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the thing that i noticed was that the whistle was more high-pitched. i lost alot of the deepness of the wickedwheel's whistle, and now it's a squeaky-whistly, which is still impressive. i painted mine Ford engine Block blue, 500* ceramic paint. it has black Dieselsite boots with chrome clamps, and it looks pretty pimp if i say so myself.
Hehe, there was a thread on this same mod on TDS a couple weeks back that went to about 120 replies. Lots of ideas on removal and what to do to the pipe after. Some guys powdercoated them, painted, polished, etc.
Best way is after you pull/cut off the foil, use WD-40 and soak that glue gunk that's leftover... after that it comes off easily, supposedly. I'm going to remove the stuff off mine when I install the ATS housing (en route to my home as we speak ).
btw, in case some folks didn't know the foil wrap stuff was added to the intercooler pipe on the 99.5 and up models due to complaints of "too much whistle" that Ford heard from some owners. Same reason they swapped out the original wheel (what we install now as the "wicked wheel" for the one that makes less whistle.
edit - another benefit of the mod is that besides being free and easy, and providing more whistle (or... not covering it up as much ), it makes the engine compartment look a little nicer. I remember the first time I looked under the hood of my truck when I was looking at it and thinking of buying it, I saw the foil covered pipe and thought "yikes, that's pretty tacky." I thought someone had actually taken foil and covered the pipe for whatever reason. I found pics of others' engines online and saw that they're all like that, and my worries were alleviated.
I am just starting on my 99 - 7.3 - and was wondering if you knew how to figure out if it was a 99 or 99.5, and if it was likely to already have the WW?
Wow -- this is an old thread... Someone check me, but I thought the cut-off for early/late was around 12/98. Look at the sticker in the driver's door jamb for your build date. I'm going on (bad) memory here, so expect it to be wrong. LOL
Mining this thread and since I have my pipes off for a injector job, I'm going to get that foil removed...Thanks for the inspiration and sorry if I've added too much to the muck pile.
i removed my foil but still need to take the pipes off again and remove the stickies and paint them... I think im gonna paint them RED or BLACK maybe SILVER.. not sure..