Yeah I was afraid of that. I didn't think it looked too good either. That is the compressor wheel right? So I could replace it with Riffraff's billet wheel, or the Wicked Wheel 2 right? I guess I'll add that to the list, haha.

I think it runs good. I would say that the O-rings definitely did help. I wouldn't say it was a big difference, but I can definitely tell it seems to run better and smoother now, and there's a definite improvement on cold starts now. It hasn't been too cold, but we had a few around freezing days and it sounded a lot better starting cold than it used to, and a lot less smoke on a cold start as well. Also something else I noticed, and this could just be in my head, I think the exhaust smells a lot better now. Before I thought it had a fuel or oil smell to it, but now it smells "normal" to me like a diesel truck should.

Not sure if I'm getting any better mileage or not, I'll once I finish this tank up. I'm sure it doesn't help that I take it on mostly short trips and don't exactly keep my foot out of it most the time, lol.

But overall yes I would say there was a definite improvement, nothing big, but I can tell the difference.


Also something I forgot to mention. When we pulled the injectors out, as soon as we pulled the #2 injector out, we immediatlye got the smell of diesel fuel. So obviously something wasn't right and was letting fuel to leak into the cylinder somehow, this was the only injector that did that. So I was wondering what would cause that, and if the new O-rings should have fixed that issue. And what kind of other problems could that fuel leaking down cause?

 

Yes the cold air side and the up dated wheels will work. O-rings should take care fuel leaks there. I'd drain the oil and send off to blackstone to have a look see. You don't want coolant or lot of fuel in the oil.

 

Dude, rock on! I'm only 19 and an in the same boat as you. I have learned so much about these trucks from both this forum as well as hours and hours wrenching on mine! Keep it up. I love what your doing with it. But don't delete the muffler if you ever take it on long trips... I wanted mine to be loud and beastly... and it was... but one 3 our trip to Omaha and I put my muffler right back in. That's all I have to say really. And that does look like an HPX of some sort you have their. I would replace it with the riffraff one since you already bought it. The RR one is a better design anyway. Keep the rust off! It's so important.

 

What's up guys! Well its been almost 4 years so I figured I'd finally update this thread haha. I really apologize for not keeping this thread updated, but just had a lot of different things going on and didn't really have much time to post on the forums. Have just been lurking for a long time and not really posting much.

I do still have this truck and am never planning on getting rid of it! Trucks still doing good, has over 310,000 on it now. Has a few issues but overall still running pretty well. The body has gotten a little rough, plenty of paint chips and paint missing, and a little bit of rust starting on the bed, but nothing too terrible. I do have a new bed to go on it at some point, so I'm not too worried about that. I'm planning to get the paint touched up come spring time as well.

So, this year I was finally able to get the truck out of the winter, which I am super excited about! I've been wanting to do that since I got the truck, but never had the opportunity or had another reliable truck to drive in the winter. I was looking for something that would be reliable, and preferably newer and not have to be worked on all the time. I wanted to be able to drive it in the winter, and for it to be able to take over the this trucks job as a daily driver if I needed it to.

After putting some thought into it, I decided that my best option, and was what made the most sense to me, was to lease something. So I decided to lease a 2018 F150! Gives me a brand new truck with a warranty, with lower payments than buying one, and then I get rid of it in 3 years, with no worries. All wins to me! And it really gives me a lot of options and allows me to finally be able go all out on the 7.3 like I've always wanted to! Very, very happy with the decision so far, should provide me with a lot of different opportunities.

So the truck is a 2018 F150 XLT Sport Special Edition package with the 3.5l EcoBoost in it. Got the truck at the end of December just before the new year. Super happy with it so far, love how it looks and it drives very nice as well. It's pretty much fully loaded, so the interior is very nice, big upgrade from the 7.3, of course it is 16 years newer haha. As you guys can tell I'm a big diesel guy, and the F150 is no diesel, but its still very enjoyable to drive. Has a lot of power and is way faster than my 7.3, as expected haha!

Now that I have the F150, the 7.3 will never have to be driven in the winter again. And I won't have to daily drive it if I don't want to either. So this years plan for the 7.3 is to do a few small things to clean it up and get it to look a little better. Then next year its full on build time! Really excited for that, I'm planning to go all out, have all kinds of ideas for it!

Along with the F150 I also have two 6.0s now. Got both of them a little over a year ago. I originally bought both of them to fix up and sell, but have decided to keep one of them, and am still planning to sell the other. Wanted to have the one sold already, but it turned out to be way more work than expected and I just haven't had the time to work on it. But I'm really going to be working hard here now to get it done and it should be done and sold here soon enough.

I'm going to try to be more active on the forums, but won't guarantee anything. Not sure how much time I'm going to have to be posting a lot, but I'll do what I can. I'll try to keep this thread updated, but not sure how frequently I will. If anyone is interested, I do have YouTube channel that I'm trying to grow that I will be posting regularly on. Will probably be easier to track progress there, and I will be really trying to upload consistently. My channel name is RedDevil46088, similar to my username on here, but I will probably be changing it up here soon. So if you want to follow along a bit better with the truck, or the other trucks, go ahead and check that out and subscribe if you want to.

So this post is already plenty long, as I figured it would be, so I'll just end it here. I'll do another post hopefully sometime tomorrow with a more detailed update on the 7.3 and what I've done to it. With more pics and info. For now I'll just give ya a teaser with the most recent pic of the 7.3. And then I'll do a pic of the F150 and one of each of my two 6.0's as well.

Most recent one of the 7.3



One of the F150



This is the 6.0 I'm keeping. Keeping it as a play truck. Just a truck to have fun and mess around with. Always wanted to have a 6.0 so I'm really excited to have this one. The trucks a 04 F250 XLT Super cab long bed with 133,000 miles on it. Not in terrible shape, but not good either. Body's a little rough, interior is a little rough as well, but is good enough for what I'm using it for. The motors pretty good, definitely needs an oil cooler now though, but overall not bad. Has a 6" lift with some bald 35's on it right now.





This is the one I'm fixing up to sell. The motor doesn't run well and needs a lot of body work, but I'll get it done. It's a 04 F350 crew cab short bed lariat, with about 225,000 miles on it.

 

Welcome back!

I wasn't her then, but I'll make a deal with you...

Post updates of your build and I'll follow along. My build thread has not had much activity either, but that is because it has either been sitting or working. With the cold weather, I'm not very invented to wrench on it at the moment.

 

Since you've been gone I sold my 7.3 and am sitting in a Cummins now. I like you don't like to drive my truck during the winter, I use my truck for work and since I really only use it to pull my wife's mega truck for the mud season it can sit all winter. I bought a beater 2013 fusion about the same time you got your F150 and I love it.
Something tells me you're not going to want to give the F150 up.
Cut the fenders on the 6.0 you're planning on keeping and slap a set of 38s on it and have a blast with it