I recently purchased a '96 F250 4x4 PSD auto, and with my camper and Jeep on the trailer I haul 8500-9000 lbs. I've read quite a bit here lately, but still have a few questions. I live in central CA and tow up 5-6% grades whichever direction I go, and I'd like to get a little more power. I'm not interested in hot rodding it, just pulling a little better up the hills.

I'm going to change the intake, but without an intercooler I wonder how important it is to have a cold air system.

I want to remove the cat and muffler, and wonder how much more benefit there would be in a new down pipe. I'm trying to keep my labor to a minimum, at least in the near future.

I like the idea of a tunable programmer, and would only run it in the tow safe mode. I can currently pull up the long grades at 55-60 in 3rd but with the pedal to the floor much of the time, and I'd like to have a little reserve power in that situation. Will a chip do that in the lowest setting? How important would an EGT guage be in that situation?

I haven't yet priced adding an intercooler. On the '96 is it worth it, both time and expense, or is the chip at safe tow mode enough?

I'm considering the bang for the buck, for both money and time.

 

Everything you are thinking is in the right direction. The intake doesn't so much have to be a "cold air intake" as much as opened up. I have a Tymar intake on my 96 psd dually and it made a noticable gain as well as droped egt's. The downpipe is the first thing you should address. The intake with a 3" down pipe you will see a definate increse in performance. Not major, but noticable. And you will definatly be better off without the cat and muffler. Dale at tymar performance will be able to help you with all of those. Just off the top of my head I think you should be able to do one of his intakes and downpipes for about $230. I also believe he has cat delete pipes as well. As far as the chips go, I have the Superchips 1705 and love it. It has the three levels for tow safe, tow performance, and high performance. But above all, the gauges are the first thing you should do. EGT being the most important. If you can't monitor that, you are peeing in the wind. With that, you should also consider your tranny. There are several thing you can do to beef it up, and I'm sure others will chime in with those. So good luck and I hope that helps.

RubberDuck

 

Even with my Edge Evolution on its tow program I can get my EGTs up on a long pull uphill. So I would say, if you want a programmer, gauges should be top priority. They are a good idea even without tuning just to be sure. Relativly cheap insurance. The intake and downpipe will help tremendously. You are probably looking at a 200*+ drop in egts with those alone. There will probably be a minimal amount of seat of the pants performance increase with them, but will allow you to safely increase power until you are satisfied with performance.
In order I'd go with Gauges, intake, exhaust, and then tuner/chip. If egts are still a concern then I'd go with the intercooler (lot of work for little results, if other mods are mild) There are many other ways to keep egts in check without going the intercooler route, i.e. propane injection, water/meth injection, and a whole myriad of mods yet unknown to me.
Good luck and have fun

 

I like the order that MikeW has here for you to follow, I would also shim the FPR on the motor, this only takes a few minutes and will setup the fuel pressure so that there is no slack in the fuel system. Cost me .12 cents to buy a 5/32" stainless ball to drop in the FPR. I have a 95 MY PSD and it doesn't have the intercooler either, its pulled heavy loads all over the USA and I know exactly what you are wanting too.

Once I did all the mods to the PSD I have she no longer hurts for more power so much, I will say that you never get to much power though LOL. The really cool thing for my PSD was the fuel mileage going up as much as it has with all the mods I have done. You can see PIC's of some of these in my gallery if you like to look.

Hope things work out for you on this, doing the work on the mods yourself will help on the cost too. Money always gets in the way around my house, plus the fact I like messing around with things like this anyway. Look forward to reading how you fair with this.

 

ok whats EGT?I need gauges spell it out for me guys..What do I need and where to order..2001 F350 quad cab dually 6ft bed 20,000miles...Diablo already on order...

 

If it were me i would do the intake and exhaust first, then the gauges and then maybe a tuner or chip.
I would not buy a tuner or chip without gauges first,, Exhaust TEMP being the most important for sure. I have heard there is really no difference after adding the intercooler, but i'm some others will chime in here and let you know how it worked for them. A Kwik Filter and straight exhaust will make a noticable difference for sure and then the down pipe will really help with exhaust temps if they are an issue.

 

EGT - Exhaust gas Temperature. Not to exceed 1450* Pre-turbo before pistons start to melt.
FPR - Fuel Pressure Regulator
Gauges = Pyrometer (for EGT's), Boost (For Turbo), and tranny temp (For Auto's)
best results for your EGT is to mount the probe Pre turbo in the up pipe. I agree that you should get your truck to breathe better before you do anything else. Our trucks burn 20,000 gallons of air for every gallon of diesel. Then gauges, then chip.

J.D.

 

On that question of a chip or tuner, if you can live without the truck for a lil while, prolly a week, unless you get a spare PCM. you can have the stock PCM sent out and reflashed with the horsepower level of your choice, in ANY configuration, tow safe, extreme, 100HP, 50HP, anything. and while they are in there you can get them to add a lil to the tranny, raise the line pressure, change shift points, converter lock-up characteristics. The entire truck is controlled from the PCM so the possibilities are endless. and it will be ALOT cheaper then a chip, just not removable.

And like all the others have already said at least get an EGT gauge, those hills and a load will for sure mean trouble with any type of HP increase.


Diesel Rod

 

I don't know where that # came from but I've always heard about 1270° is the safe max if you want the motor to last. I know people who push 1400° but I wouldn't on my truck.

 

Yea I was wondering about that too. Aluminum melts at 1250*, and the pistons are aluminum. you can run it above that, but not for extened periods, I.E. 30 seconds max is what I would do, if it ever got that hot. what you do have to remember is that just cuz the EGT's are 1250* the pistons are not that hot because of the oil squirters on the bottoms cooling them, its the actual air temperature that the gauge is reading. so that is how you can get by with running them above 1250* for a while, once they start to actually absorb the heat then your getting in trouble. if you are realy worried about EGT's and not wanting an intercooler, look into water injection. wonderful concept, and great for keeping things cool.


Diesel Rod

 

I have other vehicles to drive, so being down for a week isn't a problem. Who do I look up to check on custom programming?

My truck has 125k on it, so the FPR bump sounds interesting. I assume I can do a search and find out how to do it.

The money involved in this stuff is reasonable........compared to what I spend on my Jeep. I'm just limited on time, even though none of this stuff looks difficult. I've read that changing the DP can be a real PIA, is that true on the '96? How much benefit is there from changing the downpipe compared to just deleting the cat and muffler? I'm also assuming that the 3" DP with the stock 3.5" straight exhaust is good enough so a 4" exhaust won't be much, if any, benefit.

You know, we always want stuff done right away. The truck runs fine now, so I guess I should just get the parts and work on it as I get the chance. I know it's best to get the EGT gauge, and let it breath better.......I do want this truck to last for a long time. What has me wanting to get a little more out of it right away is that I sold my 2wd F250 with a 460, and it pulled a little better on the hills than this truck does, because of the gearing and the extra rpm the gas truck would run. This truck has 4.11's and the other truck had 3.55's, so while this truck pulls strong in 3rd, I could pull 60 mph in 2nd in the gas truck at 3500 rpm with a good amount of reserve power. I wanted 4wd, and ran across this truck, but I want at least the same performance up the hills that I regularly pull. The extra mileage seems to be eaten up by higher fuel costs, but the extra range is real nice.