I have some questions I have not found answers to in the forums, I'm a firm believer in searching before posting. Truck has 190k on motor, at about 150k previous owner had a tuner and blew the head bolts. Ford dealership rebuilt whatever they had to in order to make it Run again, and it runs very well, zero issues. I'm second owner of the truck, and very good friends with original owner so I know truck was not abused. My question is this, since ford replaced head bolts, no tuner has been put on the truck. With that said, am I still at same risk as anyone if I run a tuner, I know that question has been asked before however I don't want a performance truck, it's a work Truck. I would like to add a economy tune or tow tune but am concerned on safety of heads. Only thing not stock Is the exhaust, it has a straight pipe after cat with side exit. I tow a skidsteer 3 days out of the week and would like a little extra towing help if possible.

 

Did they replace the bolts with ARP studs or the stock TTY bolts?

Even studded trucks can blow head gaskets and lots of guys run tow tunes without issues on stock bolts.

 

The heads were checked and new bolts were put in. It is not studded, so that's why I'm concerned. I know some have had good luck and even some with studs have failed, I don't plan on putting a bunch of power to it, just a little tow help

 

Send your FICM in to Ed at ficmrepair.com for the Atlas 40 or the economy tune, and be done with it. These trucks will tow all day long on the TTY's, and as along as you are not pulling the teeth out of a hump back whale you should be fine. I drive five different 6.0's any given week that are still stock bolts, EGR coolers in place yet and get the snot worked out of them.

http://www.ficmrepair.com/index.cfm/...=cat/cat20.htm

It's the guys that add way too much tunes that can see trouble.
Get something like a Scangauge II to monitor data live so you can keep an eye on things, that is the first huge step. Don't rely on the dash to tell you very little info.

 

There are unlimited tow tunes that are transmission-only and don't change the engine's power level at all. Some people who want a different feel from the transmission while towing can really benefit from one of those.

I have the Atlas 40 tune, but if I frequently pulled a trailer over 8000#, from a flexability perspective I would rather have an SCT tuner with a trans-only, econ, and very light towing power tune instead of being locked into the FICM tune full time.