shelbyd wrote:
I have never had a 8.1 but I recall back then folks talking about how they were diesel like in their pulling power. I can also tell you the Allison is one awesome tranny. The 6 speed tranny is very nice and allowed me to go from 4:10's to 3:73's and actually have a better towing experience. With the 4 speed I was dropping to third on the hills. It did the job though, and I don't recall going much slower than the traffic flow.
I bet with the tools and other heavy stuff I carry, two dogs and us not being know to be skinny, we likely easily had 8,000 pounds. Truck did fine. Makes it's torque at 4400 Rpm's if I remember correctly.
I would also be very leery of the 6 owners. Need someone to look both over and see if anything negative stands out. How many miles on these trucks?
Both trucks are high mileage, near 200k miles. I've done lots of reliability readings on both and they both seem quite reliable, the 6.0l seems to edge out 8.1l on reliability though. I've just found another 6.0l today that is 2.5k cheaper than the 8.1l for nearly the same mileage. It was a one owner and was brought in on trade. The owner even had the undercarriage coated with bed liner so it is remarkably minimally rusted. Rust has been something I've been worried about with high mileage vehicles and being in the Midwest. It's definitely one I'm leaning to now because the generous price gap but I haven't decided yet, I'm still reading and looking around, double checking, triple checking to make sure I'm getting what I need this time around. I don't want to rush finding anything I'm gonna tow with.
