I just bought my 04 in Jan in San Antonio. Was having cold start issues and finally bought a SGII. FICM volts were ranging from 25 to 33. It's on Ed's bench as we speak getting the 2 yr job and atlas 40 tune. My pyro and fuel pressure gauges will be in tomorrow AM. There are still tie wraps on the fuel lines so I assume (i know where that gets me! ) it has the blue spring in it. The EGR cooler looks brand new. I will check/clean the valve tomorrow. The previous owner had the turbo rebuilt just before I bought it - I saw receipt. I put in new glow plugs and harnesses due to oil leak. It is still leaking where the rocker carrier meets the head, but no symptoms of head gasket issues. I need it to be reliable and am considering studs/HG's and EGR delete. I also plan on 4" cat-less exhaust to keep EGT's down when towing. The big Q is do I do the studs now or wait for symptoms? I haven't decided on bulletproof EGR cooler or delete. Am I missing anything? I love this truck and want to keep it a while without nickel and dimeing me.

 

The answer probably depends on your finances.

I would definitely do the studs if you are tuned or soon will be tuned.

 

The only tuning will be the atlas 40. I went nuts with my old cummins and it was fun but not worth the extra damage. Ed said the guys who designed the tune did extensive testing with the atlas 40. They put pressure sensors in place of the glow plugs and saw no increase of pressures. If I see problems with EGT's that I can't handle with my foot, I'll hurry on the exhaust. At this point (older!) I'm more concerned with reliability than tons of power.

Thanks,
Dave

 

I forgot to ask, what's the preferred location for the thermacouple? Do you go for one of the manifolds or just before the turbo?

Thanks again,
Dave

 

Here is a good link for your question:

3-Gauge Install Pictures

 

I had just found a similar thread. I wonder how accurate it is going between the front two cylinders? I assume the back pressure keeps the temps equalized in the manifold. On the cummins (sorry to swear on here) we put them in the collector just before the turbo.

My FICM is on the way back from ED. He said 2 circuits completely gone and a third mostly gone. He was suprised it started at all! I can't wait to see the difference!!!

 

look at your alternator output, and battery condition...
make sure they work well...

 

When you get your scangauge in (you need it, or an equivalent to monitor the engine properly, not an option), you can read the temps and voltages and decide where to go. Battery/alternator voltages need to be good to keep your FICM in shape. As far as EGR cooler is concerned. if your truck is earlyish 2004 it may have the "good" EGR cooler. Use your scangauge to see what the difference (delta) between the oil temperature and the coolant temperature is. The point, as you'll learn or already know, is that there is nothing particularly wrong with the EGR cooler, and it's illegal to delete it, so why not focus on the real potential problem - the oil cooler? The oil cooler needs to be in good shape to keep the oil cool, so the high pressure oil pump stays happy so the injectors stay happy, so you monitor the oil temp. What happens is the oil cooler clogs up it's coolant passages with sediment, there is restricted coolant flow to the EGR cooler, so the EGR cooler fails and then the head gaskets fail. If you monitor the delta, you catch the failing oil cooler, so your EGR cooler doesn't fail and you never need studs or head gaskets. It's a chain of events, one thing causes the next. You want to fix the first thing, not the last thing...

Check the fuel pressure, it should be around 60 psi at idle. no more than a pound or two loss at full throttle.

Enjoy your truck, I like mine a lot...

Brian

 

Brian, The SGII is in and mostly programmed. The first thing I looked at was the FICM V. due to hard cold start. 25 - 30 was all it had! I did look at alt and it was 14.? - I don't remember exactly. I wanted to get the FICM fixed asap. So far I love the SGII - for the price it can't be beat for a system monitor! I hadn't thought of monitoring the oil/coolant temps - very smart and I understand the purpose. Going from cummins to the 6.0 is like going from lawnmower to race engine - basic theory is the same but there is SO much more to learn.

I am putting the pyro and fuel gauges on right now. It looks as I will have to do the HG and studs sooner than later as it is leaking oil where the rocker carrier mounts to the head. I'm not looking forward to that as I have physical issues that limit how much I can do at a time and can't afford to pay someone. I'm researching whats involved and guessing it'll be down another week. Can't have fun driving it when I'm workin on it!

Thanks for the help,
Dave

 

Don't bet on that. I just did an oil cooler on an 03 that still had zip ties from the last oil cooler swap on the fuel lines. I did the blue spring it it without pulling the cover about 6 months before, it was definitely the stock spring.