Hey folks, I grabbed and 03 F350 supercab longbed lariat recently. Its all stock with 3.73 gears and the 4 speed auto tranny. I have a few different trailers I tow ranging from 4000 to 11000 #s. ,Im looking to invest some of the cash into the proper upgrades for this truck. Its only got 70,000 miles so it should last me a while, (last one has a tick over 200k and still runs great. It now resides on the farm as a multi purpose truck. Been looking at headers, programmers, intakes, exhaust systems, wanting to know everyone elses experiences. thanks

 

If it has the A4OD tranny, start saving for an overhaul.... if it's got the newer Torq-Shift, you'll be fine.

 

It should have the 4R100 trans which will give you no problems.

In my opinion on a gas engine it's hard to get your return on your $$$$ when adding mods but if I had to have more power I would install the Banks Power Pak.

Includes:

Torque Tubes (Headers)
Full Exhaust
Air Intake
Engine Computer
Trans Computer

It claims 56hp and 67ft-lbs of torque and it costs around $2000.

Or re-gear it to some 4.30s or 4.56s.


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most of the trailers are around town trailers with hay, tractors etc., I do have a travel trailer that weighs in at 9000# but I really only tow that 2 or 3 times a year. I have a 550 dually with the 6.4 for real heavy hauling I just wanted something decent on the highway for the tt without the maintnence of a diesel for my every day rig.

 

The Banks Power Pack has some stuff you don't need and other stuff you don't want.. The headers, which I have are really top quality and do help a little with performance through the RPM range.
The kit's included exhaust and muffler can be duplicated for less money with a variety of better sounding and flowing mufflers.
The cold air intake, like every other CAI on a V-10 will make the truck louder but it won't flow much or any better than the OEM cold air intake the rig has from the factory.
The included Banks engine/trans programmers are limited with a generic "canned" tune. You would be much better off getting a handheld tuner with a number of custom tunes to tailor your desired performance, 5Star Tuning knows the V-10 very well.

My 2V V-10 powered EX serves as our dedicated tow rig for our 11,000 TT, the addition of the headers gave a small increase in towing performance. The custom tunes (I use the 87 and 89 Octane Performance tunes for towing) offer even better gains, mostly trans strategy but it feels like a little more from the motor too, and the output between the 87 and 89 tunes is noticeable. But the single biggest towing performance increase came from swapping gears. My EX came with the common 3.73 gears and it struggled with the heavy loads, a change to 4.88 had it accelerating and climbing hills like a locomotive! Now with a set of 35" tires and the 4.88 gears it has an effective 4.39 ratio and does very well with the heavy TT.

 

I had the weaker '99 V10 F350. I did EVERYTHING to get that thing to pull at least marginally better, and only one thing, after thousands of dollars spent actually worked.

I had;

Headers
3" Exhaust with flowmaster muffler
EGR delete
Kenne Bell supercharger
Diablosport tuner with custom tunes for supercharger
Throttle body spacer (useless, but I tried)
CAI

After all of that, the only thing I really did was raise HP, when the transmission couldn't manage heavy loads with 3.73 gearing. I then installed 4.88 gears (I had 35" tires on the truck) and everything was great. Well, as great as it could be. I still averaged only 170 miles to the tank.....

 

I replaced my 3.73's with 4.30's a few weeks ago and what a difference! I've towed the camper two times so far this season. First (with the 3.73's still) was going to an RV park so I figure I was close to 1K pounds lighter.

The truck did fine but was constantly shifting in and out of overdrive.

The second trip, with the 4.30's, was back woods camping so had that extra 1K pounds along with us and the truck towed much better!

Going to another RV park this weekend, so excited to see how it does on the lighter end of things.

 

Just traded in the same truck. I did a programmer from Mike @ 5star and it made a huge difference in towing. The trans tuning was the biggest upgrade. I had Thorley tri Y headers, and a K&N drop in filter. I was towing a 32' Puma with a dry weight of 8500#.

The best investment I made in that towing experience was the brake controller, I had used the prodigy and it was decent, but switching to the MaxBrake made a huge difference. No jerking at stops, and the camper did exactly what the truck did, no matter how hard or easy i was on the brakes.

For what it's worth I didn't see as big of a difference in a 3.73 and a 4.30 gear as most people here did.