I am a new member to FTE. If im posting wrong please let me know. I have a 2001 V10 Excursion. First question; and I know its been covered over and over again, I did the V/B swap but unmodded B's. Is this ok? Second, was wondering which sway bar to use? I have read the threads and have managed to confuse myself. Is Hellwig and the OEM F250 sway bar the only options? If so, whats the best prices and where to get them? That's it for now but I have plenty more questions. Thanx all.

 

Welcome to the family!
As far as the V/B swap with stock unmodded B codes, are you happy with the stance after the swap? That's all that matters really, those B codes are fine left alone if you don't want or need the extra ride height from modding them. All of those SuperDuties do fine with stock B codes!
Rear sway bars are a great improvement to an EX if you are looking for better, flatter cornering and better control while towing. Either the Hellwig or SD bars will work well, I don't think one is any much better than the other, SD bars can be found for pretty cheap at parts yards and the Hellwig is about $200 from any number of aftermarket suppliers, mine came from J.C.Whitney.

Oh, By the way, You have to post pics of your EX, we love pics here!

 

What did you name your Ex? I mean, that's the most important mod you can do.

 

I have not named it yet lol, but I will try to come up with something. As far as pics I will have to snap some. Next question, I did not take the overload spring off of the B's which I hope is fine? Does the modded B's give more lift than stock B's? I could not locate a factory block at the time so I went to a local 4wd shop and bought a smaller block and stacked with the stock excursion block to equal factory F250 block. I know stacking is frowned upon but it was all I hade at the time. I am looking at getting 5.5" tapered to replace will that be the height of the modded B's or a little taller. Sorry for rambling but want to do things as right as possible

 

Chad, you need to remove the stacked blocks immediately. It is not frowned upon...



IT IS ABSOLUTELY UNSAFE



Nobody here will condone stacked blocks. And yes, the modded b's will give more lift than stock B's.

 

Chad311, there are 2 OEM sway bar diameters- 26mm and 30mm... Go big or go home! I found mine at Pick n Pull on an F350. Got all the brackets, links, etc for about $25 and 15 minutes! Also that way you can see where everything mounts. Excellent upgrade!

 

That top overload leaf may be able to come into contact with your rear AC lines with the EX heavily loaded, that will seriously deflate both the AC system and your wallet! As is outlined in the Mod B write-ups in the Tech Folder it really should be removed for this reason as well as the fact that the EX lacks the frame mounted pads to catch that top leaf making it worthless on an EX.
The B code mod was devised to add the extra height without any extra cost (well, maybe two new centering bolts....) that the taller blocks give, so yes the B mod gives more lift to the B codes, the addition of the two bottom EX leaves and the thicker EX spacers add that extra height.
No, what you had at the time was the chance to do this right the first time! Sorry if this sounds harsh but I think you need to redo your setup. When you swapped in the B codes you had everything there to do the B mod, all the extra parts come from the stock EX springs (except for those two centering bolts from the hardware store). This would have allowed you to remove the unneeded and possibly dangerous (to your AC system) top overloads and do the B mods saving you the expense of the second set of blocks you bought that shouldn't be stacked in the first place as you made clear you were aware was a bad idea.
A tapered 5.5" block would be more lift than either the B mod or the 4" F-350 block.
If you really want to get this as right as possible you should first read the info about the B mod in the Tech Folder at the top of this forum, then use that info and our advice to set your B springs up correctly without having to run too tall of blocks or stacked blocks and remove parts you don't need and may be a problem down the road (top overload leaf and second set of blocks that are stacked).

 

Thanx for the input WE3ZS. I really appreciate all the advise and help. When I attempted this I had read so many post about it that I had essentially confused myself. I am new to all this and I sincerely do appreciate you guys responding to my post. My next mod will be fixing my screw up. It is not my daily driver so no need to drive it again til its right. Ok; so next question. I have contacted the guys at 5 star and plan on getting one as soon as funds available. Here shortly I am going to 34" tires and will eventually be pulling at least a 9,000 lbs. TT. My X has the 3:73 gears. I live in NC and will be pulling the mountains here maybe twice a year. My question is; will the Tuner be enough or do you think I will have to go with lower gears also? Transmission was rebuilt 20,000 miles ago and upgraded with an RV torque converter(whatever that is). I definitely don't wanna drop $2000 again so will this be too much strain on the transmission or will the Tuner be enough? Once again sorry for sounding like an idiot.

 

Also do you have any specs on the centering bolts?

 

Nope, I just set everything up using big C clamps and then measured it, went to the hardware store and bought the correct length and diameter Grade 8 bolts and nuts.

 

Chad, I am glad to hear you plan to fix the stacked blocks issue before driving the truck again. I know my earlier post came across pretty strong, but it was supposed to. There are things on the forums about which it is fine to disagree and/or do different than the next guy, but stacking blocks is a no-no across the board.

I think you will find you will need to re-gear.

I do not see any information on your truck such as engine, year, blah blah blah. Go ahead and fill out your signature so we can all see what you are working with. That will make it easier for information to flow to you.

You should not have any issues with your tranny as long as the rebuild was properly done. Once we know what engine you have, there will be more thorough answers, however.

The center bolts on my truck are 3/8", as I recall. Buy my recaller is pretty bad when it comes to numbers. Some guys say to use grade 8 bolts, but I cannot possibly see how a person would need grade 8 for a center pin on leaf springs on an Excursion. The center pins just do not receive that much torsion. This is something which ATS happened to agree with me on, when I ordered my spring packs from them.

You will need to measure the added thickness of your modded leafs to see what length of bolts to buy. I bought stupid long bolts and just cut them off after the fact.

 

34" tires, 3.73 gears, 9,000lb TT and NC mountains doesn't sound like fun to me. I pulled 9,500lbs with mine when I still had 3.73 gears and it was a total slug, you could ride a bike up the mountain faster!
9k is a lot of weight and some of those mountains over by the Smokies are pretty steep going, I think you would be very happy with some 4.56 or even deeper 4.88 gears. If you do much solo running without the trailer then 4.56s might give you a little better highway mileage unloaded, the 4.88 will make the Ex a towing beast. I run 35.28" tires and 4.88s and it pulls our 11k+ TT well with headers and a tuner.
The SCT tuner with 5Star tunes will get it running great and it will make the trans performance way, way better, but the performance improvements are a better compliment to deeper gears than they are a replacement for them.

Oh, and Ben is correct about the center bolts not needing to be Grade 8, I just bought the Grade 8s because they are GOLD.....Gotta have some bling here!