Reasonable Cruise Speed for E350 bus?

[mnopneal]

Our church has two Ford E350 buses with the 5.4L gas V8.

One has the dog-house extension both sides, the other doesn't.

Both are 15 passenger.

What do we think a reasonable cruising speed for these should be fully laden?

Some drivers have been known to try to run them like a car and cruise at 80 mph for extended periods. I don't know if that is a reasonable load on this engine.

Regards,

Neal

[pbeggs]

I run mine at 70-75 with the 5 speed is 2000-2500 rpm

[jim53066]

I would not push that motor as hard as your drivers are doing. That is a very large vehicle pushing through the wind.

I would say 65-70 with quick bursts over that for passing would make them last much longer.
Jim

[Sehnsucht]

Dual rear wheels? The reason these vehicles have fallen out of favor is because although they fall below the DOT threshold for CDL requirement they also don't fare well fully loaded. The heavy weight, higher speed, and risk of rollover along with low survivability gave churches the impression that they're deathtraps. Single rear wheels pushed to their weight limit and then also pushed to their speed rated limit are prone to blow at high speed resulting in loss of control. Coupled with the decades of design 'bloat' made them poorly designed for the task they were being asked to perform in recent years. Even when churches tried to reduce the risk by removing a bench, lowering the capacity to 12, they just filled the back end with luggage which weighed more than the people and all behind the rear axle. Even the 15-24 passenger coaches on E350/E450 frames make the same mistake of putting the entire luggage compartment on the tail end. I still see them running down the road and can tell when they're tail-heavy by the way they waggle.

[leadsled01]

I run my 1997 5.4 liter e350 at 65 or 70 unloaded and about 60 when loaded and towing trailer. I turn the OD off when towing of course.

[PatrickBaptist]

I have a 95 E350 and on the interstates it's normal for me to cruise 80 and above for extended periods. But it's the 5.8 gasser not the 5.4.
I've had it 2 years since I bought it the trans shudders when in 3rd and 4th unless your heavy on the go pedal and it hasn't gotten any worse and I've put about 30k on it and what's really funny is when it's loaded down it doesn't shudder at all, pulled a 28' camper for a customer 300 miles and not once did it do it. As soon as it was unloaded it went right back the way it was. Seems I get better mileage at 80-90 rather than 65-70....
But yeah they have a bad rep for rolling over, half of it though I believe is due to drivers that need more experience.