Dear TruckTrend,
My question is related to the heavy-duty line of pickup trucks. For the 2015 model year, Ford's Power Stroke is rated at 440 hp and 860 lb-ft, Ram's Cummins is at 385 hp and 850 lb-ft, and GM is still at 397 hp and 765 lb-ft of torque with their Duramax. Did GM not anticipate this one-upmanship? It is almost as if they are satisfied with playing catch-up rather than shooting to be the market leader.
Paul Moore
Forest Hill, Maryland
| 2015 Ram 3500 Heavy Duty Rear Three Quarter
The simple truth is this: GM has done anything but rest on its laurels. What you're noticing is two fold. First, and probably simplest, is that it would appear that GM is happy with their current place in the market and not really interested in engaging in the horsepower war at this moment. Not being privy to detailed sales numbers and internal analytics, there's no way for us on the outside to assume they aren't right on track. And secondly, GM appears to have gotten onto a track where the truck bodies are updated before powertrain. Since we've just seen a major body refresh for '15, we're assuming that an equally major powertrain update will be seen soon; we really wouldn't be surprised if Duramax regains the crown when that happens.
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| We've strapped all three of the current heavy-duty diesel offerings to the chassis dyno and can say with certainty that GM is not to far behind the rest of the pack when the rubber meets the road.
K&N was kind enough to strap down our hello-officer red Silverado, where it recorded 345 hp at 3,250 rpm and 640 lb-ft of torque at 2,500 rpm. -- 344 hp at 3,250 rpm and 639 lb-ft of torque at 2,500 rpm (Fourth gear, 20 percent load, SuperFlow dyno at K&N)
