I've checked around the internet and I cannot get a solid helpful answer. I just bought an unstudded 2006 F350 6.0L with 200,000 miles. It has metal in the oil and the engine was condemned by the previous owner's mechanic with not a lot of information passed to me. I decided the best option is to pull the engine and put in a used one. I have sourced a used engine with around 140k on it and head gaskets seeping. I want to go through and do some of the "bulletproofing" to iron out the 6.0 issues as this truck will most likely be used by my GF after for towing and farm use.

I know that head studs, oil cooler, and EGR cooler should be replaced/upgraded. I have also heard about dummy plugs and standpipes with water pumps and coolant filters. I know that BulletProof diesel is technically the only true bulletproof job, but there are a lot of other companies with parts that can be more affordable and "good enough." Does someone with experience have a list of recommended parts and places to source these parts for this build? I am looking to be in this build for about $10k, with the truck and the engine I am currently in around $5k, which should leave enough room for most of the parts I need?

Thank you to any of you who can give some advice and words of wisdom

 

What year model is this sourced engine?

 

Sorry, it is a 2006 350 as well

 

Bulletproof Diesel is just a company that makes or sources all the parts we need to "bulletproof" our trucks. Some of their parts are second to none, but some others you don't necessarily need to spend the money on to have the quality, although, rest assured anything you buy from Bulletproof diesel will be about the best quality and fitment out there. Basically as far as the engine is concerned, these are the items that need done:

ARP head studs
New OEM head gaskets
Surface and check the heads for any issues, have them o-ringed if you really want to better guarantee head gasket life
Bulletproof diesel EGR Cooler (that one truly is the best)
New OEM oil cooler with OEM gasket
Flush entire engine, radiator, and heater core and use CAT EC3 rated coolant (debatable whether you need a coolant filter, depends on who you ask but it certainly can't hurt anything)
New OEM Dummy plugs and standpipes
Clean the turbo
Blue spring upgrade

Some of the other things that can be done but aren't necessarily under the bulletproofing list are replacing the FICM, OEM glow plugs when the motor is out of the frame, verify your fuel pressure (if a stock build then there is no need to upgrade the fuel pump, if the pump fails you can replace just the motor inside of the pump, its very affordable for a quality motor from Racor, an oem manufacturer, just get it from rockauto). You can also replace the water pump if you wanted but isn't necessary until it starts failing. Either go OEM or get one from bulletproof diesel. Bulletproof Diesel sells an entire kit with an all aluminum radiator, new Bulletproof Diesel water pump, thermostat, cap, and a mechanical fan clutch for the truck so at that point the entire cooling system for the truck is mechanical at that point. There are pros and cons to doing that. The con being its more noisy and more fuel consumption, the pro being its no longer electronically controlled and there are no wires to break. So make your own decision on that and search this forum.

As to the oil cooler, you can also not do the OEM oil cooler and separate the oil and water system by going with a Bulletproof Diesel oil to air cooler which is what I intend to do eventually. I like the idea of the systems being separated and also there wouldn't be the off chance of it plugging again. Its certainly a costlier upgrade though and not necessarily required for a bulletproof.

The last thing you will need is a live data monitor like an Edge CTS3 or if you plan to do tuning you will need a tuner as the Edge does not support tuning. Or you can go with the Livewire SCT which can do both but I personally prefer looking at the Edge monitor and find it much better than the Livewire.

Also the reason you probably haven't gotten many responses on here is because this subject has been gone over so many times and a simple search will yield a lifetime of reading. However I was in your situation years ago and found it overwhelming to read everything so I hope I have helped you out some.

 

Oh I forgot to mention the STC fitting that must be replaced as well to promise no High Pressure Oil leaks. STC is the Snap To Connect fitting that is under the HPOP cover under the Turbo. A lot of work to replace but much easier when the engine is out of frame

 

Someday, people are going to quit harping on the head studs as solving anything.

 

Please explain? It seems to be well known that for any above stock power levels head studs are a necessity

 

Any data to support that?

 

You can't reuse the head bolts so you might as well spend a little extra money on head studs. Don't cheap out. Cheap head studs have been known to break. Go on youtube and check videos on 6.0 engine repair. The best are by Diesel tech Ron.

 

Yeah, the results when I looked them up were very overwhelming to say the least. This is all good to know and I appreciate the help! I’m picking up the new/used engine today and hoping to get into it in the next week or two.

 

With exception of their EGR coolers, and maybe their external air to oil coolers, most of what I've seen on BPD's website is over-hyped and relatively expensive.

 

Hi Jack,


I am curious about what you mean by this, maybe I am misunderstanding.

Are you inferring that if one installs new/uncompromised components (straight OEM non-oringed heads, OEM gaskets, OEM TTY bolts) that they have a chance of not having issues even with tuning?

As opposed to studs that have a better clamping force with the above components used?

