Lern me: Ford 6.0L Powerstroke

stanger_missle said:

I'll try to polish the lenses out and replace the faded Ford emblem to make it look a bit better.

New headlights from RockAuto for my '97 weren't much more than a polishing kit... Of course, mine also had a bunch of tiny cracks and were taking on water, so it was a no-brainer.

Well at least it's an '07, the latest 6.0 you can afford is normally the best 6.0 you can buy.  Bill at PowerStrokeHelp is a boisterous fountain of PowerStroke knowledge for any other questions you might have regarding the school bus motor in your new truck.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQz2vFEc1m-WGKf6g-pz9DA

Check for plow mounts when you get eyes on in person, if it ever had a plow on it get ready to drop some cash on a full front end rebuild.  Those trucks were rough on front ends without plows hanging off the front bumper even.

These trucks have a special place in my heart even though they have such a bad reputation.  My dad had a dark grey '05 Lariat that I learned to drive in and I spent my summers beating around a white single cab 6.0 when I worked landscape.  The white landscape truck blew up and was rebuilt at 57k miles and my dad's truck was traded in with onset symptoms of impending catastrophic failure at 105k.

You got a steal.

Most of it has been covered, but the 6.0L is a great engine.  Some of the externals like oil cooler, EGR cooler, and FICM can give you fits.  Don't stress too much when you read about the head gasket failures.  Those were mostly sorted out by mid 04 with a revised head gasket design and better head bolts.  I wouldn't defeat the boost override and go for 60psi, but feel free to chip it.

The turbo is a VVT and the computer starts opening the vanes at 50psi to maintain no more than 50 pounds.  Many aftermarket chips will defeat that little line of code and let it overboost.  That is where most of the head gaskets had trouble on the 04 and earlier trucks.  But if you opt to not defeat that overboost control, you can still use the chip for fuel and timing.  That will give you a very nice bump in oomph but not stress anything out.

Getting all that bulletproofing stuff fixed or upgraded isn't exactly a weekend job, but it's do-able at home for many.

So, aftermarket EGR cooler or an EGR delete kit? All the info I've seen on the EGR coolers seem like sales speeches for that product. The biggest drawbacks to an EGR delete is a check engine light (a tuner can turn it off) and not meeting federal emissions. I live in an area that has no emissions testing.

Any experience between these two products?

Also, I'd like to replace the OEM oil cooler since that seems like the biggest grenade.

I don't plan on tuning it, just getting it reliable enough to where I don't have to worry about it grenading.

I've been also looking at items to check out when I get to where the truck is:

Open the oil fill cap while running to check blow-by. (Bad head gaskets)

Look in the coolant degas tank for sludge (EGR cooler leaking coolant into oil/bad head gasket)

Check the degas cap for leaks (gives a false positive of the degas bottle getting pressurized from a bad head gasket)

Check the oil (duh)

Check cold start up (slow startup could be a bad injector/oil issue)

Check trans fluid

Maybe pull the codes if my Bluetooth OBDII adapter will work.

That's all I can think of at the moment. I have a 2 hour drive to get the truck home.

In reply to stanger_missle :

I had the aftermarket egr since i couldn't delete in California. Never had issues. 

In reply to yupididit :

Hmm... Which brand did you have? There seems to be a few to choose from.

This

https://www.bulletproofdiesel.com/bulletproof-EGR-cooler-square-h-core-p/nt-egrc-2_h-core.htm

Some people delete it some people weld it shut.

In reply to yupididit :

Ahh... Yeah, I spent some time on BPD's website. They seem to be highly recommended by people running 6.0s.

But damn is that stuff spendy 

In reply to stanger_missle :

Welcome to diesel trucks. 

In reply to stanger_missle :

You think that's  expensive?  In predict in 6 months you'll have "transformed" into this:

John Welsh said:

In reply to stanger_missle :

You think that's  expensive?  In predict in 6 months you'll have "transformed" into this:

Scwinggg!

John Welsh said:

In reply to stanger_missle :

You think that's  expensive?  In predict in 6 months you'll have "transformed" into this:

Go big or go home.

Apparently this is the only way to catch a woman's eye here. So.many.brodozers 

yupididit said:

In reply to stanger_missle :

Welcome to diesel trucks. 

I'm going to have to give up my heroin, crack and krokodil habit just to afford truck parts