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So, is the Ferd 7.3 awesome or not?

I just got one. Only towed with it 2 times so far. It pulls a trailer as good as my 2010 F250 diesel. It only gets about 9.5 mpg towing so thats no fun. The main reason I got it over the diesel is the total cost of ownership will hopefully be less. We have a few diesel trucks in our fleet and a lot of gas trucks. None of the gas trucks have ever had a serious / costly failure, but we have had real expensive problems on 2 of our diesel trucks (like over $7,000.00 repair kind of expensive). My new 7.3 was purchased to tow my toys around and not to drive every day so I plan to keep it for a long time, so it will be out of warranty most of the time I have it, and that diesel roulette was more of a chance than I was willing to take.
 
does it seem to need to rev like the v10 or does it have more of a 3000 rpm big block behavior?
 
It has a 10 speed transmission so I dont notice it reving real high.
 
JR4X said:
Does it shift around a lot hunting for the right gear?
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I dont notice it shifting a lot. It may be and I just dont notice it, but since its a 10 speed and the gears are so close together you dont feel the shifts.
 
Fullsize80cherokee said:
Diesel > Gas for 3/4 ton up imo
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Until you have to buy a fuel system....

For the average person gas is way cheaper than diesel. The diesel stupidity of blowing smoke has neutered any real gains other than power, but put that $15k premium towards a turbo on your gasser and it'll still pull hard and be way cheaper to maintain.
 
nbjeeptj said:
I dont notice it shifting a lot. It may be and I just dont notice it, but since its a 10 speed and the gears are so close together you dont feel the shifts.
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I had a 5.0 10 speed 150 and it was pretty smooth on the upshift side. It was the first year of 10 speed and I thought it could have used some more fine tuning on the shift logic on the downshift side. Like say your cruising 80 on flat ground in 10th gear. You let off the gas for whatever reason such as realizing your going 83 instead of 80, haven’t really lost any miles per hour when you get back on the gas to resume/maintain speed and it shifts from 10th to 7th in a single shift then one at a time goes 8 - 9 - 10. It didn’t need to shift at all to maintain speed but in traffic it was easy to make it shift for no reason.

I’m driving a 20 F250 with a 6.2 and a 6 speed now, after getting out of a 6.0 6 speed GMC. I am pretty sure whoever wrote the shift logic for all of them made the fast and furious movies and thinks we’re all trying to be in a constant state of acceleration. I don’t need the truck to drop 3 gears just because it scrubbed 3 miles an hour.
 
I think the new tran’s with 10 speeds are gonna be a game changer. I know I sure wish my 01 7.3 had more gears to drop down too when pulling steep long grades. We are going camping again today and will climb 9 miles of 6 percent grade in one canyon. With our big fifth wheel and atv trailer behind it I’m in bottom cog for nearly 9 straight miles.:eek:
 
nbjeeptj said:
I just got one. Only towed with it 2 times so far. It pulls a trailer as good as my 2010 F250 diesel. It only gets about 9.5 mpg towing so thats no fun.
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i know you just said its for the occasional towing, but any idea what average mpg is? (not towing)
 
JR4X said:
I’m driving a 20 F250 with a 6.2 and a 6 speed now, after getting out of a 6.0 6 speed GMC. I am pretty sure whoever wrote the shift logic for all of them made the fast and furious movies and thinks we’re all trying to be in a constant state of acceleration. I don’t need the truck to drop 3 gears just because it scrubbed 3 miles an hour.
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Probably my biggest complaint about my '15 6.2. Downhill it'll drop to 2nd gear and 5k rpm. I just switch to manual mode when doing hilly sections now.
 
woods said:
Probably my biggest complaint about my '15 6.2. Downhill it'll drop to 2nd gear and 5k rpm. I just switch to manual mode when doing hilly sections now.
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At least with a ford manual mode is actually manual. That GMC I was driving man mode is just "drive light" as in put it in M for manual, select the gear you want and it just won't go into a gear above the selected. It will still shift down automatically which is bull shit. I drive this 6.2 in manual mode so I can hold it in the gear I want because it's more capable than the computer thinks it is. The computer will shift it from 6th to 3rd on the steep hills I drive on every day. But if I put it in 5th in M it'll carry it for the most part till I need to use 4th in those cases where it can't maintain speed in 5th. That GMC would just drop to 3rd at 70 in cruise control and scream 5000 rpm for up to 10 minutes at a time. After 112,000 miles of that every lifter or rocker ticked at an idle, sounded like it was going to scatter every time I started it.
 
Arickvan said:
just in case anyone was wondering :grinpimp:

10R80 Transmission Gear Ratios


First – 4.70
Second – 2.99
Third – 2.15
Fourth – 1.80
Fifth – 1.52
Sixth – 1.28
Seventh – 1.00
Eighth – 0.85
Ninth – 0.69
Tenth – 0.64
Reverse – 4.87
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Are the 10R80 ratios the same as the 10R140? Superduties don't have 10R80s...
 
