One year update on my 6.4L Hemi

4X4Dodger wrote:

goducks10 wrote:

4X4Dodger wrote:
On my recent trip from ND to AZ and Back going thru Colorado on I70 up and over Loveland Pass at more than 11,000 feet my Ram 5.7 4x4 crew cab passed every chevy diesel pulling similar length trailers to mine like they were standing still. I was not pushing it. (I didnt notice any Fords on that part of the road pulling trailers)

These were new or newer Chevy's and this surprised me. They were stuck in the slow lane with about the same speed as the tractor trailers.

I have owned a deisel before a 7.3L Ford in the 90's but that was long ago and many improvements have been made.

I am very happy with my 5.7 it pulls like crazy and is very powerful. I don't see any reason to go to diesel with the gas engines getting so much better.

Were you towing anything. My guess is that they were either towing way more than you and don't need to race up a mtn to impress anyone. Maybe they were enjoying getting 8-9 mpg as opposed to racing up the mtn getting 3-4 mpg.

I wasnt racing to impress anyone. They had trailers very close to or the same size as mine. Therefore the weight has to be similar. Also I got an AVERAGE of 7.7 MPG on that leg of my trip. (Fueled up just on the west side of Denver up and over Loveland Pass). I never exceeded the speed limit and in fact was cruising about 63mph to about 55 mph going up the hill.

I was towing my 31 foot TT, (a 2004 Gulstream Innsbruck with a big flat front on it) I had 4 passengers including me, 1 big dog (80 lbs) and one smaller dog (40 lbs) plus my two big tool boxes (100 + lbs) and a brand new Generator (about 200 lbs) all in the back of my truck.

The fact that they were stuck behind tractor trailers creeping up at 40mph or less or in the second lane from the right trying to pass them, but slowly, indicates to me they were there because of power issues at that altitude not because they chose to be. But of course this is a guess as I didnt talk to them.

My goal with this statement was not to irritate Chevy owners but only to answer the OP about the Ram 5.7/6.4 engine performance and give something to compare to.

LOL, you really think a turbo diesel with more power than you to start with would be down on power in the mtns? You do know that a turbo compensates for less air at higher elevations. You NA gasser actually looses power when in higher elevations. You may of gotten 7.7 for the trip, which BTW is terrible, but running 55-63 up a hill I guarantee you were in the 3+mpg range. Just watch any Fast Lane truck test video. All trucks suck gas when running higher speeds up mtn passes. My guess is they were stuck behind the semi because 1, they either wanted to save fuel or 2, they were waiting for traffic to go by so they could pull out and pass. There's no way on Gods green earth that your 5.7 will out run a new Dmax pulling the same weight trailer up a mtn pass. Keep dreamin buddy.
I know for a fact that if I were out on a several month long trip and were doing a lot of traveling I'd want to save fuel at every opportunity. Tucked in behind a semi going 40 mph is not an admission of low power, it's saving fuel. And more than likely that's what they were doing.

Not saying that's exactly the case, but I'm 100% sure they weren't behind the semi's because of low power.