I have a ford as well. He bought it new and we were pulling an empty trailer to omaha. all of the sudde iot started knocking. so he turned around and brought it home. it seized the number 9 piston. it got a short block out of warranty.

he plows with it and it has a body liuft so the spark plugs were always exposed to salt and stuff and it has cast heads. well, before i was a tech he had a guy remove the heads and extract the plugs. he didnt drain the block before removing the heads and forgot to get the coolant out of one of the back cylinders. so he hydro-locked it. then him and i put a jasper long block in it.

so all in all it is on its 3rd. one was mopar's fault and the other was a reall azz of a lazy tech. it has like 90k on it i think. he dosent use it much and when he needs to pull equipment or the dump trailer now he just borrows my truck. all his trailer wiring is screwed.

I didn't know they had that option back then. I don't think I've ever seen a 1997 with a Viper motor. I think the motor is good but his father must have really ragged on it. The Ilmors are the same motor basically...

Back in 97-98, our company trucks were V10 dodges. Things only got 6mpg, and they screwed up on one of them and put the smaller fuel tank for a short bed in it(one ton dually). It had about a 150 mile range. Made towing a big trailer fun. Every time you went by a gas station that would allow you to get a 38ft trailer in it, you had better just stop and top it off.

Why did they use gas motors instead of the Cummins?

i dont know.... I know the launch of that engine there was A Lot of hype. Dad had to have it. Like the first ever real v-10 in a truck. It pulls fine i guess. he lifted it and it has wayyyy to big of tires on it. but he borrows the Ferd if he needs to tow really heavy. but he does not have a brake controller either sooo. its more of a saftey thing,.

Good question. They only did it one year, then went back to diesels. I was lucky enough to get out of it after a year and a half. The new guys got stuck driving them till they finally got replaced after four years.