'84 Bronco II said:
Are the 10R80 ratios the same as the 10R140? Superduties don't have 10R80s...
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ah i didnt know that, see below


10R140 from wiki
Ratio4.61542.91862.13191.77331.51881.27731.00000.85140.68710.6324- 4.6951


and confirmed straight from ferd

FORD F-SERIES SUPER DUTYTRANSMISSIONSTorqShift®heavy-duty 10-speed automatic with SelectShift®ConfigurationAluminum 10-speed, available live-drive access on driver sideGear ratiosFirst4.615:1Second2.919:1Third 2.132:1Fourth 1.773:1Fifth 1.519:1Sixth1.277:1Seventh1:01Eighth0.851:1Ninth0. 687:110th0.632:1Reverse -4.695:1
 
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Arickvan said:
i know you just said its for the occasional towing, but any idea what average mpg is? (not towing)
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The only thing I have done with the truck since i brought it home from the dealer is tow twice, and the average fuel millage is at 9.5mpg. I hope it gets better than it is showing now, but even if it dont since around here diesel cost more than gas by a good bit I still think it will be cheaper than my diesel was at roughly 13mpg towing.
 
nbjeeptj said:
The only thing I have done with the truck since i brought it home from the dealer is tow twice, and the average fuel millage is at 9.5mpg. I hope it gets better than it is showing now, but even if it dont since around here diesel cost more than gas by a good bit I still think it will be cheaper than my diesel was at roughly 13mpg towing.
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I have a 2017 f550 with a 6.7 that has been loaded with a total weight of 14-16k lbs for 139365 miles as of right now. I have never reset the fuel mileage meter and its reading 10.3.
9.5 doesn't sound to bad.
 
nbjeeptj said:
The only thing I have done with the truck since i brought it home from the dealer is tow twice, and the average fuel millage is at 9.5mpg. I hope it gets better than it is showing now, but even if it dont since around here diesel cost more than gas by a good bit I still think it will be cheaper than my diesel was at roughly 13mpg towing.
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youre tellin me you got a new truck and havnt even cruised around to pick up a hooker to break in the new seats? madness...

:flipoff2:
 
What altitudes are you towing at?

I liked my 2018 6.2 F250 company truck, it's towed OK for what it was. But I had it above 6k feet once and it was not happy. It was towing a 8k lb skid steer on a 14k tilt, so probably 11-12k, plus all the shit in the bed. I had to go down to 1st gear at one point :laughing:
 
Fullsize80cherokee said:
Diesel > Gas for 3/4 ton up imo
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I can get a new diesel, purchase price + maintenence + nearly catastrophic repairs over 200k miles = a nice house

I can get a new gasser, purchase price + maintenence + well nothing else because they're fairly bulletproof beyond 200k miles = 1/4 of a nice house

YMMV
 
2big bronco said:
I have a 2017 f550 with a 6.7 that has been loaded with a total weight of 14-16k lbs for 139365 miles as of right now. I have never reset the fuel mileage meter and its reading 10.3.
9.5 doesn't sound to bad.
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Aerodynamics play a big role in those big service trucks also. An F250 grossing that much with a trailer would probably do much better.

I don't think 9.5 is too bad though either.
 
I will be buying two alumiduitys in next year or so for work, upgrading from 06 and 09 f350s. I've had pretty good luck with the 6.2 but the 7.3 looks like a much more simplistic design and you get the 10 speed standard. I know a guy that has one and he claims he averages 15ish mpg in a 4x4 f350 cc sb but hes never really loaded heavy. It seemed pretty stout on the assometer on the short ride I took with him.

I read somewhere/someone said they had some oil consumption issues but haven't heard anything else about that since.
 
45acp said:
I can get a new diesel, purchase price + maintenence + nearly catastrophic repairs over 200k miles = a nice house

I can get a new gasser, purchase price + maintenence + well nothing else because they're fairly bulletproof beyond 200k miles = 1/4 of a nice house

YMMV
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Gassers have certainly improved the last decade. I still like my old 99 SD diesel as I am typically towing between 5000 and 10,000 feet elevation. I don't like the wintertime starting headaches, which has caused me to think that when replacement time comes I will likely go gas.
 
I need one of these engine and 10 spd trans for the 71 f350 crew cab I just picked up. the 390 and c6 needs to go. cruising and 3.-4k unloaded at 70 mph and 9-10 mpg wont cut it.
 
I'm averaging 14.8 mpg over the first 4k miles on my new 7.3 250. I've been in f250 diesels the last 15 years as daily drivers. The cost of ownership just doesn't make sense anymore unless you're towing heavy like everyday for work. For a weekend toyhauler/daily driver, I'm really happy with it. For the bigger f450/550 not sure if resale would suffer without the diesel.
 
My 9.5mpg is on flat ground alt of aprox 300' (near) the coast and not towing real heavy, only a car on a car trailer with some tools. I will prob tow our company skid steer this weekend I will report back once I have towed 11 to 12k with it.
 
For those of you with aluminum cab pooper-doodies, is there any issues with aluminum cracking?

For those of you with 450 and 550s, how bad is the ride when not loaded heavy?
 
Arickvan said:
just in case anyone was wondering :grinpimp:

10R80 Transmission Gear Ratios


First – 4.70
Second – 2.99
Third – 2.15
Fourth – 1.80
Fifth – 1.52
Sixth – 1.28
Seventh – 1.00
Eighth – 0.85
Ninth – 0.69
Tenth – 0.64
Reverse – 4.87
Click to expand...

What the fuck is the point of 9th? Just to sit there and jackoff when a bug hits the windshield?

With that double/triple over, 3.xx gears shouldnt even be an option. Needs to be 4.xx+ standard.
 
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