F-450 HOTSHOT said:
I HAVE A 99 FOR F-450 WITH THE 7.3 DIESEL AND A SIX SPEED MANUAL TRANSMISSION. I GUESS BECAUSE OF THE GEAR RATIO I DO 65 MPH AT ABOUT 3500 RPMS. I PLAN ON CHANGING THE GEARS SO I CAN LOWER THE RPMS. BUT WHAT I WANTED TO KNOW IS DOES THAT HARM THE ENGINE ANY.
An alternative to changing your gears (since that will reduce pulling power) is to add an overdrive from US Gear. They have ODs with ratios around .72 if you want a straight up OD, and also .88 which i've been told allows you to split gears AND have an overdrive.
You must have 5.10 gears to be turning that hard at 65... Do you now what your ratio is?
The decision to change gears should be tempered with facts and knowledge, like
1.) How often do you go out on the highway? If this is a construction rig, for instance, it may not be on the highway much, but would benefit greatly from lowered gear ratio;
2.) how much do you haul and how often? If the loads are relatively light, then you don't need such low gears to get r done. A re-gear may be in order.
Anyway, I'm sue you get the point.
As far as are you hurting anything, other than fuel economy, the answer is no... My buddie's T444E runs 3,000 plus RPMs everywhere it goes hauling a LOT of weight. It just turned over 300,000 miles....
