I'm about to take the leap...
 

Pretty sure I'm be picking up my brand spankin' new to me 2003 FL Comumbia today. 490,xxx on the clock with a DD470, 13sp, and 2.93's should be ablt to pull some decent MPG's. Gonna be hauling Intermodal and 50% of it is empty. Still get full FSC on empty becaue of the way Intermodal is billed. I could make more on paper somewhere else, but when you factor in the excellent mileage I'll be averaging, I think it out weighs a few cents here and there. Plus I'll be home close to every night, so idle time shouldn't be a real issue.

Good luck. Are you sure the rears are not 393's instead of 293?

2.93 is WAY too high for 13 speed, even with CAT, with DD, you will be practically out of 13th, all the time.... :roll:

Yeah they are 2.93's. Supposedly 13th is .86, but I thing the ECM says it's .73 like most others. 75 mph is just shy of 1550 RPM's. So in most states 12th may be in order to keep from lugging.

That can't be that much different than guys running 3.36's with 13's and 18's would it?

Well, may be it is .86 :roll: Cause with 3.55 and 1550 I'm doing around 73mph 24.5LP.

Either way, I should be able to pull some good MPG's. I believe this truck has 295/75R22.5's on the drives. :roll:

i would take one of BIGDIESEL's lines and say something bad about intermodal.....but..................

ill just tell ya good look....you get on with 1 of the very few good intermodal companies there are then u may be ok but there are so many bad ones...........

Well I've been a company driver there for nearly five years now so I know what I'm getting myself into. It's not bad once you learn how it all works.

BTW, brought the truck home tonight and it cruised at 1300 RPM's at 65mph. It actually has 295-80/22.5's on it. ECM says top gear is .74 It was an RTLOC-16909 converted to RTLO-16913A.

That truck with 2.93 rears is probably a previous Swift truck. They spec'd a bunch of them with 9 speed convertables and 2.93 rears. They just put in the 13 speed conversion kit and put them on the market.

I have heard a lot of drivers having a hard time running this setup and get good mpg figures. As was stated, 2.93's are way too high for a 13 speed. Even if you do get a tolerable mpg out of the setup, you will be constantly shifting as it will bog down pretty quick.

I would take a look around and check out some other truck setups. I would hate to see you start up with a truck you may find will be a problem. You have time and there is a LOT of trucks out there. If you are sold on a 13 speed, I would recommend 3.55, 3.58, or 3.42 rears. You could deviate slightly from this depending on the weights you are pulling and the terrain. But these ratios are probably the best for all around purposes.

Who knows... maybe it will be the right thing for you and what I said will mean nothing. Just trust your instincts.

Yeah, it's an old Swift truck. It's one of the blue ones though, so it's spec'd better than the plain jane white ones. I was able to look at the lifetime mileage when we adjusted the road speed and took off the idle shutdown and it said somewhere in the neighborhood of 6.8 lifetime. When I first drove the truck it would only do 65, and I'm guessing it had never been over that before.

I hope for my sake it works out :D If it doesn't, maybe I'll have to look into re-gearing it to 3.55 or so. So I hope you're wrong, but I appreciate the information.