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safe engine upgrade for towing

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Old Jul 17, 2007 | 11:12 AM
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From: Chrisney Indiana
safe engine upgrade for towing

I have finally talked my father into some minor upgrades to his 97 4x4 automatic. Right now the truck is bone stock with 105k. we use the truck for towing a lot and for the sunday drive to town and so on. The truck it self is in ment condition so we are not going to go and do any shade tree things to it. We want good products that will not break the bank. We are interesting in maybe a good exhaust that will not be loud. My father hates loud vehicles. maybe a cool air intake.
 
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Old Jul 17, 2007 | 11:51 AM
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Well intake and exhuast are perfect places to start. For both I would call Dale Isley at Tymar perfromance
http://www.tymarperformance.com/

The Tymar intake is perfect. As for exhuast I don't do quiet exhaust so I can't speak from experience but most aftermarket systems with a good muffler should be good.

The next thing to look at would be at the very least a Pyrometer to measure exhaust gas temps. then you can add a chip. Also some good cheap mods are the 10K mod and the fuel pressure regulator Shim.

Here are some good link for info on those and other questions
http://pages.prodigy.net/stevebaz/_i...az/index3.html

http://www.thedwilsons.com/powerstroke/PSD-Links.html
 
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Old Jul 17, 2007 | 05:25 PM
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From: Belair md
i believe flowmaster is the quietest muffler aftermarket for our trucks right now but worse case put a sd muffler on, they are high flow for a factory set-up, but def get a down pipe and larger pipe. the 6637 air filter rocks, tj's hit the nail on the head for the cheap easy stuff, for motor up's you can also fool the engine oil temp sensor into advancing the timing a bit and go a step further on the 10k and put an 18k potentiometer in the dash to be adjustable on the fly
 
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Old Jul 17, 2007 | 05:33 PM
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thanks guys. A friend of mine tried the 10k mod. I didn't really notice any difference with it or without it but when he put it on the dino he saw an improvement. however, We really don't want to do anything to this truck that could potential hurt it. We need it to be reliable. Also if your increasing the fuel pressure it seams to me that it would put more stress on the fuel pump thus shortning its life. Also increased fuel pessure means increased fuel consumption. We want to improve the fuel effeciency of the truck. We are already getting about 23 miles per gallon on the highway at around 70 mph with the 3.55 gears is one reason it does so good.
 
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Old Jul 17, 2007 | 05:38 PM
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From: Belair md
you wont hurt the fuel pump, the regulator is on the return side, it pumps the same amount no matter what tension is on the spring, same with the hpop, it can push over 3000, psi of oil the 10k doesnt change more than a few hundred psi the pump could care less, the egt gauge is your crucial link between life and death stock or modified
 
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Old Jul 17, 2007 | 05:43 PM
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I am sure that the egt is very important. I looked at the down pipe before and its very aparent just how restricted the pipe is. the thing is freakin stamped metal!!! Really I think right now that with a free flowing exhaust (which lowers the egt's) would benifit us the most because of the turbo lag would be less. that is one thing that kills this trucks giddy up and go, it just takes to long to spool up.
 
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Old Jul 17, 2007 | 05:51 PM
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From: Chrisney Indiana
also what senser is it that your fooling when with the 10k mod. My "friend" sometime gets things mixed up. He said it was the fuel pressure senser. That right there made me a little gun shy about it. Also I heard that a k&N air filter is not a good idea if your around a lot of dust because deisels breath so much air they suck the oil right out of the filter.
 
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Old Jul 17, 2007 | 05:55 PM
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From: Belair md
correct on the k&n, they suck, literaly.....haha i made a funny. the 10k fools the pcm into thinking there isnt enough high pressure oil so it closes the ipr a bit more to increase it, the injection control pressure is what you are changing, the 10k ohms drops the voltage the pcm sees causing it to restrict the return oil which raises the overall pressure
 
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Old Jul 17, 2007 | 06:26 PM
  #9  
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From: Chrisney Indiana
yeah that was a good one on the k&n! lmao! i Have a picture of the truck in question in my gallery. Its a very sharp looking truck. The pictures suck though. My baby is the rusty one! My friend lincolntech....or something like that wound up hard wiring his resister in. He said the pcm started thinking the crank senser was bad and all kinds of things. How about the severe servise upgrade for the intake??
 
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Old Jul 17, 2007 | 07:35 PM
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The ford AIS (I think that is what its called) is only for superduties. Stay far away from anything K+N.

Joe recommended going with a superduty muffler that would be bad. I think he got the two confused. our mofflers are the good flowing ones and the SD are restrictive. For the exhaust at the very least you need to do a down pipe and the tail pipe and gut the cat.

the 10k mod doesn't need to be hard wired in. I think your firend may have done it wrong.
 
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Old Jul 17, 2007 | 08:22 PM
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From: Belair md
i am backwards again, sorry its been an interesting day, i was suppsoed to say put a downpipe on it and upgrade the pipe size
 
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