I gained 10% in HP

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

ELeland

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 21, 2017
Posts
211
Location
Jupiter, FL
Just by looking at the plaque on my valve cover!  When I bought my rig I was told it was 300HP.  All of the specs in the manuals and even the Freightliner website lists my coach at 300HP.  I was checking some other items on the engine and happened to actually read the sticker.  330HP @ 2400 RPM.  The specs say 300HP @ 2200.  The torque specs are the same for both at 860 Ft/Lbs.

What do I do with all that extra HP? ;D
 

Attachments

  • CAT Engine Plaque.jpg
    CAT Engine Plaque.jpg
    81 KB · Views: 81
One and the same engine,,since horsepower is a function of RPM, it will peak after the torque peak is reached and will vary with RPM.>>>Dan
 
I would definitely go faster! Kidding, I?M KIDDING  ;) . (There?s a recent topic on this for those not in on the joke  ;) )
 
ELeland said:
Just by looking at the plaque on my valve cover!  When I bought my rig I was told it was 300HP.  All of the specs in the manuals and even the Freightliner website lists my coach at 300HP.  I was checking some other items on the engine and happened to actually read the sticker.  330HP @ 2400 RPM.  The specs say 300HP @ 2200.  The torque specs are the same for both at 860 Ft/Lbs.

What do I do with all that extra HP? ;D

Well the first thing is to get a sticker with the new updated HP and display it proudly on your RIG.  Secondly call whomever you bought it from and explain that they were a sucker - They had no idea what it was worth! 

Two final things - Use that extra HP to turn a generator which can charge a battery.  Sell the electricity to some camper who needs it.

Oh and my Cat is governed at 2300 RPM's so you may not be able to get her up that high?? ;)
 
sadixon49 said:
If your torque and rpm #s are correct, you've really got 393HP. HP = Torque x RPM / 5252

Maybe use a sharpie to change 300 everywhere to 393 and sell it for a large profit?
 
Sorry to disappoint but you may have only 300 hp. The engine block family may be rated for up to 330 hp, but yours, as tuned, may be 300.  I had a similar situation with my Cummins ISL engine, which proudly wore an engine data plate stating it was an ISL 400 with 1200 lb-ft of torque, but the version installed in my coach was actually derated to 370 hp. They did that by limiting the turbo-boost and flattening the torque/Hp curve slightly.  The following year the same engine became 400 & 425 hp instead, again by re-tuning the electronics & turbo.  All magic!

That enables the engine manufacturer to offer multiple engine models without actually building different engines. That may be simply for marketing reasons (vehicles with bigger engines are usually higher price or upscale marketed) or to meet some regulatory or mechanical restriction on engine size.

It's also possible that FCCC simply ran out of the 300 hp tuned engines at the moment your chassis was built and substituted the 330 hp version, which is identical except for the tuning.
 
As horsepower goes up so does warranty costs and the coach/truck manufacturers take advantage of it. For example: in 2000+/- a 550/1850 cat cost about $2000 more from final manufacture than 475/1650 on the dealers lot. Only difference was fuel settings. You could buy the truck as a 475, have the dealer set it to 550, pay Cat $860 more (over the 475) for the 5 year/ 500,000 mi. warranty and be on your way saving about $1150. Also, the data plate on all engines showed the highest horsepower setting no matter what the engine was set at originally.
 
Gary RV_Wizard said:
Sorry to disappoint but you may have only 300 hp. The engine block family may be rated for up to 330 hp, but yours, as tuned, may be 300.  I had a similar situation with my Cummins ISL engine, which proudly wore an engine data plate stating it was an ISL 400 with 1200 lb-ft of torque, but the version installed in my coach was actually derated to 370 hp. They did that by limiting the turbo-boost and flattening the torque/Hp curve slightly.  The following year the same engine became 400 & 425 hp instead, again by re-tuning the electronics & turbo.  All magic!

That enables the engine manufacturer to offer multiple engine models without actually building different engines. That may be simply for marketing reasons (vehicles with bigger engines are usually higher price or upscale marketed) or to meet some regulatory or mechanical restriction on engine size.

It's also possible that FCCC simply ran out of the 300 hp tuned engines at the moment your chassis was built and substituted the 330 hp version, which is identical except for the tuning.


You burst my bubble Gary....  Should I cancel my eBay order for the pair of 5-Point harnesses for me and my DW?
 
ELeland said:
You burst my bubble Gary....  Should I cancel my eBay order for the pair of 5-Point harnesses for me and my DW?

I think everyone is missing the most important part.  The sticker!!  The highest number I heard was 393 so I would order a "Cat Powered 400 HP" sticker.  Oh and for goodness sakes take the muffler off and please turn the jake brake on and break the off button! ;)
 
I cancelled the "393" sticker :(.  Gary was 100% right when he said it was tuned to the lower rating.  I called CAT with my serial number and they confirmed the 300HP.  When I asked if it could be tuned to 330HP they said yes it was easily done with the programming but I likely wouldn't notice any difference because it doesn't increase the torque.
 
HP = Torque x RPM / 5252

To get more HP from the same torque, they let the engine rev up a bit higher.  It's not quite that simple because the curves are a bit different when they do that, but that's the gist of it. If you hunt around online, you can probably find the HP & Torque vs RPM graphs for both versions.
 
Back
Top Bottom