First Over the Road Success

[timr]

We left on 12/26/14 for a long week to fla. We stayed at the Winter Gardens RV park in Orlando.I'll fill you in on the park at the end.
Watched the northern weather closely for I75 south out of S/W Ohio. We lucked out. Great weather. RV did wonderfully.Thor ACE Bunkhouse 30.1. No power problems(we didn't tow). Trucked over Jellico Pass 2500ft + or - with ease.Not the Rockies,I know,but has some good grades.
Bit of traffic as expected. I took on full load of water more as an experiment to see how it handled,climbed,ect...was no big deal.
I will add this. Be careful with cruise control. It likes to kick into passing,climbing gear immediately upon hills,and even long grades. You can kick off the cruise at the first incline,and feather the gas to maintain plenty of power,and save high rpms,and fuel. I never went over 3k rpm on any climb on my own. The cruise often kicked me up to 4k right away.
Coming home was good as well,with the exception of HEAVY RAIN..ugh! /We were travelling through Tenn/Ky the same night of the plane crash where the 7yr old girl was the only survivor. Terrible weather that night.But I wanted to push on to test the coach. Comfort was awesome. Driving was pretty easy.I am going to look into brighter head light bulbs. I maintained 65 max when possible. Did not check or worry about mpg this time. Made it through Jellico around midnight. Pulled into KY rest stop,and slept for two hrs,back at it at 2am. still raining. 24 hrs on the road,about 22 driving. No issues. Bottom line. 2k+ miles.No problems,no complaints.
Ok,we stayed at WinterGarden RV park in Orlando. I imagine in its original state ,it was the place to go. Older park ,all grass pads. But,it was very quite,all hook ups were easy.Very reasonable . 171$ for 7 nights. Nice,clean older park.Lots of trees,two pools,lobby,game room,gym,etc . Holiday dinners. You can tell,it was very secluded at one time,until Winter Garden,and Orlando grew up around it. A bit crowded,your close to your neighbor. So,if your into the Orlando area,nice place to stay.Easy in and out.
Thats about it.Visited with family,took our 13yr old daughter to see Winter,the tailess,movie star dolphin in Clearwater. 3 days very nice weather,rest of the week sucked with cold rain. But we still had fun.
Happy New Year all!!!!!!!!!!
The Riggs'

[JamieGeek]

Originally Posted by timr

I will add this. Be careful with cruise control. It likes to kick into passing,climbing gear immediately upon hills,and even long grades. You can kick off the cruise at the first incline,and feather the gas to maintain plenty of power,and save high rpms,and fuel. I never went over 3k rpm on any climb on my own. The cruise often kicked me up to 4k right away.

Do not be concerned with the RPMs. The V-10 just loves high RPMs.
We just did a similar route in our Axis: Naples, FL -> Detroit all on I-75. When I was driving a large portion of it was using the cruise control (granted at 25ft and 11,400 lbs our Axis is a bit smaller and lighter than your ACE). In the mountains I'd just let the cruise downshift as much as it wanted, in many cases hitting 4k RPM with no issues passing just about everyone along the way (the redline is somewhere closer to 5800).
Our Axis is our third V-10 powered vehicle (had two pickups before that--F-250, F-350--for pulling our old 5th wheel). The V-10 is an overhead valve engine and loves to rev.
This is the most common mistake people make with the Triton V-10: They treat it like a pushrod engine and try to baby it keeping RPMs down.
Some info:
Ford Modular engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
V10 Redline - Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forums


Glad the trip went well, Happy New Year.

[blw2]

Just returned from our first long trip too.... in the E-450 chassis, 2,554.1 miles!

I was thinking the same thing about the cruise kicking into passing gear.....
I understand not to worry, but I guess it does make economical sense to do as the OP wrote and let the speed taper off up grade, using your built up potential energy.
I was really wishing the cruise had a setting for less aggressive maintenance of it's set point.....

[timr]

Ok, I'll buy the V10 rpm info.Thanks for that. But it still seems to me,not being a mechanic,that lower rpms equal better fuel economy ,as well as easier on the oil life/viscosity?
Not to mention the engine noise at 4k-4500 rpm

[blw2]

yep, use the power if needed at the higher rpms..... and I might even buy the argument that it's good for the engine to wind it up now and again..... but I'll let the speed bleed down for my comfort when I can get away with it. On this last trip, I let the cruise wind it out a fair bit too, when trip time was more important to me....

[FW28z]

First time I went up a big hill with my rig on cruise control, the downshift scared the heck out of me. It sounded like it wanted to blow up...

[Nursx2]

The V10 is a workhorse for sure. On my second one (prior E450 and now F53), love the power from these engines!

[TEUSeller]

Good to know about RPM's. I get past 3300 and I also think the engine is going to blow. I would generally wind it up to just past 3000 and then get off the gas until I felt it shift to the next gear.
Engine does make a lot of noise at high RPM. Wow.

[Nursx2]

We called the old E450 class C Sunseeker "growl", after the sound the motor would make when Would kick it down going up a hill!

[EA37TS]

Next time you take it out try the Tow/Trailer mode on the trans. I used this mode when driving with or without a toad on my former class C and it made up and downshifting a lot easier going through the mountains of Virginia. I definitely found that using Tow mode going downhill is easier on the nerves as the coach would better control downshifting to maintain speed saving wear on the brakes.

I haven't taken the Challenger through the mountains yet so it will interesting to see how it does in a couple of weeks.

[KNMIB]

Good info. I am heading out west tomorrow in our 25ft Four Winds. I have driven thru the Rockies many times in a car and always down shift on going down steep grades. I am new at driving a V10 and assume I will be down shifting in the RV as well. Is this true?

[JamieGeek]

Originally Posted by KNMIB

I am new at driving a V10 and assume I will be down shifting in the RV as well. Is this true?

Put it in tow-haul mode (tap the button at the end of the shifter) and it will down-shift for you: just tap the brake going downhill and it will do the shifting.

[KNMIB]

Thanks, That will help.