Ford Triton V8 or V10?

[MyNomadLife]

What are your thoughts on the V8? Is the new one really comparable to a V10?

 

[Jireh Financial]

Engine size is not really my best area of knowledge. My theory with that is bigger is better. We have a Ford V10 in a HR Vacationer 35K. It seems to do what we ask it to do without horrible RPMs. We have not towed anything with it yet so I can't speak for that.
A friend of ours has the V10 in his Lexington Class C and he is happy he has that.
Ken

 

[MyNomadLife]

Engine size is not really my best area of knowledge. My theory with that is bigger is better. We have a Ford V10 in a HR Vacationer 35K. It seems to do what we ask it to do without horrible RPMs. We have not towed anything with it yet so I can't speak for that.
A friend of ours has the V10 in his Lexington Class C and he is happy he has that.
Ken

Funny that you mentioned the Vacationer 35K. After test driving my first Tiffin this week (diesel-but I’m not looking to purchase a diesel) the sales guy showed me a 35K. That is what inspired the question, apparently this model has a V8. It was new but they seem to offer only a 1 year warranty. How do you feel about the quality of your 35K? Would you live in it full time?

I did a bit more research and the newer V8s might actually have more horsepower.

So many things to think about....

 

[Jireh Financial]

Our HR Vacationer 35K we bought new and its a 2019. We love it. As you can see, we own a business so we are not full timers. It is fine for my wife and I to travel in and the extra half bath is great. That is one feature I hope to never be without. We have had a couple of our grandkids along a couple times. It has plenty of room for all of us. If we were going to be full time, I would probably want a table and chairs in place of our dinette. Other than that, we would be fine in it. We do have the washer/dryer too but have yet to use it. It was there in the unit when we bought.
As for the engine, I am just a fan of bigger engines. We always buy V8 in cars even when 6's are available. It seems that when selling, having the bigger engine always helps. We run at 70+ on the highway right at or slightly under 2,000 RPM. Not working very hard at all.
One year is very standard for coach warranties. Ours has a 3 year chassis and drivetrain but that's from Ford.
My company does offer very solid extra coverage. We believe in coverage.
Let me know if we can help.
Ken

 

[John&Andrea]

What are your thoughts on the V8? Is the new one really comparable to a V10?

Never owned the v10 but we have the 7.3 v8 in a 31’ class C. Has plenty of power and get 11mpg towing a Ford Escape. The v8 is a little bigger. I spoke to a friend before we purchased, that works at Ford and he had nothing bad to say about the engine.

 

[BGMAC]

I have a V10 in my 2011 Hurricane. It seems to have plenty of power for me. With the extra 2 cylinders you get a smoother engine under power it seems.

 

["EZ"]

I did a bit more research and the newer V8s might actually have more horsepower.

Pay no attention to horsepower when you are considering which engine to put into a truck or heavy RV. You need to pay attention to the torque number instead. Torque is what gets a heavy load moving. Horsepower only keeps it moving and usually requires a lot of RPM's to accomplish this if you want to go fast. (think drag race car) Most Marketing Departments want to brag about the HP of a vehicle and RARELY mention torque. This is because most people don't understand torque and what it does.

So if the V8 has 400 HP and 400 lb./ft. of torque and the V10 has 375 HP and 600 lb./ft. of torque which engine would be the best for moving a 30,000 pound motorhome? The answer is the V10 every time. Not to get too technical but the V8 would have to run at a much higher RPM to produce the same torque as the V10 engine. More RPM's means more wear and tear and also less fuel economy.

Now if you're talking about a Dodge Hell Cat Challenger with 800 HP thats a lot different!! Who cares about MPG's? Who cares about how many RPM's you're turning?? All you care about it having fun!!!

 

[Joe Hogan]

To your point EZ, it would be nice to get power curve or a Dyno chart on an engine, in the marketing material, to see where and how much power is being generated. Or at least some basic information on where power is being generated rather than some inane maximum number.

Thankfully the V10 was designed to have a relatively flat torque curve but the chart below shows why people prefer a diesel in medium duty trucks



If you ignore the Banks PowerPack column, this chart of wheel torque shows how broad and flat this curve is for a V10.

 

[Joe Hogan]

However getting back to the original question Gas V10 vs new Gas 7.3l V8. If you can tolerate the Ford new engine teething issues (essentially become a Ford Beta Tester, similarly early V10s had many issues), the new gas V8 looks to be a very impressive engine, out performing the V10 in almost every category.