We have a 2010 Newmar Canyon Star class A toy hauler coach that was only offered with the Ford F53 gas truck chassis. After a recent 3,850 miles trip to the Grand Canyon in AZ and back thru Utah and Colorado I had to finally admitt how seriously underpowered our coach is. I put on a Banks header, exhaust and cold air inked kit already which helps a little but sure with I had he torque of my Ram 2500 diesel! Has anyone added a supercharger or turbo to their gasser and been happy? When climbing from Vail Co to the summit on hwy 70 we literally were down to a crawling 32 mph while almost wide open and for several miles. I don't know what we would have done if we were pulling our enclosed motorcycle trailer or a toad! Any suggestions would be appreciated and before anyone replies, not 1 manufacture offers a class A with a similar floor plan as the Newmar Canyon Star 3920 with a diesel. If they did we would have purchasd it. Thanks in advance!
There are tuner kits for the Ford trucks, they should also work for the F-53 wich is basically a F-550 pickup truck wihtout the cab.
I would also suggest improving the cooling for the transmission if increasing the power, as well as figuring out what to do with the extra engine heat that will come along with the extra power. A small car heater core that is conected to the heater hose lines might do the trick of getting rid of another 50,000 Btu's of heat.
And I installed a Napa coolant water filter just because it helps avoid water pump replacement at 110,000 miles. Napa # FIL 4070 is the filter #FIL 4019 is the kit to install it in a heater hose line. I put mine just behind the bumper, with enough soace under it to put a 5 gallon bucket while I am changing the filter, to catch any coolant that might leak out.
Most tuner kits also recommend 91 octane gas because they advance the engine timing to the point that it might ping if not on higher octane. The advantage is you should be getting more MPG on the higher octane gas, (with improved engine timning offered by the power booster) yet that higher MPG will probably get offset and lost while driving at higher freeway speeds. You can gain about 40 HP by changing to 91 octane and using a mild engine boost programmer. You already have the correct headers, and improved breathing to make it happen.
The little pistons and short stroke of the 6.8L engine will allow it to run 4,500 RPM for 15 minutes at a time without damage. While your larger diameter Cummins would have been moving at a very high piston speed, because of it's longer stroke, and the larger diameter Cummins pistons are about 35% heavier than the 6.8L piston, so it has more overall mass moving up and down than the 6.8L gas engine.
A stacked plate transmission cooler would make a good addition if you start to add a lot more power. To replace the factory cooler, not to run two inline with each other. Make sure you are getting a larger cooler though, the factory one is pretty big already.
Yes they do make a turbocharger kit for the Ford engines, but I am not sure who. And I am not sure how many more horsepower the transmission can take, along with the limits of the crankshaft. You already have 450 feet pounds of torque, and more than 350 HP, that should be more than the Dodge pickup had a few years ago. I know that the 6.7L Dodge and current GM and 6.7L Ford are making more than 450 feet pounds of torque today, yet you are comparing to your old pickup, so I am thinking about the factory ratings on the 5.9L dodges.
I googled 6.8L Turbo and came up with many results.
It is fine for a pickup to have a turbocharger, even without a intercooler, it will not overheat to much because most of the time it will not be running 50% full power. However in a motorhome application, when you will expect to run 50% to 75% full throttle for minutes at a time, and over 50% for hours at a time, then you would need a lot more cooling.
A engine needs about 8 square inches of radiator to keep it cool per horsepower. So a 100 HP engine requires 800 square inches. This is 20 X 40" or 20" square and two row radiator. The radiator in your motorhome is certainally large, you can measure the core width and high pretty easy. And it might even be a little larger just because they guess it will get some plugging do to the coolant not being perfectly clean after 10 years ect, and they tend to oversize it due to the motorhome box limiting airflow to the engine and radiator. You might even have a 3 row radiator.
You might want to see what Banks has to offer in intercoolers. I don't know what will fit in your RV though. Perhaps one of the intercoolers that comes off a Ford pickup from the factory, or something they install as part of a intercooler kit for a pickup will work with your motorhome.
Ford's new diesel I think it uses a water cooled intercooler, so it has a separate radiator to cool the water that in turn is used to cool the superheated air coming off the turbocharger. Compressing air heats it, and turbocharging the air heats it a lot. Cooling the turbocharged air allows more air into each cylinder, better engine cooling, lower exhaust gas temps, and less chance of pinging in a fuel injected gas engine.
32MPH over the divide in CO, it could be worse When we went a couple of weeks ago (same chassis + 4000lb toad) we were doing ~23MPH, almost full throttle in first gear for miles on end.
Anyway, fwiw, if I was going to go big with this particular engine assuming the products are available I would go for the supercharger over turbo - this engine needs more low end. And yes, upgrade the cooling.
