Can a 400HP truck carry 35K 53ft van load on steep grade easily?

Walmart specs a cheap fleet truck..they don’t care if the drivers like them or not. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen one of their trucks loaded heavy, say 80k.. perhaps one of the Walmart drivers can chime in.

I have 3:55 axle ratio on my truck and it’s great for climbing.. 565hp @1950tq. I could probably out climb that Walmart truck with 80k vs Walmart empty

 

A couple reasons.

First, a semi-truck only needs ~200hp to run down a flat highway at speed. No need for more hp, until hitting a grade.

Second, 400hp requires “X” amount of fuel to create, 500hp requires ~25% more fuel to create, and so on. If you’re only giving the driver “X” horsepower, that’s all the fuel they’ll be able to burn to do the job. Basically, one can only do so much, if they’re only allowed to burn so much fuel. This is where it comes back to great drivers being able to run big hp and out-mileage a bad driver with small hp.

 

The only thing that combination is good for is getting good fuel economy on flat ground.

The fact that you'll be climbing hills a lot tells me that you really should look for something with a lower (numerically higher) rear end ratio, like 3.55 or better.

 

400 hp is plenty for that little weight, on your small hills.
When I was younger 350 hp was a powerful truck, when we got 425 hp it felt like a race car in comparison.

Those tall gears are more concerning to me than the hp and tq.

 

Dude it will work fine... Put it in the wind... Ive put my fleet spec truck in crazy places a fleet spec truck has no business being in... Sometimes its like using a wrench as a hammer but it still works when its all u got...

 

My first truck that I owned was a 1985 kw k100 powered by a cat 3406b rated at 310hp derated to 285 hp .
Ran all 48 and lived to tell about it .

 

Horsepower is measured in the distance that a load is moved in a set amount of time. If you are in the business of moving loads, which one of the engines that you mentioned will be better at MOVING loads a greater distance in the same amount of time?

 

1/2” ratchets work better as hammers, or a large rock

 

Live and haul in the Appalachian mountains, drove Mack with 237 and quaderplex, kw with 12v71 and 13 and 2 speed rears , freightliner with OO 92 and 15, gearing of the rears is extremely important. Currently running 425cat with 16713 and 3.70 and happy as a bug in a rug , it can get down to pull and run like a turkey on open road , I may be slower getting there but , I even wash both sides of the truck!

 

Walmart has stores in Pa &WV that those trucks delivered freight to, so it is possible. Will you break any land speed records? No. Were speced out by some bean counter in a broom closet that's never seen a truck in person let alone knows how one works. Done in the name of fuel economy. Maybe on paper it looked good but.....

I've delivered to backwoods stores off of 219 corridor in PA, as well as some in the hills backwoods WV Grafton, Kingwood, Elkins. So it is possible