Of course its all good natured, I'm not looking to "convert" anyone ha and of course drive what you like, we all choose based on our experience.
The 6 cylinder cummins is a good motor, but my old màn's cummins and my ford 7.3 PSD equally loaded, my ford out pulls his cummins on the same grade hill, both stock and both with about the same mileage. granted I have to run more rpm's, and the cummins just chugs chugs slowly up the hill.
But dodge trucks even in 99 early 2000's still had issues with paint peel/rust, trans and dash cracking, so that trend continued after 94. But to make a confession I used to own a 72 power wagon that I adored, still miss it, but also owned a 75 ford hiboy that I loved equally and miss both.
Of course to be fair I think EVERY brand of truck has had trans issues either at some point in the near past or even currently.
I guess the cummins just never really "wowed" me like the 7.3 power stroke, I'd trust both to get the job done but I would choose the ford 7.3 PSD that's me.
As far as how the motors are rated, passenger car, heavy duty, blah blah, I don't care lol, fact is the most I ask from any of my rigs is to pull a car trailer or a hay trailer or a 4 horse slant trailer, etc
And pretty much any of the trucks out there can do that OR should I say they SHOULD be able to handle that, my needs aren't really that demanding, I'm not pulling some gigantic, massive oversized load.
As far as the rods and pistons, apples and oranges, you're comparing a 6 and 8 with a completely different layout so that's a mute point and irrelevant. Or should we compare 225 slanty rods and 340 rods? No.
Another large factor for me is looks, I've never been a fan of the looks of the dodge trucks and prefer the looks of the ford, completely based on personal taste.