 

From everything I've looked at and conversations with ARP, the standard studs apply only a slightly higher compressive force than the stock TTY bolts. And each fastener is clamping to ~25,000lbs, which is the explosive force of a stock engine single cylinder. So the four fasteners around each cylinder generate 100,000lbs of clamping force, a 4:1 safety factory.

I highlighted a long thread on Powerstroke.org in my one video, which started early on. Charlie Fish asked, "If we are doing everything right, why do we still have head gasket failures". The 'everything right' was replacing gaskets the Ford way, but including ARP studs. The Ford way was don't machine the heads flat; replace the heads if there is more than 0.002" bow across the width. And generally, within 25,000 miles, the gaskets blew again.

Someone came up with the theory that the head bolts were stretching, and any engineer looking at this would say no, especially with that safety factor. Also, in the early days, a frequent comment was the problem was only four bolts, not the six like other engines. But, again, that was often looked at as not enough compressive load, while no one thought about the deflection of the heads. The distance between the bolts is the issue; how much the heads deflect in the center dynamically (every explosion) and the eventual yielding of the metal, which leads to the permanent bow. The problem with the yielded state, the bow, is it does not change how much the head deflects dynamically. So if you have a head that has yielded to 0.0015", under the Ford threshold, it is most likely dynamically deflecting to 0.002". So now the gaskets see a compressive loss in the center of the head of 0.0035" at full throttle. At that point, the compression of the gasket is diminished in the centerline of the head, and it starts to move, abrading the sealant (Discussed in SAE papers). Initially, the area between the middle cylinders fails, and it can include the spaces between the cylinders towards the ends as more deflection occurs.

During this, the head bolts are holding tight, as do the ARP studs. The best repair solution was to use o-rings, but that depends on how much combustion pressure there is. If the heads were machined flat, and as long as an aggressive tune was not used, the heads should be OK afterward. The compression cone around the fasteners was fine with stock bolts or ARP studs. When high HP drag engines lift due to only fasteners, the gasket failure is not restricted to the center of the heads, between the cylinders.

No one has looked carefully at the factory bolts. I have. I've also talked to several testing facilities that do critical fastener testing, and I've found one that would be good at testing the factory bolts. They believe I am correct that the factory bolts are a specialized 11.8 grade, well made like many of their test work for the military, nuclear, and avionics customers. However, it would cost about $1,500 to do the basic tests to show the compressive strength of the factory bolts. I have worked on videos about fasteners and getting these tests done, but they are on my old computer that has failed my recorded videos and my iMovie productions, which is why there has been a dearth of YT videos from me this year.

Anyway, the premise of the video I have on YT and the eventual ones I hope to have is the bolts are not the issue; it's the head design. Also, in that and other videos, I discuss the differences between the 18 and 20mm heads and the 6.4L heads, which are the next design level. International kept the same bolting pattern of the 6.0L heads, slightly increased the bolts to compensate for the higher HP (combustion pressure), but reinforced the heads between the bolts to prevent the dynamic distortion.

I'm just a guy who works on my truck, but anyone who works on all the Powerstrokes had to have seen the change in design since the 6.4 came out. While I was discussing this years ago here in this forum, KDD came out with their new ICON heads, which incorporate the 6.0 20mm head changes I believed occurred and the added reinforcement of the 6.4L heads. The 20mm changes never made sense for a "commonized" machining to the 6.4L. There were changes to the heads and the blocks which were not disclosed. I've seen that many times on my side of the OE vehicle production. Ford CYA; you never hear of them or get told why.

Repeating, when I talked to ARP several times, they stated the standard studs are only slightly above the stock bolts in compressive force. So we toss expensive bolts to make with a Ford gasket kit, pay for them, and then buy costly studs. I don't think it's a bolt problem; it's a head problem when we tune for higher combustion pressures.

 

Thank you for the explanation.

I've read that the o-ringed head is a far superior install over the standard OEM (or non o-ringed) and many have had great luck so far. I for one finally got over the "regret it happened again" blown headgasket using o-ringed KDD and ARP's.

 

It's a good bandaid if you are going to tune, or just have a less prone to fail. The head design flaw is still there. The head is still dynamically flexing, but the o-ring anchors the gasket so it does not abrade away. Fel-Pro's gasket design does it differently, the one layer is thicker and wider so it's less prone to moving sideways.

What is lacking from the field is more history of people machining the heads, no o-rings, and not having failures with light tunes. In the video I highlight some of those who have had success, but it's too few. When you yield a part (bend), the new yield (strength) point is higher and it becomes stronger. You will still have elastic distortion, but it won't yield and increase the gap.

It's called a seasoned part, and the first time I learned of that I was a teenager with a racing go-kart engine. There was a guy in Ohio who machined McCullough kart engines and would not touch one that was virgin. That was the late 60's. I still have my Chrysler/West Bend 610 somewhere.

If these heads were not dynamically distorting, you would not have people like ZMANN who have gone more than a year babying an engine after a coolant explosion and not having more issues, waiting for the time to rebuild.