Hey guys quick question. Did the first real pull with my new truck and wanted to get your opinion on how well my cooling system is running as I know a lot of you tow a lot more weight that I was. Basically ran 220-224F the whole way up the hill with the fan screaming pulling an 8k trailer.

It's quite a hill. 8-mile grade, 6-8% that i usually climb in 100-105F ambient temps (Hwy 168 out of Fresno, CA to Shaver Lake). The road is 4-lanes and you can easily do 70mph up it in a car or unloaded truck. My toy hauler is about 8,000lb loaded down, but is a brick aerodynamically. I usually maintain around 45-50mph towing. On the 6.0 with 3.73s this is 3rd gear, engine running around 2650-2900rpm. That requires about 3/4 accelerator pedal. ECT got to 220F, fan ramped up to full speed (FSS showing around 3200rpm) and held the whole way up. ECT stayed at 220F initially then slowly crept up to 222 and 224 for a bit.

Does this sound normal? I know these are pretty extreme conditions I'm operating under.

Some other notes:
-AC was blowing almost full blast for most of the way. I believe it was on "Max AC" with the fan at #3 speed.
-EOT got up to 238F at the end which worried me a bit.
-TFT got up to 190F and stayed there.
-One of my upcoming tasks is to take out & clean the stock radiator & intercooler along with the rest of the stackup which I'm guessing will help. I had previously cleaned the AC condenser and as much of the intercooler as possible, but you really can't get in between the IC & radiator without taking things apart.
-Truck came with a billet grilles which I'm wondering if that's having any affect on airflow. It's not that restrictive, but definitely more restrictive than the stock "honeycomb". Nothing blocking airflow down by the license plate.
-Stock radiator
-ELC Coolant
-New stock Ford Stat (190-192F at low loads)
-Stock Fan Clutch that seems to be working correctly.
-Stock oil cooler that runs 8-10F delta under the 65mph hwy test.

My previous 6.0 had fan clutch issues where it wouldn't stay locked up so it would quickly get hot and I'd always end up slowing down to 30-35mph and downshifting to 2nd to keep temps under control. On that truck I actually replaced the stock radiator in trying to fix this issue. Should have done the fan clutch but I ended up selling it before getting around to that.

PS: This is still worlds better than the 2013 3.5L Ecoboost I was previously running. It wouldn't hit full electric fan speed till 225F. I would typically hit 240F ECT at the top of the hill even when I would slow down to 30-35mph. Tranny was also getting over 230F. No oil temp gauge so that was probably way up there too. I finally started pulling over halfway up. Glad that nightmare is over now...

 

I'm in Arizona and when I'm pulling my toy hauler to the high country, experience about the same temps. Running 220 doesn't seem that far off when pulling long steep hills and it cools down quickly once I get to the top. Ambient temps are much hotter here than other parts of the country, so when pulling these steep hills (CA, NV, AZ) I don't think it's uncommon. My trailer is over 10k loaded, and just making sure you watch EGT and other temps as you climb, shouldn't be a problem.

 

You were fine - I've had oil in the 240s and wasn't worried. Sounds like everything is working as it should! Interesting note on the 3.5EB as we have one on order - but it's replacing our faithful Expedition. The F350 is perfectly set up for our truck camper + horse trailer on a hitch extension - you wanna' talk about pushing a brick through the wind!!!

 

Any EGT data on those long pulls?

Ed

 

Don't have a EGT gauge yet. On the list of things to get. I'm looking at combining with a fuel & LP Oil gauge as well. Truck is 100% stock tuning so I wasn't as concerned about it.

Dan: The Ecoboost is a pretty amazing engine. Towing the same trailer it feels just as powerful as the 6.0. Unloaded it's WAY faster. I think 0-60 was close to 6 seconds. Fuel mileage with the old steel body truck (6k lbs) was an easy 20-22 on the highway. I typically only had issues with the engine getting hot when towing the long hills and the temp was above 85F. Spent a bunch of time on the forums trying to figure it out, very common issue with others. We basically figured out that the electric fans were too small because guys were getting minimal gains with thicker radiators, high flow water pumps, etc.

Did have issues with oil dilution with the direct injection when I would do lots of short trips during the winter. The Gen2 motor (17+) added port fuel injection alongside the direct injection which I believe fixed that issue. As I read more that's becoming VERY common on these DI engines. Honda had a big problem with their CRV engine for example.

 

I would see 1300-1400 on EGTs - I made sure if it went into 3rd, I backed off and watched EGT not to exceed 1350 and just drive by temp.