I just purchased a 2005 excursion limited 6.0 diesel it just rolled over the 100K mileage mark. I do not have an oasis report so I don't know what was repaired or replaced before I purchased it. I believe that the X is completely stock as far as engine mods. My question is what mods or upgrades should I do to make sure it stays reliable and any mods that will increase MPG's would be great as well but reliability is #1. Thanks for the help

 

WELCOME!

Pics, or it didn't happen.

I'm kidding. I just bought my 2005 Limited Diesel 4x4 back in July, and it's already become probably my favorite vehicle that I have ever owned. Mine is still stock, as the only things I have done is a pair of oil changes and a pair of fuel filter changes since purchasing the truck.

My MPG is actually pretty decent on mine, given the size of the truck and the fact that it's a 4x4. I get almost 17 average MPG on my drive, which is about 50% city, 50% highway. When I go pure highway on road trips, I have seen average MPG at closer to 23 MPG at 70 MPH. Not sure if that qualifies as "good" to most people, but for me that's acceptable at the size, weight, and functionality of the truck. Sure, I could get a Prius and get 50+ MPG, but then I couldn't tow a trailer or haul 7 adults plus driver around or throw an entertainment center, TV, and full load of groceries from Costco in the back of my car.

There are plenty of performance and economy options out there. First and foremost, you should look into doing preventive maintenance and reliability mods. There are a few that are common that I know of off of the top of my head (fuel pressure regulator "blue spring" upgrade, ARP head studs and gaskets, coolant filtration system, Bulletproof EGR cooler upgrade, gauges and engine monitoring systems) that address a lot of the reliability and durability issues. As for performance, it's best to address the reliability stuff first, but there's obviously custom tunes available that will wake up your truck, plus the ubiquitous exhaust modifications that will help your engine breathe. Then there's turbocharger upgrades, intercooler upgrades, things like that that get a little more crazy.

My advice, get to know your truck before you start throwing upgrades at it. Drive it for a few thousand miles, learn how it drives, what it likes and dislikes. If you want to leave it stock because you're happy with the performance and fuel efficiency, then great. If not, start tweaking it, but follow proven upgrade paths that other people have used in order to get the most out of the mods that you throw at it.

 

Congrats on your purchase, first thing you need is to monitor that beast... AE, or other monitoring are highly recommended... Coolant flush highly recommended... Spend some time on the diesel 6.0 side of the forum, the guys there really know the 6.0... Enjoy the Ex I also have a 2005 6.0 and love it!

 

Actually I do have the truck but no pictures at the moment. It is my wife's vehicle. You see I purchased a 2008 F350 Lariat Crew cab 6.4 last year, did DPF/CAT Delete, EGR delete, H&S mini-tuner, S&B CAI, 2" leveling kit, Bilstein Shocks and 35" toyo MT's no other items planned at the moment. My wife liked it so much that I decided to get her the excursion so she will leave mine alone. LOL.. I don't really want to do too much as far as performance enhancements to the X just reliability improvements at this point. I have been told that I should get gauges ( so that I can monitor the critical items) , replace STC fittings and dummy plugs and as long as she doesn't abuse it I am hopeful I can avoid the head studs and gasket work.

 

LivingLarge: thanks for the reply. What is AE? Also Nice X by the way.. I see that you have installed the newer style mirrors how hard was that to do? I do not like the stock mirrors I have an 2008 F350 and love those mirrors compared to the ones on the X

 

AE is AutoEnginuity, diagnostic and troubleshooting software that lets you do pretty much everything under the sun to your rig. Well worth to money if you can spare the coin.

'08 mirrors bolt on, it's just a matter of hooking up some wires to get the power/heat/marker light features to work. Slightly more involved for the power fold, but not a lot of the guys on here have done that part.

 

Do you know if there are instructions on the forum for wiring up the mirrors I haven't looked yet?

 

WELCOME to the world of XXXs DANG another oil burner

 

AutoEnginuity.

AutoEnginuity Total Ford Enhanced Bundle - Riffraff Diesel Performance

The '08+ mirror upgrade is a common mod a lot of us have done.

Check out the tech folder sticky thread for how-to's on a lot of stuff for your Ex, including swapping mirrors, which is really easy to do.

Stewart

PS - Welcome to FTE!

 

I like the mirrors, they are OEM and I also had the Interior control switch to the new style (round). I have yet to put in a switch for the power extend... My electronics guy took about 20 minutes to wire all of it.

Matt just answered the AE question, monitoring the oil temps vs coolant temps are a must on our 6.0's.

Your coolant should be red or gold if it's green get it out of there.

 

The cheapest mod that I always recommend is getting an aftermarket (Stant) coolant bottle cap. It's $5 and the factory caps are questionable at best. Mine would only hold to about 9 psi when it should hold to about 17 psi.

Other than that the coolant bypass filter, oil bypass filter and blue spring mods are where most of us started. From there it's skies the limit. Also make sure you change all of the fluids/filters so that you have a baseline starting point. Don't forget the differentials as well.

Good luck and welcome to the club....

 

I 2nd the above mods! Get digital gauges to monitor the health of your engine. The scan gauge and torque smart phone app/wireless bluetooth adaptor are the most popular. I like the torque app

 

Go to a Ford dealer. They should be able to print the oasis for you at no cost as a good will thing.


Monitoring the 6.0 is essential. I use the scan gauge 2 and I love it. It's cheap, tiny, fits almost anywhere, and can measure dozens of specialized parameters on the 6.0 from the ever important coolant and oil temps to boost pressure, ficm voltage, trans temp, etc.

If your engine survived 100k without major damage you may just want to leave it alone. There really is no magic bullet to get extra mpg out of them. The factory computer is way off. It read about 5 mph fast on mine which means the calculated mpg was very far off. So start by hand calculating.
Intake, exhaust, tuner, can add power but add cylinder pressure and increase the chance of blown headgaskets. My truck is all stock and they blew anyway.
None of them do much for mpg on a 6.0.
I've got a hand calculated 22 mpg on a 400 mile trip by staying below 2000 rpms, following semi trucks on long straight stretches, and shifting into neutral down long hills.
Once I leveled mine and added 33's, the mpg started to decrease.

The problem is my stock truck had destroyed the bump stops up front and was thwacking the frame over train tracks and even bad expansion joints.

So my first mods would be leveling the front with f250 springs, and a leaf, or dropped hangers, and very first mod is a way to monitor engine vitals.
Beyond that, drive it and see what it needs to you. Factory speakers are awful. The cheapest of the cheap aftermarket coaxials are a ten fold improvement.

 

Correct me if I am wrong.
Stand pipes and dummy plugs not a deal on the Excursion due to them having the first style HPOP and such?.?. (something like that) You are good on your HPOP till about 140K miles. EGR delete and new FORD oil cooler, Coolant flush, Blue Spring mod, and a Scangauge II or similar is where I would start.

Our Speedometer is off by about 5 miles per hour but our Odometer is right on. And in the 50K miles we have put on our Excursion we are at an average of 16mpg. Our Best ever is 19.5mpg. We tow our boat every weekend during the summer (about 13-14mpg) and take the truck on road trips (18-19mpg). For about a Year our fuel mileage dropped about 1-2 mpg. I took apart the plugs on the drivers side fender (under the hood) and cleaned them, put them back together and now my mileage is back.

LOTS of info on this site. You have LOTS of reading to do! LOL

Welcome and post up some pictures!