I just got my 94 F350 2wd Dually home last weekend. It has a 98HO 215 hp 6BT with a NV4500. The truck runs great with lots of power. It has a BAHF and a cutom ground fuel plate and 6" stacks with no muffler. Other than that the engine is stock. I picked the truck up for $6600. It is not quite as nice as I was hoping, but it does have 300k on the truck. The paint has flaws and the body panels up front need to be aligned. It needs 4 rear tires and the AC charged. But besides all that it ran great on the 200 mile trip home. My big question is I drove my 95 2500 to pick it up. I filled both trucks up on the way back. My dodge got 23.4mpg and the ford got 16.3mpg on 174 mile trip back. Both trucks are 2wd and have 3.55 gears. I bought the ford with intensions of getting better mileage. I bought it to relace my 99 7.3 superduty. Could the timing be that far off. Like I said it has great power. Just looking for some advice. I have some other conversion questions, but I will put them in another post. Thanks

 

I'm sure you used the same number of miles in your calcs. Are you sure you filled them accurately? I know you were careful but how could they be that far apart? Dually vs SRW doesn't seem enough of a difference. Different drivers with different driving styles? Hmmm?

Wetspirit

 

The mileage will probably get worse, and the engine start knocking.

How much do you want for it??

 

The Ford weighs more. It's also a dually... Also, at 300K there's probably a few maintainence items that you could do. I doubt a Ram 3500 would even get 23+ mpg...

 

A friend of mine has a 95 3500 that has gotten as high as 23 and regularly gets 20+. He has a #10 fuel plate and 370 injectors. I didn't expect it to get as good as the dodge, but I did hope for 20. Both trucks came back together so there was no difference in driving. Also the chassis has 300k, but the drivetrain only has 125k. I was hoping someone might have some ideas. If the fuel plate was all the way foward, would that affect mileage?

 

fords require special attention when filling as the neck/vent design suks at best. it was always a pita to get my ford full, the dodge tank fills full every time. you could have fallen victim to the lame tank.

 

start by doing maintenance stuff...fuel filter..overflow valve...ask the guy who u bought it from what the timing is set at...probably never been touched since factory...there's really no other way to do it....IMHO 16 mpg isnt that bad

for what its worth i think the 95 160hp motor will get slightly better mileage than the 97 215 pump in the ford...tough to compare the two

 

Thanks for the advise. I was wondering if trucks with the 215 pump generally burn more fuel. My dodge has gotten as high as 26.8 and regularly gets in the 23's. That's why I wanted to use it as a base since both trucks traveled the same trip together. What about the overflow valve, what should I check? Also if the timing was way off wouldn't that affect power? I'm out of town working right now, so I have time to post, but I can't work on the truck.

 

high country is right on. The fords are difficult to get "full". Some guys even have blocks of wood they carry in their trucks to drive the driver-side rear wheel on when filling up to get them full!!!

You can modify the problem fairly easily so the tank breathes better. You can go to this site to get as much info on fords as you get on dodges here. http://forums.thedieselstop.com/ubbthreads/

So if you didn't really have the tank full, you can't get a true figure on mileage unless you take several partial tanks and keep track of total mileage driven, divided by gallons pumped--and that will take a while to get the data.

The ford with it's original diesel engine probably got upper teens with 3.54 gears, no load and easy driving at it's best.

 

I hope your right with filling the tank, but I always fill my tank till the pump cuts off 3 to 4 times. Then I let the fuel settle and fill it till I can see it at almost the top of the neck, that way I always have the same reading. I'm sure I'll get to drive it some soon when I get back home. It's nice having a cummins in a ford, I just wish the truck was as nice as my superduty. Oh well it's time to see that one go away as it sits too much.

 

there were times it would take 10 minutes of futzing around trying to get the fuel up to the top of the neck.....it is a poor design. I had a station attendant fill my ford in oregon and the pump kicked out twice......I left with slightly more then half a tank. I bet your mileage is real close to your goal.

the difference in a 160 and a 215 is not going to show up at similar speeds if you were running hammer down all day then yep a 215 burns more but at slight loads they arepretty close.

timing can play a role in the mileage but prolly not as much as you are seeing.

 

Crawl under the Ford and remove/throw-away the stupid roll-over valves that are stuck in the ends of the tank vents; then, you can fill it with the high-volume pumps that the big boys use.

Many have tried all kinds of tricks with the do-nothing vents on the filler-necks themselves; don't waste your time on them.

Until you get rid of those stupid plastic valves in the ends of the actual tank vent hoses, that are on top of each tank, you will always have problems fueling.