Anyone pulling any significant weight with a 5.4?

I tow a pop-up that weighs about 3500 pounds with my

I have considered getting a lightweight travel trailer, but even that has considerable frontal area that would require me to slow down. A fifth wheel is even taller.

It is not the engine but rather how it is geared. A 3.73 is a joke towing a 5th with regardless of factory rating and a 4.10 is marginal at best. If you want to install some after market 4.56 gears it will not a pretty credible job most of the time. Deeper gears is like using a longer prybar to move something. A 6.8 V10 is a serious tower with a factory 4.30 axle and a 5.4 would do a lot better with 4.56 or deeper with a serious load behind it. They do not offer them from factory because it would make higher dollar options less attractive. THe was a time when real P/U would come with 4.56's and even 5.13's and they could move some serious weighteven with a smaller motor but not any more because they want to sell the hi profit models instead. Nice thing about a ford is if you change gear it has a toner ring in rear axle to sense road speed so no speedo recalibration is needed. You might read link below

There are a lot of F-250 & F-350 V-10 trucks out there and if you are not going with a diesel that's what I'd be looking for. A 5th wheel has a lot of frontal area to pull through the air, so it does take something with a little muscle. I tow all over North America with a V-10 and find it does a great job.

Tom J

Yes you could tow a big 5th wheel trailer with the 5.4, if you want to keep up with the traffic flow, you're not likely to do that with the 5.4. If you don't mind not being able to hold the speed limit or keeping up with traffic, it will work fine for you. You could put a supercharger kit on it and have the best of both worlds, though. Although that is another $6,000, if you do the work. $6,000 would get you a brand spanking new Power Stroke Diesel.

Do yourself a BIG favor and drive the new Power Stroke Diesel before you count it out. I LOVE my '05 6 liter Diesel. If Ford offered their 4.5L Power Stroke V6 Turbo Diesel (that is currently in their LCF) in the half ton pickups I would buy one today.

That's the problem. There are NOT a lot of v-10's out there. Right now there are only 2 in the entire carmax system. and I didn't find ANY on beepbeepdotcom.

I can't justify the $6000 option, and my wife breaks out around diesel exhaust. My son has an '03 ps 6 liter. You don't have to convince me of the power. That thing is awesome!

Here's one, but you'd have to take the hard tonneau off for a fifth-wheel...

thanks matt, but I'm looking for a 2wd, supercab.

Most I've pulled is about 6000 lb. It does fine with that. 250 or 300 hp is still a lot of power. The first Cummins Dodge had 180, and that was enough to totally revolutionize that market.

HP and Torque are totally different beasts...

CJB

Yup no argument there. Torque is what it can do, and HP is how fast it can do it. Everyone has a speed hang-up, I wanna pull top heavy fifth wheel camper 80 mph down the road.

Whitelightning

At what RPM it make that power and how it is geared makes it happen not the 300HP rating at 5000 plus RPM

Yes and no. HP is torque x RPM / 5252. It is how the engines power curve is geared to the load that makes it all happen but many fail to realize this. Why diesle tow well sometime is not becuase the HP is any more magic but because they are better geared to match power curve to load (they have to be because they have a very limted PM range) Most gas truck today are poorly matched to load with factory gearing and towing suffers. Unless you have a 460, a 454, 8.0 dodge V10 or GM

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

No it is not. Torue is the amount od effort applied to load and the RPM of that effort determines HP. 300 ft lbs at 4000 RPM can do just as much work as 450 ftls at 3000 RPM and 600 ft lbs at 2000. They are all deleivering the same HP to load period! It is whether or not you choose to properly gear that power to load that makes it happen. TO put a different spin on this, a 5.4 peaks HP in drive at 115 MPH and if you gearing a PS to peak its HP at 115 MPH is drive not OD (to equal the gas engines power curve vs speed) you would need a 2.7 axle ratio behind PS and it would suck towing with that ratio just like a gas motor does when its power curve is not matched to load. Some never seem to get this point though and think they need to run their small gas motors at low RPMs all the time for best MPG and life which is another misconception too.

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

Well, the point I was trying to make was he was improperly comparing the

One thing I'd mention is that you're going to find few people who will want to rev a gas engine to 4, 5 or 6 ticks every time they take off at a stoplight. I'm all for proper gearing, but to think that people will want to have a cruising rpm of 3.5 or 4k rpm is naive. Is it appropriate for load? Yes. Is it desirable for asthetics? No. Another potential problem of running such high rpms all the time is that the transmission management is not set up for it. Wouldn't the trans be shifing at high pressures on every shift?

CJB

I tow a 10k trailer with my 98 f250 4x4 5.7

This is the first year I had to take it out of my county. It was a little scary, thought the transmissi>I want to purchase a truck to pull our fifth wheel trailer with, and diesel

Ford never sold a 5.7?

FYI he pushrod 351 Windsor was a 5.8 liter and the newer "big" Ford V-8 is a 5.4 liter...

On Tue, 02 Jan 2007 16:40:19 +0000, SnoMan rearranged some electrons to form:

Yes it is.

Torque = radial force. Work = force applied over a distance- in this case, work = force applied over engine revolution (distance) Power = work applied over time.

t= torque r = radius f = force d = distance p = power

t = f * r f = t/r w = f * d p = w/time = (f*d) / time

Linear distance is d = 2*pi*r distance per revolution

p = f * d / time p = (t/r) * (revolutions * 2*pi*r) / time)

= t * 2*pi * revolutions / time = torque * 2*pi * (rotational velocity)

plugging in conversion units;

HP = torque * 2 * pi * RPM / 33,000

which equates to the familiar:

HP = torque * RPM / 5252

On Tue, 02 Jan 2007 19:16:07 -0600, Steve Barker LT rearranged some electrons to form:

I think he meant 5.8, aka 351W

David M (dmacchiarolo)