towing
We are working on leaving the 5th wheel business and entering the truck camper side. We have hit the lower 48 and parts of Canada. We are looking to spend the next 10 years, more in the boonies, plu...
Forum Discussion
Hemi Joel wrote:
You will love the 1165! I enjoy the comfort SO much, but it is a big, tall heavy lunker.
I have mine on a 93 dodge D350. I have a dana 80 rear axle swapped in with larger brakes, and extra leaves in the springs, plus air bags, Rancho 9000 shocks, and home made stable loads. The trans is beefed up, better tork converter, the motor has a bigger turbo, high capacity injectors, and 4" exhaust. It does very well, with just the camper, or with my 28 foot box trailer, except at high altitudes. Over about 3500 elevation, it runs out of power for upgrades into strong head winds. I think it needs more turbo. Maybe compounds.
I had the trailer built with a long tongue so I don't need a hitch extender, and use a weight distributing hitch. That transfers some of the tongue weight onto the front wheels. I don't do 10% tongue weight. I move the vehicle in the trailer to get about 400 to 500 lbs. on the tongue, and it works better.
^Still one of my favorite combos Hemi Joel! Nice setup!
It should struggle a bit uphill at altitude with that setup on and behind the truck. Hauling a big TC is more taxing on a truck than any other similar combo. If you took the exact same weight average 5ver as your camper and trailer combined weight, it would pull easier than your load.
And yes a nice set of twins would do wonders. What you're doing isn't well suited for big singles, even big "towing" turbos. The right set of twins will run cool and spool yesterday!
