Return of the 7.3 SD

rcalexander105

rcalexander105

JV Wheeler
Joined
Nov 3, 2017
Location
High Point
And in the 350 and F53, it's going to sit in front of a 10 speed auto.

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The new grille looks to much like a tranny cooler....ehhh.
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UTfball68 said:
1) Totally awesome
2) But why
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It'll put down pretty much the same numbers as the 6.0L powerstroke did, but without the 25% fuel premium or the maintenance costs associated with a DPF-equipped diesel.

They'll sell like hotcakes in the fleet market, which is where most of Ford's truck sales are anyway.
 
biggest ford gasoline motor.... 7.3L is hardly their biggest.

1100 cubic inches. 18L. introduced at 500 horse power and 1000 ft\lbs of torque.


Ford GAA engine - Wikipedia

was built to power the sherman tank, but has been used in drag race, tractor pull etc applications.

Im sure if you spend enough time on youtube theres a 70s model f truck or two out there powered by one of these.
 
shawn said:
It'll put down pretty much the same numbers as the 6.0L powerstroke did, but without the 25% fuel premium or the maintenance costs associated with a DPF-equipped diesel.

They'll sell like hotcakes in the fleet market, which is where most of Ford's truck sales are anyway.
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Speaking ignorantly here, because I have no idea what the numbers are, but will the 7.3 box be checked more than the cheaper V8 option? Typically what I’ve seen with fleet vehicles is they’re relatively bare bones with minimum requirements, and at least with the modulars I always seemed to see a lot more 5.4’s than 6.8’s in the fleet 250/350’s...maybe the 450/550’s were a different story. I have no idea where to get those numbers from, but seems logical, cheaper engine for cheaper trucks...and doesn’t really make sense to target trucks that are only about 25% (using total average % of fleet sales here) of sales...now reduce that by whatever fleet sales are diesel, and even if there’s a 50/50 gasser split...you’re targeting probably 10% that you had anyway. To me this just feels like an attempt to pecker slap the market to be king of the hill. But it’s a hill nobody cares about any more. If you want a cheap truck, you’ll outfit it as such...if you want a truck capable towing/hauling heavy weight, you’ll outfit it as such...if you have $60-100k to drop on a truck, who cares about fuel and maintenance costs. To me it just seems extremely niche, especially with the 6.2 still being available. But I’m not a billion dollar company with all the market research, and again, maybe the bigger gas engines do outsell the smaller engines in fleet sales.
 
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I think a lot of the appeal may be the simple, but tried and true in block cam with push rods. In theory that should be a very simple, low(er) maintance engine. The first thing I thought of when I read it was “no cam phasers” and chains replacements as often.

Not to mention cashing in on the nostalgia of the “7.3” in a new platform, even if it is gas.
 
UTfball68 said:
Speaking ignorantly here, because I have no idea what the numbers are, but will the 7.3 box be checked more than the cheaper V8 option? Typically what I’ve seen with fleet vehicles is they’re relatively bare bones with minimum requirements, and at least with the modulars I always seemed to see a lot more 5.4’s than 6.8’s in the fleet 250/350’s...maybe the 450/550’s were a different story. I have no idea where to get those numbers from, but seems logical, cheaper engine for cheaper trucks...especially that are only about 25% of sales. To me this just feels like an attempt to pecker slap the market to be king of the hill. But it’s a hill nobody cares about any more. If you want a cheap truck, you’ll outfit it as such...if you want a truck capable towing/hauling heavy weight, you’ll outfit it as such...if you have $60-100k to drop on a truck, who cares about fuel and maintenance costs. To me it just seems extremely niche, especially with the 6.2 still being available. But I’m not a billion dollar company with all the market research, and again, maybe the bigger gas engines do outsell the smaller engines in fleet sales.
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I would think this would be more in the 650 chassis fleet vehicles, not the pickup trucks. I have an 8.1 in a c6500 box truck and it has no problem moving itself down the road fully loaded. It's been nearly cost free maintenance wise for the 12yrs we've owned it. A neighbor company switched their entire fleet of trucks from various brand diesels to propane converted f650 chassis a few years back when diesel was so stupid high. The owner still swears it's one of the best decisions he has made, even with diesel not being as high now.
 
Fwiw we currently have 42 fleet f350s and gm 3500s.
All have the largest gas engine available. Needed for towing purposes.

Don't want the increased maintenance cost of diesel but need the tow rating. Think about duke power or pike line trucks with service bodies. Same principal.
 
Ron said:
Fwiw we currently have 42 fleet f350s and gm 3500s.
All have the largest gas engine available. Needed for towing purposes.

