I am new at owning a diesel. I am waiting for delivery of my 2001 F250 7.3L Crew Cab rear wheel drive truck with 38,000 miles. (I'm the one that the dealers "new guy" put regular gasoline in my diesel).

After reading so many posts I would love to have some input on what types of things I should do to this stock truck to get the best mileage, power, and time out of it. Will be using it mostly with light loads just in the back of the truck. Will be towing regular (ball type) trailers with maybe 5-6,000 lbs a couple of times a month.

I am 6'6" and wanted a big truck that sounds great...the Ford 7.3L Turbo Diesel really does it for me.

 

If you're not looking for huge power, just go with gauges, intake, exhaust, and a tuner or chip. That's the basic start to the mod craziness. I think around here the Tymar intake is regarded as the best and cheapest intake, everybody and their grandma makes an exhaust for the 7.3 now, and for chips and tuners there's just way too many choices!! Good luck though I'm sure someone else will follow soon with some more info.

 

I personally wouldn't do much in the way with mods until your positive the dealer didn't hurt your engine. I would hate to lose my engine warranty because of mods even though it was the dealers fault. With that being said, the best thing you can do is, keep the air filter clean - change the oil and fuel filter on schedule - install gauges especially an EGT ( exaust gas temp gauge ) and if you have an auto transmission a tranny temp gauge. These things will help the most to make it last. For mileage the three main things will be clean filters, good quality fuel and your right foot. The powerstroke seems to do best when cruising down the road at 2,000 RPM, 65-70, the more over that the faster the MPG drops off. Hope this helps and sure others will come on with more ideas.