And the HP Wars Begin

TheGoose · Mar 15, 2010

Exactly. I love the fact that you can get ~400 HP out of a Duramax or powerstroke but at what point does it just get silly? We keep increasing the HP but the fuel economy either stays the same or goes down, and the vehicles just keep getting heavier.

I don't understand why they don't make a turbo ~4L diesel that gets good mileage, ~200-275HP, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

timswi · Mar 15, 2010

Diamondpilot said:
11,000# to 15,000# is a load for a 3/4 ton truck. Anything more is 1 ton territory. Just because it will have a diesel you will be limited by the tires, suspension, and chassis on a 1/2 ton truck. People say the brakes also but in reality the brakes on the 1/2 ton trucks today are amazing and much better than the brakes on any 3/4 or 1 ton of the early 90's.

What I am saying is you are asking a little much wanting 13,000# tow rating in a 1/2 ton. Maybe in 20 years but not today. It took the manufactures 20 years to get out of the 7,000# tow ratings to the 10,000# tow ratings we have today in the 1/2 tons.

As for the HP, it means very little in a truck. Torque and more importantly where its made at in the rpm band is the key.

The only GM diesels I was around were the Olds that was junk, a 6.2 my Father-N-Law had in a truck that was junk and replaced with a 350, and my uncles 6.5. It has not been too bad but has had its fare share of issues. The Isuzu DuraMax was the saving grace for GM. The hit a home run when they teamed up with Isuzu.

Chris

I had a 6.2 in a 3/4 ton 4wd Suburban. Never had a problem with it in 175,000 miles. Got around 20-22 mpg all the time with gobs of torque. no turbo with that one. Had to replace the water pump once. When the flat rate book said 8hrs, they weren't kidding

Paystar · Mar 15, 2010

My Caterpillar's still got them beat

:laughing:

timswi · Mar 16, 2010

Paystar said:
My Caterpillar's still got them beat :laughing::laughing:

If I remember correctly, mine was a Detroit Diesel.

TheGoose · Mar 16, 2010

Yeah, the 6.2's and 6.5's were detroit diesels. GM owned Detroit Diesel for a long time, but they sold them off several years ago. I have been doing a lot of research on the engines so I can fix up my wife's old Step-Side. There is a nasty rumor floating around that the engines are gas conversions, which they are not. The old 5.7L diesels were supposed to be the "gas conversion" motors, but I think that too is a fallacy. I think they used some basic common measurements for the 5.7L diesel as the 5.7gas, but it is supposed to be a completely different block. GM just made it too weak in the head area etc. and it blew a lot of gaskets.

TheGoose · Mar 16, 2010

How much HP does the Cat put out and what does your rig weigh empty?

Paystar said:
My Caterpillar's still got them beat :laughing::laughing:

schmism · Mar 16, 2010

HP wars....

I really dont get caught up on marketing BS and numbers people pull out of thin air to make there product look better than the next guy.

when any one of the big 1/2 ton trucks can increase the HP output significantly with just a plug in "tuner" then all the manufactures have to do to "best" the next guy is tweak a software number and rerelease a "new and improved 10 billion more hp than the next guy" version.

I'll pass on the hype

jcmseven · Mar 16, 2010

I don't buy that the new diesels get necessarily worse fuel economy than their predecessors. I have owned diesel trucks all the way back to the mid 1990's and my current diesel gets consistently the best fuel economy of any truck I have owned, save my first truck (a 4 cylinder Ford Ranger) which got 3 mpg better on highway and bogged hauling a loaf of bread from the store. My much-mileage maligned Ford 6.4L did not do too bad either. Both these trucks were post DPF, and both got better mileage than my old 7.3L in both my 1999 model and in my 2002.

John M

Reg · Mar 16, 2010

One of my sons had a 5.7 Olds diesel.
The engine was totally trouble free and I used to joke with him that he probably had the last surviving one on the planet - he should glass case it.
I had always impressed on him to start it, put it in gear after a couple of seconds, leave it on idle down the driveway and the hundred yards or so to the corner intersection, drive it GENTLY to the stop sign (about 1/4 mile).
IOW, warm it up gently, but put SOME load on it, don't just let it sit idling.
That was about how I was taught to treat diesels, it also worked on my 6.2, everything since and I still do about that with the D'max, all of which have had no engine problems.

Reg · Mar 16, 2010

jcmseven said:
I don't buy that the new diesels get necessarily worse fuel economy than their predecessors. I have owned diesel trucks all the way back to the mid 1990's and my current diesel gets consistently the best fuel economy of any truck I have owned, save my first truck (a 4 cylinder Ford Ranger) which got 3 mpg better on highway and bogged hauling a loaf of bread from the store. My much-mileage maligned Ford 6.4L did not do too bad either. Both these trucks were post DPF, and both got better mileage than my old 7.3L in both my 1999 model and in my 2002.

John M

Hehh, heh.

I "buy" it if /when owners USE the higher power that they offer (-:
They are more efficient, so while in THEORY one COULD get better fuel economy IF one were to drive them using ONLY the same power output (say 75 HP) then they would get much better mileage.

Fact o' the matter is we LIKE the POWER !
We get USED TO the way they can pull out into traffic "just like that" without having to wait for a 200 yard gap between vehicles.
So in ACTUAL USAGE - Sure, they get worse fuel economy, but we can solve that by driving them like we had 35 HP under the hood (-:

Personally I drive very gently for the sake of the horses, so yes I get better fuel mileage with newer trucks, at least I do when I have a live load behind me (-: