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What is it with horsepower ratings?

RZucker

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There's a guy on another site I watch that thinks he needs 350 HP to move a 65K Lb. drilling rig around. It's come up before and I got shouted down because I suggested he replace his 3208 with a smaller rated 6V92 (done it) The "Experts" told him 350HP was the magic number.
How many 5 axle mixers do we see every day with 320 HP booting down the freeway like nobodie's business? Heck my old grain truck was a 318 Detroit and ran just fine at 80K... I don't understand the fixation. Rant off.
 

Junkyard

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Hell think about what a 220 or a 290 used to move. I don’t get it either. Nobody could believe I ordered my last batch of trucks (which turned out to be THE last ones lol) with a 475 1850TQ and not a 600 2050. At the end of the day I got just as much done, paid less for the truck and less FET.

Maybe it’s compensation for something else lol. Same way with pickups now. 300+ HP 800+ TQ. They can pull more than they can stop or safely handle in an oh $hit moment. To each their own I reckon.
 

repowerguy

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Where I work at we have a lot of mid 90's Advance mixers with 3306 Cats at 300 hp and HT 740 Allisons, they are 6 axle trucks and pull 10 yds just fine. Everyone thinks they have to hit highway speed in 3 truck lengths.
 

thepumpguysc

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If they knew what they were talking about, all you would have to do is turn 1 screw to get the HP outta the 3208.. & turn it back down when finished w/ the job..
The rear end gearing "might" have something to do w/ it tho??
 

repowerguy

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If they knew what they were talking about, all you would have to do is turn 1 screw to get the HP outta the 3208.. & turn it back down when finished w/ the job..
The rear end gearing "might" have something to do w/ it tho??
With that one screw you can make a storm cloud behind you that will slow everyone else down so you think you’re going faster!
 

funwithfuel

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Where I work at we have a lot of mid 90's Advance mixers with 3306 Cats at 300 hp and HT 740 Allisons, they are 6 axle trucks and pull 10 yds just fine. Everyone thinks they have to hit highway speed in 3 truck lengths.
Out this way, I see L10 and M11 cummins in a lot of mixers. Garbage trucks also. Another thing these folks don't realize is, they can't drive right in the first place. Oh yeah they can climb hills in top gear, but they don't have a clue what gear to be in for the trip down the other side. Hell, some of the crushing and screening plants I have in my area have C10 cats and ISM11 in them. That's a huge burden fully loaded.
I agree between 275 and 330 seems to be all yer gonna need out here in the middle.
All that said, if you got 110k on your back and your out west where the mountains are. You might just need that extra umph.
 

Truck Shop

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Well why does anyone need a diesel pickup with the kind of horse power those produce today-because they want to be able to pull a 35' goose neck and entertain the family with
movies and such while hauling a 245 on the back. Asinine is what it is. You think 350 is silly for a drill rig then how about built in micro waves/ 32"tv's a ton of gizmos for cooking
a truck that does everything automatically so the driver just sets on his a$$ looking out the windshield. That's what my company just bought for some new replacement tractors.
Twelve of those rigs at $170,000 each. And guess what, most of the drivers still griped and bitched because they needed more amenities. Face it we are a country of lazy fools.

Truck Shop
 

crane operator

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Twelve of those rigs at $170,000 each

That's a amazing amount of $. That has to be hard to pencil out, those trucks have to really be moving.

As far as the Hp. I really don't care as much about HP as Torque. Of course that's gibberish to some of them, but at least here people understand that. When I had my 12.7 ecm checked, I had the option to change it from 470 at the pedal to 500 (like the cruise offers you). But the torque curve stays the same, at either rating. So I just had them leave it alone.

That's why when someone talks about a 350 hp motor, I want to know what exactly we're talking about. I find a lot of difference between a M11 at 350, and a big cam/ N14 or 3406 that's set at 350 hp.

My area is all short steep hills, and my 6-71 has all it wants and then some moving around 80,000lbs of crane. Like 3rd gear walking up hills. 350-400hp is still in its future- when I have time (which I've been saying for like 7 years).

