Congratulations on your new (to you) rig. I bought an 06 Lariat FX4 recently and LOVE it.
That was some very sound and wise advice from whitetrashfab about the oil cooler and the screens.
BEFORE you rip into the rig, buy some VC-9 from ford (1 quart).
Remove the thermostat from the housing (its a little different than a regular one, push in up and turn to get it out) start the truck and add the VC-9. Get the truck to normal operating temperature, then drive it for 30 minutes (don't baby the rig on the drive).
Drain the radiator, pull lower hose and pull the plugs on the block, the one on the passenger side is above the starter and a royal pain to get out so most guys don't bother with it.
Put plug(s) back in, reconnect hose, refill degas bottle with distilled water. Do not use tap water. Once it is full, drive truck up to operating temps, drain, refill, drive, drain, refill, drive, drain....so on and so on...until the water drains out clean.
Ford used a coolant (Ford Gold) that contained silicates that will drop out of the coolant as time passes, creating a goo that plugs the oil cooler and the EGR coolers. Add to that the casting sand that leaches out of these engine blocks over time and leaving that stuff in there is just asking for disaster to strike.
Once you get all the Ford Gold coolant out, refill with a high quality ELC coolant and distilled water (after doing the EGR and oil cooler, of course). Seriously consider adding a coolant filtration system to catch the crap that is still in there, and will continue to leach out. I have a
coolant filtration system from Dieselsite.com, reasonable price and easy install.
The dash gauges are just short of idiot lights and not reliable. By the time they report an issue, severe damage has already happened.
Minimum gauges you should run on the 6.0 is Fuel pressure (anything under 45 will kill your injectors), oil pressure, trans temp (especially for a tow rig), engine oil temp, coolant temp, exhaust gas temp. Boost is more of a "fun to watch" gauge in these trucks. Monitor the EOT and ECT temps carefully, a 15 degree difference between the two point squarely at the oil cooler/egr cooler being plugged and need to be serviced. Ignore this at your own risk, as the head gaskets will go shortly after this.
I have an Edge Insight to watch my EOT, ECT, trans temp and I added the exhaust temp probe into the maniflod and have that connected to the Insight as well. The Insight is just a monitor, not a tuner. Then I added the manual gauges into a pod for fuel pressure, oil pressure and boost.
The oil cooler will always plug before you have EGR cooler issues because the goop in the coolant will plug the oil cooler passages along with the EGR passages. The EGR fails beacuse of the excessive heat that can not be dissipated by the cooler because the coolant passages are plugged.
If you have the $$$ and really want your engine to never have an EGR or oil cooler issue the
bulletproof diesel EGR/oil cooler package is awesome (CHA-CHING).
Stay away from ALL tuners until/unless you have replaced the head bolts with ARP studs and the gaskets with "black onyx." From all that I have read, you will just be flirting with disaster.
Alot of guys run the REV-X to keep injector "stiction" problems at bay. Hot Shots secret claims to do the same thing, but according to a forum I belong to, REV-X is far superior to HSS for this issue.
Check
this thread over at Powerstroke.org.
If you have no issues with the EGR now and will put off the delete for awhile, pull the EGR valve and give it a good cleaning. Heres a great writeup on that from a great site to bookmark. You will want to read alot about the 6.0 on it.
6.0 EGR valve cleaning @ Diesel Technician Society. I also recommend reading about the
turbo cleaning for if/when you have the turbo out of the truck.
When you pull the EGR valve, if it is wet in there (or looks like it was steam cleaned), you need to do the EGR/oil cooler now rather than later.
About fuel pressure: Ford has an updated regulator spring kit (part number 3C3Z-9T517-AG) that raises the fuel pressure from the typical 50 lbs @ idle to 60 lbs. Over time the spring will weaken and could result in the pressure going below the 45 lb threshold, resulting in injector damage.
Alot of guys are replacing the banjo bolts on the fuel line to head connection. The stock ones have 2 small holes and a check valve, they are swapping in the ones from the 6.4 (part# W302472, and 4 crush washers part# W303659) which have no check valve and 4 holes. This mod is supposed to give better fuel flow to the injectors.
Sorry for the looong post. Hope it helps you.
are you going 4" turbo back or are you keeping the 3.5" down pipe?
) though.
