I just purchased a 2005 v10 f350 has about 100k miles. Few questions, I wanted to put a part box together to carry with me with the basic problem parts. I have a serp belt and a few replacement hoses. I have heard of a few sensors that tend to go out but not sure the names? Any knowledge twords any weak parts would be greatly appreciated. Also any knowledge tword engine performance upgrades on aftermarket exhaust or radiator or the best rout on parts to upgrade first. The big Q, can this engine run long term on 87 octane. Have aftermarket water separator fuel filter.Thankyou

 

Get a sct tuner from 5star if you want to up the performance and the throttle response will be night and day ford has the drive by wire really dumded down none of the other stuff is going to give you any noticeable gain but a smaller bank account. It will be fine on 87 octane but they will write you tunes for what ever gas you want to run. They also adjust the fuel tables for the 10% ethonol garbage that is everywhere. Form what they say it was a bigger deal in the 2 valves but still they change the tables for that and better fueling across the board as well. I wouldn't worry about the radaitor unless it's leaking the truck needs to run 190ish°. I wouldn't do much with the exhaust v10's don't sound good but guys have been getting pretty decent results with the aeroturbine 3030xl muffler but I think they were all 2v trucks and they sound different than the 3v. Also if you haven't your due for a plug change at 100k this has caused some issues ford used a 2 piece plug from 05 to midway through 08 that is prone to breaking when being removed there is a tool lisle makes to remove broken plugs. If it were me as much as I hate to not do my own work I'd think about having the ford dealer do them just to avoid the headache with my luck everyone would break. Use a motorcraft oil filter with the proper anti drain back valve it's less than 4 bucks. The other thing to look out for is broken exhaust manifold studs especially where they salt half the year.

 

87 octane is what your owners manual reccomends.

 

True, but running 89 or 91 Octane gas along with a matching Custom Performance Tune makes that little extra price at the pump more fun on the road!

 

We don't hav 87 just 86 octane fuel. I run Mike's 87 performance tune but run 86 octane no difference in performance if I use 89 octane. The only place that had 87 started selling 86.

 

Don't expect any improvement in performance from JUST the higher Octane gas, you need the matching custom tune to take advantage of the extra Octane. More timing advance and addition adjustments to the fuel mapping (and maybe a some changes to the trans tuning also, I can run about 10% higher throttle opening in OD under load climbing grades with the 89 Perf tune).
Do the higher elevation locations that sell the 86 as Regular use the same 89 Plus and 91 Super grades or are the upper grades one number down as well as the Regular?

 

Any modern engine with a knock sensor will benefit from higher octane.

Maybe not as much as in conjunction with a tuner but it will advance timing to the point of knock depending on octane.