Well I was a little taken aback first with the size. But after some wheel time I found the truck solid and with a reasonable ride. The higher profile side walls of the tires on a 18 inch rim did lend a small degree of wallowing when pushed in fast lane changes and tight corners, but honestly these parameters are not in this trucks mission statement anyway.
The 7.3 had a lot of torque as I loaded it on small/medium grades just out of town with the CControl set at 40 mph. It would stay in 10th gear and load up but not downshift, tranny program in normal and not Eco. Surprised to see that it starts in first gear all the time. I expected with that torque curve 2nd would be plenty sufficient on light throttle.
Full throttle from rolling 20 mph (due to the rain on the road again) with traction control on the truck rapidly went through the gears sequentially with a firm upshift (Normal mode) @ 4800 RPM even tho redline is at 6000 RPMs. This makes sense when reviewing the dyno curves that TFLT have posted The traction control was actively intervening but in a very non intrusive way. In other words it was noticeable but not by large fluctuations in timing or throttle position that can make many systems a pain. Acceleration felt very linear with no surges like the 5.0 when the cam phase shift occurs in the upper 3000s RPM.
-1600 RPM @ 60 MPH
-15.4 mpg (US gallon) in moderate rain 8 MPH headwind 100 miles break in only at the above velocity
-no start stop which was nice
-off the light gas consumption was bad but it is a lot of mass to get rolling, throttle modulation will be important if one was worried about mileage
The 7.3 had a lot of torque as I loaded it on small/medium grades just out of town with the CControl set at 40 mph. It would stay in 10th gear and load up but not downshift, tranny program in normal and not Eco. Surprised to see that it starts in first gear all the time. I expected with that torque curve 2nd would be plenty sufficient on light throttle.
Full throttle from rolling 20 mph (due to the rain on the road again) with traction control on the truck rapidly went through the gears sequentially with a firm upshift (Normal mode) @ 4800 RPM even tho redline is at 6000 RPMs. This makes sense when reviewing the dyno curves that TFLT have posted The traction control was actively intervening but in a very non intrusive way. In other words it was noticeable but not by large fluctuations in timing or throttle position that can make many systems a pain. Acceleration felt very linear with no surges like the 5.0 when the cam phase shift occurs in the upper 3000s RPM.
-1600 RPM @ 60 MPH
-15.4 mpg (US gallon) in moderate rain 8 MPH headwind 100 miles break in only at the above velocity
-no start stop which was nice
-off the light gas consumption was bad but it is a lot of mass to get rolling, throttle modulation will be important if one was worried about mileage
