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Engine size upgrade
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Well said Jon.
If your primary concern was passing everybody on the highway, you wouldn’t buy a 25 ton anything.
I doubt you’ll find any Prevost converter, or RV manufacturer, focusing their sales pitch on how fast their particular product goes down the road.
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“And Robert…….get your foot off the
accelerator. Your cruise control makes more HP than your foot, and using
your foot to try to squeeze more speed on a hill actually drops your
available HP.”Jon, he’s probably talking about a mechancial 6V92 and your thinking of the 430/470 HP on the electronic engines like the Series
60 12.7s where it was 470 HP on cruise and 430 HP when the cruise was not
set. Some of the 430/470s could be changed to a constant 470 in the
ratings settings with a DDR or DDL software. It seems that a lot of the
14 liters I’ve looked at don’t have split ratings or they are set to the constant 515 HP rating. You can use your DDR and
look at your ratings, it should be something like “Rating 0 515”, “Rating
1 455” and if it has split ratings, higher HP for cruise set and lower
HP for cruise off it most likely will be “Rating 3 515/455”.Ken
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Jon, when I say that I don’t want to race up a hill, I really mean it.
I just want the reserve power to pass a very slow moving truck as I really find those to be a major safety hazzard. A vehicle going 15-20 mph on a 70 mph hwy is almost like a stopped vehicle in a travel lane.
I’ve been caught a time or two not seeing a V E R Y slow truck and having to really slow myself down. Sometimes it’s not a hill they are going slow on, it might be a mechanical problem they are having, etc. On flat land, I can gear down and build up speed and pass with ease (in our coach).
Back to those hills, I just don’t have the reserve power once I lose it. I might be able to pass a very slow vehicle but my speed will also be very slow. I have to keep a very keen eye on fast moving traffic way back in the distance if I make that maneuver.
Now that there is talk about putting a larger choice of engine in a Prevost, I would sure like to know that time frame.
H3-45, about putting a lot of miles on the coach, we’ll probably put on less than 10,000 miles a year. We are currently at 65,000 miles now at almost 7 yrs. of ownership. At trading/selling time, we’ll probably have around 70,000 miles at the end of the year.
MM.
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MM,
You need torque, not HP in the situation you describe. What you describe is trying to lift what is going to be 55,000 to 59,000 up 500 or 1000 feet or whatever the elevation change is.
Maybe there is a Newelll in your future.
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Not to muddy the waters,,,, but check Newell about their Delam issues. And from what I have read, Newell is not covering the cost of repairs like Prevost. They are squirting some epoxy behind the skin and clamping ???
Just a thought.
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Newell’s are overweight from the start, allways have been.
500 HP is enough, even to pull a trailer. You drive a bus like a semi, not like a car.
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Mark,
I don’t really get the worry about a hill and trucks. I’m a retired long haul truck driver and its a pretty simple process. if you can pass the truck in front of you do it or follow along until you can. If you can’t you stay in the rocking chair and forget it. Once your in the passing lane it can be a slow pass and being all worried about someone coming up behind you fast makes no sense. Most of the time its 4 whelers speeding anyway, so let them wait. Like the sign used to say, I may be slow, but I’m ahead of you.
I dont think you would be happy with 800 hp. Besides your not being paid by the mile or load, so whats the big deal about being to the top of the hill first. I used to do your annual mileage in 3 weeks. your going to spend 2 million dollars to race up a hill a few time s a year. Can you adopt me.
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Phorner,
Very sorry to hear about your friend. Would that be a Newell problem or a Cummins problem? No matter what, it’s not fun to have troubles.
I’ve never heard about a Newell having delam problems, will check into that.
We just arrived in Las Vegas, nice to be back in the coach as it’s been a couple of months. We took that back way to Las Vegas from Palm Springs through 29 Palms, Amboy, etc. Very little traffic and I slowed on some of the long inclines to 35 mph, but I made it. LOL!
Just down from us is a new Liberty Coach, maybe I’ll have a chance to say hi to the owners.
About the weight of the Newell, the sales guy says I’ll have 2,000 lbs. of room to work with on the front axle. He said they were not over loaded. He wouldn’t lie would he?
Would a four slide Prevost be close to being overweight? I’ll check into it.
Thanks for all of your opinions.
MM.
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I was checking out Penske’s Newell I see it has a Detroit D15 650 hp engine and not the standard Cummins ISX, @11,883 miles the Glass Dash is showing 7.9 mpg not to shabby for that heavy coach to bad everyone buying a bus or Newell cannot buy that engine
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IMO, those converting X-3 will face some real weight distribution challenges. A X-3 I looked at had less than a bay for storage and was very near being overweight before personal affects were added to the coach.
So far it looks like they are just doing more of the same. They really need to back up and rethink where they are putting systems. Although no one wants to sacrifice interior space, I would look seriously at stealing a bit of space at the rear of the coach. Without a serious reduction and maybe not very noticable, I would put the house battery bank just above the engine with a rear access panel. A well ventillated enclosure would make for a better environment for battery longevity and it would move nearly 1,000 pounds to the very back of the coach.
As much as many of us love the looks of the X series coaches, I bet that few X-3s loaded with all the bells and whistles will make their way to market. Could it be that someone brings the driver and passenger seating to the same level as the rest of the coach? Hmmm, that would take care of a common complaint. Just thinking out loud.
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Hi Gil,
In your post you say ‘X-3’, do you mean H-3? The X is an ‘X-2’ right?
MM.
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MM, yes I meant X-3, the only shiny sided coach now available as a shell. I should have said the H-3 at the very end were I refer to the two levels.
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I do like the flat floor that the Newell slides have, but since I put 18000 miles on my Prevost in the past 12 months (down from previous years) I will stick with the Prevost for the durability, reliabiltiy stand point rather than go for the trailer park model.
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While I am not advocating a Volvo engine, yet, the fact remains that it puts out 100 more ft.lbs of torque than the 60 series it replaces…1750 vs. 1650. Torque is what you want for keeping moving. We always valued it more in trucks than the actual hp. rating. We would spend hours with the Cat rep going over the programs for specing transmissions and rear axle ratios to get it just right.
While I have seen and heard some horror stories about the D13 Volvo, I have also talked to some very satisfied drivers.
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