Biggest Cat roars away with 600 horses on tap
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by Steve Sturgess • One of the first installations of Caterpillar's new 600hp/2,0501bft 15.8-litre 3406E is in the US-made Peterbilt 379. Commercial Motor has taken it on a 700-mile drive with a halfladen trailer from Peterbilt's headquarters in Denton, Texas to Nashville, Tennessee.
With 600hp (448kW) at 2,100rpm and 2,0501bft (2,779Nm) of torque underfoot, it quickly became apparent that the 30-tonne gross weight was not going to give the torquey Cat 600 much to work against. When pulling away, the 14.6m trailer felt empty, but the torque reaction of the engine lifting the left front corner, and the rise of the tractor, against the fifth wheel reminded us that this was a loaded truck with an extremely torquey engine.
The performance of the latest top-rated Cat is thrilling, part1%k ly thanks to the high turbo boost: turbo noise isn't so much a whistle as a roar. Clear of the Dallas traffic we dialled in a 60mph cruise and managed 8.28mpg. The Eaton Fuller 18-speed box was left in top cog throughout; with the speed set at 55mph it managed 8.64mpg. With a higher average speed and more gradients the fuel economy dropped off to an indicated 7.08mpg.
For normal highway run ning this pow erful Cat makes 17 of the transmission's 18 speeds redundant. The figures show the 600 can return excellent economy when mollycoddled, but it does use its fair share of fuel with a heavy right foot. That said, better than 7mpg at close to 70mph will make many American owner-operators very happy indeed.