Chevy 4X4???

[smb4me]

My choice would be the chevy duramax paired with the allison tranny over the ford 6.0 L psd/5 speed tranny, would prefer the smb 4x4 but can live with the quigley.

I imagine (guessing) that Ford would put the 6.4 L psd in the van in 09 or 2010, and that chevy would work in the allision tranny when they revise/update their current model.

I recall reading somewhere on the net, that the mark-up for the quigley is about is about 60/40 (cost/profit less R&D/marketing).

same question here, how was the ride of the chevy solid front axle?

[Steve_382]

We didn't drive the Chevy solid axle. The only one I saw had large offroad tires, etc. and we didn't think it was anything like what we would have purchased. From the looks of the lot, there were probably 50 or more fords with solid axles, and about 15 or so chevy IFS vans ready to ship. They also convert chevy vans from left hand drive to right hand drive for postal and overseas use. That's a major project, but it looks like they do a great job of it. The dash gets flipped and everything.

I agree about the duramax with the allison tranny, but that's not currently a choice. We drove one of the solid axle fords with the v10 and it was really strong. When you floor it at 75mph, it feels like it would easily top 100 mph.

SMB in Indiana mentioned that they had heard Ford was going to do an overhaul of the E vans for 2009 and also put the 6.4L engine in, but Quigley couldn't confirm either story.

[smb4me]

maybe this may need to be on a new post,
my timeline is to drive off with a smb in mid 2009, and therefore, i am somewhat in between cycyl of the 6.0L PSD and the 6.4 L PSD
sooooo, if you happend to have a similar timeliness, would you wait for the 6.4L PSD?,

my biggest turn off with the current incarnation is the 6.0L PSD, albeit i do not have any personal experience with it, i read some really negative things as well as really postive things (taking it all in with a grain of salt and reading between the lies)

as for the duramax, it is not a bad engine, only issue is that it is paired with a 4 speed, (i do imagine gm mating it with the allison, if they do rework the chevy van to accommodate the larger/heavier allison

my ride is more to get me into and out very off the beaten path places versus the pure ride of rock crawling, thus reason for the smb 4x4