I do drive around my 25 ton's with 8.3 cummins (50,000lb machine), and that isn't too bad with 250 hp, I like them much better now then when they had 3208's- and that's just the torque difference. All the dump truck guys need 400-500hp to run around that kind of weight, but they're getting paid by the load, I charge by the hour.

I suggested he replace his 3208 with a smaller rated 6V92

Did you mean a 6v53 instead of a 3208? they would be about a even swap, the 6v92 would be quite a bit bigger in physical size. my 25's were offered factory with 3208, 555 cummins or 6v53, but I don't think there's any way a 6v92 would fit in there, but he may have a bunch more room in the drilling rig.
 

John C.

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I always thought that there should be some kind of chart for each engine and drive train configuration showing torque output at a given speed in a given gear range to pull a grade. It would tell the truth about the capability of any engine/drive train in any application. It would be easier to understand than those horsepower and torque charts the dealers use for BS to confuse buyers with. You could set it up like a lift chart for a crane. The upward curve would start at 0% and show the torque output available in top gear. Now increase the grade to one percent and put a figure that was necessary to pull that grade compared to the available torque. When you run out of torque you shift down to increase the torque again but lose speed. Make a mark on the curve to show where the torque falls off. Make the curve steeper and run the numbers again until you hit your maximum grade in your area. Now you can run that graph for each combination of engine and drive train to get a real comparison. But then again I don't think the manufacturers and dealers want to use anything like easy to understand actual facts for selling their products.
 

ol'stonebreaker

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The pic of the Datsun reminds me of yrs ago when we were crushing rock for the county and residents could buy crushed rock for cost. A guy was coming in with a like Datsun as pic'd and would load under the belt with rock running off all sides. I just knew he was going to break both rear springs or bend the axle tubes. That little thing just kept hauling for 2 or 3 days and to my knowledge didn't suffer any damage.
Mike
 
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Birken Vogt

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I have a friend who used to have a 70 something Toyota he put through all kinds of abuse, but he tried setting a large boulder in the bed with a backhoe and the rock rolled a little bit, folded over the bed rail like it was a beer can (because it was). And the truck went to the junkyard shortly after that.
 

RZucker

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Did you mean a 6v53 instead of a 3208? they would be about a even swap, the 6v92 would be quite a bit bigger in physical size. my 25's were offered factory with 3208, 555 cummins or 6v53, but I don't think there's any way a 6v92 would fit in there, but he may have a bunch more room in the drilling rig.

No, this was a 6V92T at around 305-310HP, it went into a '78ish Ford LN8000 ex mixer chassis. the donor truck was an old Consolidated Freightways Freightliner cabover. Used a lot of stock Ford wrecking yard parts, I think that truck was available with a 6V71. Top tank on the radiator even had dual inlets, I did have a core installed with an extra row of tubes.
The ford originally had a small 5x4 setup with big rears so I used a 9513 trans and a 1700 series driveline.
It all turned out pretty good for a farm truck that hauls grain and spuds 3 or 4 months a year.
That was about the time I realized Isspro electronic speedos and tachometers are your friends on conversions.
 

Truck Shop

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Crane operator -hard to pencil out you say? One trip from Warden Wa to Grand Forks is roughly 1290 miles the load pays $3,100, the return load $2,950. You folks get
to cover it at the fast food drive-ins and grocery store. Some of our trucks will make two back to back runs from Caldwell ID to Grand Forks in a week. Our trucks
move. There is no screwing around in our shop average time for full service 40 minutes with three working on it and that includes brakes, tires or what ever. It's a chuckle
to me when I read some of the threads on here-I would like to run some of the folks on here through our shop run them to death I would.