Don't want the increased maintenance cost of diesel but need the tow rating. Think about duke power or pike line trucks with service bodies. Same principal.
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I just started at Pike this week. Talked with our fleet guys and said the exact same thing. Switched from diesel to gas a few years back and everything new coming into our fleet is now gas F250s.
 
Ron said:
Fwiw we currently have 42 fleet f350s and gm 3500s.
All have the largest gas engine available. Needed for towing purposes.

Don't want the increased maintenance cost of diesel but need the tow rating. Think about duke power or pike line trucks with service bodies. Same principal.
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rcalexander105 said:
I just started at Pike this week. Talked with our fleet guys and said the exact same thing. Switched from diesel to gas a few years back and everything new coming into our fleet is now gas F250s.
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I can definitely see that. What I did come across was that 2/3 of ford fleet sales are commercial/government. Still would be interesting to see the break down by engine type. I’d imagine for every pike truck out there, there’s a public school district maintenance truck that doesn’t need to pull the earth off its axis. The other 1/3 of fleet sales are rentals...and I doubt many of those sales are top end. So figure a million annual light duty truck sales...even at a 50% fleet sale rate, you’re at 500,000 trucks. 2/3 of those would be eligible for for the 7.3 in commercial/government use...getting you to 335,000. Now assume (yeah I know), half of those are 150’s...meaning 167,500 are 250/350’s. How many of those are checking the biggest engine box...at another 50/50 split, about 90,000...which will conveniently get you to my 10% of total sales number. I know, I didn’t a lot of assuming and guessing, but I don’t know where to get those numbers. So at a $3500 option box (again assuming) that’s a nice generation of $315mil in revenue...so I guess there’s my answer.
 
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UTfball68 said:
I can definitely see that. What I did come across was that 2/3 of ford fleet sales are commercial/government. Still would be interesting to see the break down by engine type. I’d imagine for every pike truck out there, there’s a public school district maintenance truck that doesn’t need to pull the earth off its axis. The other 1/3 of fleet sales are rentals...and I doubt many of those sales are top end. So figure a million annual light duty truck sales...even at a 50% fleet sale rate, you’re at 500,000 trucks. 2/3 of those would be eligible for for the 7.3 in commercial/government use...getting you to 335,000. Now assume (yeah I know), half of those are 150’s...meaning 167,500 are 250/350’s. How many of those are checking the biggest engine box...at another 50/50 split, about 90,000...which will conveniently get you to my 10% number. I know, I did a lot of assuming and guessing, but I don’t know where to get those numbers.
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It's simple, even if it's only 10% you have to have a big option to get those customers that néed the big engine option. Without it they will be forced to get a lesser truck or switch to another brand with the big engine option they need. The risk of not having the big option is not loosing the 10% but loosing the rest of what those customers would have bought because once they switch brands with the big engine they will likely switch brands all the way down to the small stuff just to keep everything the same. So you risk more than 10% in the overall scheme.
 
Stuntman Autoworks said:
It's simple, even if it's only 10% you have to have a big option to get those customers that néed the big engine option. Without it they will be forced to get a lesser truck or switch to another brand with the big engine option they need. The risk of not having the big option is not loosing the 10% but loosing the rest of what those customers would have bought because once they switch brands with the big engine they will likely switch brands all the way down to the small stuff just to keep everything the same. So you risk more than 10% in the overall scheme.
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Which I’d believe if the 6.2 wasn’t already outperforming the 6.0 the GM website lists as largest gasser available for 2/3500 fleet trucks. But better to be first to market I suppose.
 
UTfball68 said:
Which I’d believe if the 6.2 wasn’t already outperforming the 6.0 the GM website lists as largest gasser available for 2/3500 fleet trucks. But better to be first to market I suppose.
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When did the GM 8.1 go away?
 
2006 was the last year of the 8.1. I'd guess one reason was so many people bitched about them burning oil...nobody knew they were designed with a consumption rate for oil.

@chromerunner Nobody likes a hot tranny :D
 
UTfball68 said:
The other 1/3 of fleet sales are rentals...and I doubt many of those sales are top end.
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That includes sales to folks like Enterprise Fleet Management, who owns pretty much every construction vehicle you see out on the roads. Those trucks seem to be an even split between base model F150s and gas motor F250/350s.
 
So let me get this straight... Ford was the first of the big three to go overhead cam. Then small displacement with turbo charging was the future. Now their latest greatest is a large displacement pushrod engine o_O
 
Up here, the power company switched from buying diesels to buying gas trucks, because the trucks were rusting away while the diesel powertrain was still good. A 500,000 mile engine does no one any good in a truck that has rusted away by 200,000 miles.
 
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