We don't have that many hills here and most of my moves are in the city, but right now i'm pulling it with 330hp with a 6 speed allison and I know it's pushing the truck right to the limits. I know a standard will have more power, but i'd be scared of killing a 20 year old 300hp motor trying to pull that much weight. Old truck was a 1989 INT with the 400 Cummins and had about 600k miles on it and even just at 50,000lbs it was enough for that truck, the motor was tired. I don't care how fast it moves it, I just don't want something that i'm going to kill in short order pulling the hoe.
Again maybe i'm just scared of old trucks, but i'm worried about trying to drill into a old frame like that and throw on a hitch and stress it in new ways. The old INT was a double frame and it was cracked and splitting in numerous places. Plus i'd rather just put that extra money into the purchase price, if i'm only spending $15k an extra say $3k goes a long ways. It cost me about $1200 for parts and labour alone just to run air lines for my trailer, the trolley lever and trailer button was already there.