Truck Shop
 

AzIron

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We had a dt 466 in a service truck that thing was awesome it would run just as fast without a tag trailer as it did dragging a backhoe

550 hp is great pulling a hill till you can't keep her cool and have 3 miles to go on a 6 percent grade and most grades are steepest at the top
 

RZucker

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Crane operator -hard to pencil out you say? One trip from Warden Wa to Grand Forks is roughly 1290 miles the load pays $3,100, the return load $2,950. You folks get
to cover it at the fast food drive-ins and grocery store. Some of our trucks will make two back to back runs from Caldwell ID to Grand Forks in a week. Our trucks
move. There is no screwing around in our shop average time for full service 40 minutes with three working on it and that includes brakes, tires or what ever. It's a chuckle
to me when I read some of the threads on here-I would like to run some of the folks on here through our shop run them to death I would.

Truck Shop

I got one I can send you. He's unemployed as of yesterday. We did hubs, drums, brakes, and camshafts on a dumptruck last fall, Truck came back Monday leaking oil from all 4 hubs. I told the guy he had to remove the old Stemco wear rings to use the C/R scotseals. He didn't, now I eat this.
Idiot (26 year old fatboy) told my other guy I was full of sh!t and it wasn't his problem. I think he was walking funny when he left my office. Probably will for a week or two.
 

John C.

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Had a hay truck owner explain it to me this way. He wanted to pull Vantage hill from the Columbia River to Ryegrass at no less that 40 miles per hour grossing 80K. That means probably somewhat more than 350 ponies and 1,000 foot pounds of torque.
 

RZucker

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Had a hay truck owner explain it to me this way. He wanted to pull Vantage hill from the Columbia River to Ryegrass at no less that 40 miles per hour grossing 80K. That means probably somewhat more than 350 ponies and 1,000 foot pounds of torque.

I hear that everyday. These guys now want to run vantage to Ryegrass at 40 MPH with 105,500 K. I just rerated a 3406E back to stock 450HP because the driver Burnt it down too many times. It was a Skunk works program and no way to really read it. This driver is unemployed too if anybody needs him.
 

Truck Shop

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I got one I can send you. He's unemployed as of yesterday. We did hubs, drums, brakes, and camshafts on a dumptruck last fall, Truck came back Monday leaking oil from all 4 hubs. I told the guy he had to remove the old Stemco wear rings to use the C/R scotseals. He didn't, now I eat this.
Idiot (26 year old fatboy) told my other guy I was full of sh!t and it wasn't his problem. I think he was walking funny when he left my office. Probably will for a week or two.

Well I would return him to sender. The only hay shaker I know of that pulled Ryegrass with 101,000 at 55 was the Chrome Brothers with their 362 Pete 110 sleep with a extremely pumped 3408.
And that was against a standard Ryegrass head wind of 25. People they just don't have enough power under their hoods, just have to go faster all the time and in the end they got no where. It's all about how long you
can stay behind the wheel without stopping.

Truck Shop
 

DMiller

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I watched guys in the day set pumps up swap unit injectors and set rpms 'a Little Higher', newer engines with electronics getting remapped then almost as fast being cooked down in the first long pull they made for any of them. You don't know how to drive them and keep them cleared they get hot cooking off then as noted the other side of the hill was pulled you should be in third direct to run down you are already a full gear too high for and the brakes will not handle it well.

Gets back to the pay me now pay me later stage where you want Corvette response in a heavy hauler you get what you ask for in a stick of dynamite with a lit variable speed fuse and no way to keep it from going off just your response as to how fast it will go off.
A 3208 is never going to be a 6V 71 or 92, it also will not out torque a inline 6 anything as was/Is a RPM HP maker not a deep torque hp user.

I see the morons around here speaking the BS getting 22mpg dyno spec'd hp in the 300's(no records available so again BS), smoke a belching always in the throttle and NEVER EVER a load behind the Bad Cummins Dodges, my old 7.3 has a 75hp boost from EDGE that returned fuel economy to reasonable 12-16mpg(loaded/empty) while pulling pretty well, has almost 350,000 on it now and getting tired. Pulled a goose with a Allis 180 and a BH 3008 mower on that fitted out with a loader for ballast then whatever supplies we needed for the week or weekend. Did that at 75mph down I-44 and left plenty of stopping distance as KNEW would not stop on a dime with all that weight.
 
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