I am new to Diesels, but I have a 2010 F250 with a 6.4 and I am thinking about getting a performance chip for my truck- primarily for better MPG, but the additional performance will be nice as well.

I have read a lot about the how the hot gas mixture is being forced through the Turbo during regen, causing the fuel to get by the pistons and then blending with your oil causing all sorts of problems. I can't believe Ford didn't do anything about this by the way. I would like to delete the DPF, and I am considering taking my truck to a guy outside of Atlanta who will do this, but I also sometimes just think about adding a performance chip and being done with it, since the chips today do not support the delete of the DPF.

I may have gotten some of the above wrong. I have been trying to educate myself on this motor, but I am a newbie for sure! Question: what types of gains are people seeing in the new chips with out deleting the DPF's in MPG and is the increase in HP only increasing the problem of the oil fuel mixture for trucks with chips that still have the DPF engaged?

Thx in advance...

 

How do you drive the truck? Long heavy hauls? Stop and go grocery getter?

If you stop and go, you better delete. If you're heavy hauling and long distances, get a Banks Six Gun.

 

I ran the banks 6 gun on mine. My truck was not a in town truck. I put over 86K on it before going to a DRW. My oil dilution was around <.5%.

The 6 gun is probably about the best for DPF on tuning. In addition, if you travel cross country it is easy to take off if you need a warranty repair.

 

Thank you for the responses.

I use this truck primarily as a hunting truck, where I am towing my duck boat, kayaks, dog and gear...by no means a heavy haul. I also use it for highway driving to train my dog. My off-road use is primarily through ranch lands and dikes, to get to my deer lease, duck lease or training grounds.

I will use it occasionally though as a city driver, but it is not my primary day to day driver- but I enjoy driving it, and I could see using it more in the city if I thought it was okay for the engine. It is the city driving, the low speed driving across ranch land, sub 20 MPH and the miserable MPG that makes me want to delete the DPF. I have 35" Toyos and a 2" leveling kit, and I am averaging around 12MPG. This is mostly highway driving at around 75MPH and driving through ranch land. I am currently using the Ford Cetane booster on every fill up. My truck has 70,000 miles on it.

It is good to hear about the Banks six gun, that is the one I keep going back to, that and the Super Chips Cortex. The guy I was thinking about taking my truck to is power stroke the guy who runs power stroke help.com. I saw his review from another post on this site. Thx again for the feedback!

 

My life time average was 11.5. 90% towing. I would not give the superchips a second look myself.

Lots of off road in mine.

Here is what I generally towed.

 

I would have to say if you were getting 11.5 hauling that camper then the banks six gun was helping you out a ton! My lieometer says I am around towing my duck boat!

If you were going to drive your truck around town, would you delete the DPF? Last question- did you use the Banks IQ?

 

I used the banks IQ. That is how I know the life average.

I got 7-9 mpg towing the 5er but lots better with the smaller stuff. I could get 17 on the hwy empty.

I would not delete the dpf myself unless I had a problem with it. You just need to know the interval between regens so you can predict when you might be ready for one.

The IQ has a pid for the regen so you can see it and track the intervals.

 

IMPO hauling a fifth wheeler and hauling a duck boat couple times a year is comparing apples to oranges. But which way to go is something you must decide. Running in tall grasses and such with a DPF could cause issues also, although I'm sure a stock exhaust could probably cause a fire also. The easiest way to decide is to take a ride in someone's already deleted truck, that will pretty much get you off the top of the fence.

 

No question night and day...but I like the idea of staying as stock as possible...just looking for a little get up and better MPG.

The idea behind knowing when your regens are taking place is because you don't want to shut it down or idle during the middle of a regen, correct? Why?

 

Tracking your regens on the 6.4 is important because it can be an indicator of something wrong if it changes on you.

Knowing that it is in regen you can idle it before shutdown to burn off the fuel as well. A regen will get the EGT's upwards of 1100-1300 F. You don't want to shut the truck down during that process without lowering the temps.

 

Great info.... Thank you for all of the feedback!

 

From the sounds of it you would benefit a lot from a delete. Just remember in most areas you will have to put it all back on for inspection once a year.

 

Depending on when regen started and how much soot is in there, idling can actually keep the soot burning on its own inside the DPF for a couple of minutes. I've seen DPF outlet temperatures rise after the CAT outlet cooled off by several hundred degrees. Like Senix suggested, if you have to shut it down, let it idle for a while to let things cool off.

 

Some thought provoking input. I am absolutely sure you would love how your truck runs with a delete and a tuner. It is night and day different.

However, last summer I blew a head gasket. I'm of course not 100% sure the tuner caused it, but I'm at least suspicious. I may have towed my 5er with the tuner in a slightly elevated tune. I normally tow in stock tune but I'm not sure if I was in stock or something else. Since you mention ATL you probably know where Mount Eagle is, that is where I think the HG blew. I pulled the same trailer over with the same truck many times in both stock (DPF on) mode, with an Edge tuner and even with the same tuner I had on when the HG blew. The truck ran great with the blown HG but kept puking.

The important part of this is that I took the truck to Powerstroke Help (Bill Hewitt). I had a couple things done besides the HG but not much. The price was $5700. The tech who did the work told me that every 6.4L he has seen with a blown HG had a tuner.

So, if you can't take a good heavy hit in the wallet, be careful.

 

Yeah, that is what worries me about the tune, but what attracts me to the Banks. The Banks Six Gun seems to be a fairly modest tune with a lot of safety metrics built into the flash, but who knows. It seems to me when you are adding HP to an engine that is spec'd out for less HP you are asking for the weakest link in the design to blow. This seems to be the head gaskets, and studs from what I am reading.

When you talk to Powerstroke, they recommend deleting the DPF delete and doing a couple of other tweaks, but they do not add a performance tune to their original package. I guess you just have to make a call, go with it and hope for the best! I appreciate all of the info- my learning curve is steep on these engines!