On another note - has anyone thought about swapping in a 7.3 powerstroke on this chassis? I have absolutely no idea why this option is so rare with the coach manufacturers but it seems by far the most common engine in this chassis in other applications.
DVREDC5 wrote: We have a 2010 Newmar Canyon Star class A toy hauler coach that was only offered with the Ford F53 gas truck chassis. After a recent 3,850 miles trip to the Grand Canyon in AZ and back thru Utah and Colorado I had to finally admitt how seriously underpowered our coach is. I put on a Banks header, exhaust and cold air inked kit already which helps a little but sure with I had he torque of my Ram 2500 diesel! Has anyone added a supercharger or turbo to their gasser and been happy? When climbing from Vail Co to the summit on hwy 70 we literally were down to a crawling 32 mph while almost wide open and for several miles. I don't know what we would have done if we were pulling our enclosed motorcycle trailer or a toad! Any suggestions would be appreciated and before anyone replies, not 1 manufacture offers a class A with a similar floor plan as the Newmar Canyon Star 3920 with a diesel. If they did we would have purchasd it. Thanks in advance!
Don't know the total weight of your coach, but our 2000 coach loaded for travel weighs 21,230lbs and towing a 3,600lb vehicle. The v10 in ours is the older 2 valve 310hp with the 4spd transmission.
Living out West we frequently navigate 6-7% mountain grades with speeds dropping pretty low where we occasionally need to use 1'st gear, however 95% of our travels are on fairly level terrain.
Had the Banks system installed several years ago which helped somewhat, then last year had the 5 Star Tuning PCM upgrade which increased power a slight bit more but nothing earthshaking.
Good luck with a power upgrade that meets your needs and safe travels...
Jim & Sherry Seward
Las Vegas, NV
2000 Residency 3790 V-10 w/tags & Banks System
2003 Suzuki XL/7 toad
Surprised that your have a power issue with your V-10. Travelling out west I was able to pull all of the mountains at at least 55 mph fully loaded with TOAD (24750 lbs) with the 362hp. Mine did not have the banks system either. Are you sure the banks system is installed properly. Sounds like something is amiss. BTW, I passed many a diesel coach going up those "hills", but they passed me going down the other side! Interested in finding out what your issue is. JM2¢...
Ted & Carmella in the DreamCatcher a
2008 Challenger 371PE on F53 w/ 2010 Cobalt R'V there yet?
Like Fred said, there are turbo kits out there. I would probably go with a mildly built engine (if it needs it...not familiar with the strength of the V10's innards) so you could run under boost for minutes on end without stressing the engine. Definitely go with more cooling and a good sized intercooler. Considering we have 6.8L of displacement, spooling most turbo's will be a non-issue. Also, match the turbo to the engines power band. These engines rev somewhat and you want your turbo to putting out the most boost when you're at the climbing that hill rpm. Any good tuner will already know this stuff.
As another poster mentioned are you expecting to spend a lot of time in the mountains? We live on the coast here in So. Cal. where everywhere is up or down a hill, mountain to those in the flat middle of the country. I have run up and over the hills with no problem towing a 4K Ramcharger and my son's 94 Jeep Grand Cherokee from ID on a dolly no problem.
With the jeep we ran it over the scale and were running right around 25K with a 26K capacity. I am 36' and 2 slides, have you weighed your rig? We are a 2005 22K GVWR and 26K GCVWR which was the max weight Ford chassis in 06, what rating do you have? Maybe you are way over weight and that is the performance issue.
Ray, Cheryl, Cory & of course Miss Molly the four-legged child
Don;t usually write social comments, but... Is this the same coach you wrote about in '"Problem Class A" or is this normal?' in this forum late last year? Seems like you really don't like this unit. With all the warranty problems you had, I'm suprised that you modified the engine and voided its warranty by the Banks installation. Or was this modication in place when the ring and pinion had to be replaced? Or the brake caliper? It was recommended in this thread to have the vehicle weighted to ensure it is not overload. I beleive the UVW is about 19500 lbs which leaves about 2500 lbs for Toys, passengers and camping provisions. Not much IMHO. Add a TOAD and your close to my unit. My unit preforms just fine for a GCVW of >24000 lbs. These things are not Hot Rods. You said your researched before purchase; not very well I suspect. Is this power issue Ford's, Newmar's, or DVREDC5's? If this was a vote, I'm sure you know how I would vote. JM2¢...
* This post was
edited 08/15/12 02:41pm by teddyu *
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When we went a couple of weeks ago (same chassis + 4000lb toad) we were doing ~23MPH, almost full throttle in first gear for miles on end. 
