I have on 03 6.0 with 223,000 miles , I was gifted a sct tuner for Christmas and am nervous about the heads but also interested in the added power! I called TSD here in San Antonio and was quoted between $5000-$8000 for studding.
My question is it worth to stud an 03 with this many miles for that price? I love this truck and want to take care of the things I should for longevity sakes but the price seems steep for a truck that only cost 15,000! Any input ?

 

Tune it and run it.
Lots and lots of trucks out there running tuned without studs.

me personally

i wouldn’t do boosted launches and tow 20k behind it

 

Your two statements I've highlighted are diametrically opposed to each other - Ford pushed the 6.0s tuning far beyond what Navistar was doing in their applications of the same power plant. Sure, you might run a tune and get away with it for awhile... I'd save up money for, in order: a New HPOP if it hasn't been done, because you are on the edge already; an engine replacement, because that's the worst case if you are racing your buddy when all hell breaks loose with your tuned 6.0...

Look, I'm being totally honest - I worried about my STOCK 6.0 enough that I did reliability mods so it WOULDN'T break in the middle of a trip - and even doing those, I still find other things to worry about. And I can afford an engine replacement, or replace the whole truck for that matter - I just don't want to have to do that. And I love the truck with the power it has... I have faster stuff if that's what I want to do - this is a truck, not a race car...

Budget accordingly and of course: YMMV

 

Ditto. Steroids shrinks your ***** for a reason.

 

Both kind of over dramatic.

My 2003 has 215k on it. Stock minus EGR delete...and a small tune. I’d drive it across country towing my camper if I had to.

You’d be surprised how much abuse these engines can handle. Again, I’m not saying put the biggest and baddest tune you can find and do boosted launches, sled pulls, etc.

and it’s only my opinion.....I wouldn’t be that worried with a small tune.

 

And I too, should have put an IMHO in there - but there are a ton of new folks coming onto/into the 6.0s these days - maybe a good deal if you find the right one; or maybe something that somebody made a bunch of cash off of some uninformed person... Can't really tell, but a bunch of us do try - myself I'd rather warn someone who might be new, not to be afraid, but to understand, the motor they've been dealt...

And I too would load up the camper and hook the horse trailer up, and head off across the country in mine... Might carry some spare parts... (filters and such )

Best,
Scott

 

Thanks for all the input guys , any ideas on normal pricing for studs , is the 5-8000 range normal ? Ive seen some people say it’s closer to 2500-5000, I’m willing to pay 3-4000 but idk about 8 seems like a stretch

 

Sure, over dramatic, but we sure see a lot of guys here pumping up their power and blowing up their engines. Reminds of my son's joke (probably heard it elsewhere) about seeing the guy getting out of the Vette and saying, "nice car, sorry about your *****(Henry)." I've pulled heavy trailers over the Rockies with my stock truck; can't imagine why anyone needs more power than that except to inflate ball size.

 

Thanks for the help

 

Studs or not at the very least I would install a coolant pressure gauge and keep a close eye. It will give you a heads up of any pending issues. If it were me I would do this with a full TorquePro or Forscan monitor BEFORE deciding to do anything such as adding a program or studs. You need to establish a baseline status of your 6.0 to know where it stands.

Rob

 

Fuel pressure Guage would be my first Guage, and a coolant pressure Guage 2nd. And for sure a monitoring app to follow all other parameters.

 

I'm coming up to 100k miles on the SCT street tune, still on TTY. I don't pull more than 7000lb, so I went for it and all ok so far. Mind you, it won't screw me if the heads do go, although the wife might complain. Together with an Atlas 40 in the FICM it's quite exciting in the rain

 

I think some production variations in the head castings make some more prone to failure, but there are a lot of stock trucks with no issues, even with the 450/550 world. After that, again, depending on the variation, pushing a higher combustion pressure gets you into the danger zone. And I'm sure light pushes don't necessarily flip the trigger. Having an EGR cooler leak will cause issues too, and that may not happen immediately; it could take 10k to 50k miles. Having an EGR cooler leak, thinking you ducked a bullet due to no immediate issue, maybe a false understanding. The failures, when they come, take some time.

 

You've gotten some good advice here, but your question about the price of doing head studs wasn't answered, and also some of the most current thinking/analysis we failed to point you to. Texas seems to have some good shops and my bet is you can get a better price on a good job - one place to check out is your local chapter of FTE, or ask here for shop recommendations. So here is the rub, that may have slipped between the lines of what the good folks here have been offering you: If you look into some of the threads Jack, aka: TooManyToys. has thrown down some good analytics and conclusions, you'd see where there likely isn't much advantage to just doing head studs - the TTY bolts that came on the truck provide plenty of clamping force. It is the number of clamping locations and some observations of Where our heads fail that is key (they "tent" down the middle). Trying to summarize a bunch of Jack's work: you'd need to add something like a ringed head/block, or the best headgaskets to a near perfectly surfaced head and block decks, and then it is still questionable whether studs are needed.

I'm regurging what I've read so likely have some wrong and I'll step out and hope Jack comes back and points you to a link or explains it better than I have...

 

Thank you for this ! Things got a little haywire here lol