Well I havent been on in a few days because I have been BUSY, BUSY.

I have wanted to see how the old truck tows a heavy load with the new turbo and injectors, and the fact that I have the timing up as high as it can go.

I pulled a 24' gooseneck thats built for heavy oil field hot shotting. It weighs 4500lbs empty and I had my cousins old mercury station wagon on it. The car broke down near my house of all places. I only see her once every couple years and she lives in Texarkana. She didnt know I lived in Katy, just happened to break down 3 miles from me. lol Anyway, she works out of her car as an artist, body painter and was on her way to San Antonio for 2 weeks. Her car was sitting on the bump stops and the tires looked half flat when I got there. I was pretty shocked when I grabbed my tire gauge and saw they had 40psi in them. I wish I knew how much weight she had pilled in that thing, I just know it was alot.

The car ran out of coolant for some reason and she kept driving it till it shut off, so the engine is gone. I volunteered to load her up and tow her to San Antonio to be nice and because I wanted to pull something. lol

I have no idea what that car weighed but with all that was in it I'd say at least 5500-6500, if not more. So total trailer weight was 10-12k. I pulled it 386 miles averaging close to 80mph and used 27 gallons. Thats 14.3mpg, so over all not too bad. With the cruise set at 80 in 5th gear my EGT's were 750* and boost was 11psi. I got up to 900* once on a long slow incline but never went over 900*. I am really not seeing the reason to not tow heavy loads with alot of timing, it seems like it works great.

 

Was it a Sable? Taurus/Sables will bottom out in the back if you put ANYTHING back there. If you ever see one with four people riding in the car it's practically scraping the ground. But if it overheated in winter it was probably as overloaded as you say!

 

theres a guy in my town that LIVES in a taurus GL wagon. he has a bed in the back and the thing has antennaes and stuf hangin off it and its about to drag the ground becuase its basicly its his house.

 

The way I understand it is as long as you do not lug the engine down then advanced timing is ok. If you lug I think it will screw up your pistions. Like crack them or something like that.

 

So the timing thing would be real good for a truck with 4.10's and a 5spd? I have been thinking about doing that ( it helps with EGT's right?) and my truck turns a lot of RPM's so it never really lugs. Would that be a real big benefit for me?
DS79

 

I am on the fence about timing. I did my 89. It changed the idle sound to a scary sound. It sounds like a 3126 cat now. I did notice a lower egt but I wonder if it really lowers the heat that the pistons see. If the fuel fires sooner due to advanced timing then the piston is in the hot fire longer. I would think it would allow more heat to transfer into the piston. It seemed to take away some off line power but you do gain more on top end.

 

I don't know, I wish these had piston coolers on them, then I wouldn't worry so much about the EGT's. I would hate to melt her down, then I would have to find a P-pumped Cummins to really mess with the Dmax boys
DS79

 

It's not a good idea long term. See below.

That's exactly the problem. You crack the piston and the fire will eat a hole in it. Don't have to lug it much to crack a piston.

Uh, we do have piston cooling jets. Why do you worry so much about EGT? A short blast down the dragstrip won't hurt anything.

 

I have owned the truck for less then a year, and it has seen 5k miles. In those miles it has been loaded at least 3/4 of them, and I'm not talking 5k on a trailer. I have grossed 30k on more then one occasion Besides that I am not the only one that drives the truck. I know what to look for, but no matter how many times someone is told, I still don't trust them.
DS79

 

so then how much is too much?cause im lookin at jumpin a tooth is that too much for all the time?

 

What's that truck weigh, Randy?

 

Right around 12K if I remember correctly. He's talkin' about the weight of that thing in every other post.

Just messing with ya'.

 

heck ya 12k i love that part cause every one at work tells me to put that thing on a diet,and dont forget on every post almost its bout power and i dont need to break the dang thing yet

 

Towing with the timing too far advanced is playing with fire.

Gotta watch the rings don't expand too much and scuff the cylinder wall too.

Lower EGT just means the piston sees the heat longer, not good if your towing and your watching your pyro keeping it at say 1100, where say stock timing would be around 1300. I have very minute scratches in one of my cylinder walls from doing this.

 

Wow I wasnt aware you could crack a piston like that. I didnt lug it though because with the timing I'm running if I lug it even unloaded it "pops", so while towing I just kept the rpms up and didnt lug it any and it pulled like it wasnt even there.

I guess with the dangers I'm hearing about with the pistons cracking its a good thing I dont tow more than a couple thousand pounds very often.

So with the trany in 5th gear and only seeing 750* egt going 80mph is that good? The rpms were around 2100-2200 I believe so it wasn't lugging, it was purring like it wanted more fuel. lol