I am ready to vomit. My O4 went to dealer 2 weeks ago for head stud problem. They were cool with letting me supply the ARP studs. 4 day job took them 3 weeks due to waiting for parts and other mechanic availability BS. They pulled the cab which I hear is the best way to repair. They installed brand new heads and checked the block for warp.

Ran the truck on Innovative Diesels xtreme race tune the day I got the truck back. No problems, truck ran real strong. I ran the truck stock for 2 weeks until today I ran the race tune again. The dredded tea kettle noise was back. I opened the hood and anti-freeze all over the place !!

Mods (58,000 miles)
SCT tuner
4" turbo back
Airaid intake
power elbow

The truck is obviously going back to the dealership but I don't know what else to do to avoid the problem again. My boost is pinned at 35psi so I am not sure how much actual boost the motor is making. I went with stock gaskets which I here are fine as long as they are torqued correctly. The truck runs mid 13's. Do I have a sick fast truck with too much boost ? Could the turbo be sticking and overboosting ? Need some help ?

 

maybe it's the egr cooler failing, maybe the coolant level was too high...

 

First thing comes to mind is oil cooler egr cooler. Are these parts new

 

The dealer replaced the EGR and EGR cooler initially when the truck was puking and making the noise. It did not fix the problem. They lowered the degas bottle level as per the recall. That did not fix the problem. They did the studs and that seemed to initially fix it. EGR done at 49,000 miles, Studs done at current 58,000. Oil cooler was never done. Tell me why the the oil cooler could be the problem. The cab of the truck smelled like oil ever since I got the truck back. Could that be an issue ? What really bothers me is the tea kettle noise. Right after the dealer did the studs, the tea kettle noise was gone. Now it's back so I am worried that it's the gaskets again. Would wire ring gaskets make a big difference ?

 

It sounds like they actually didn't do a good job with head machining or didn't replace it period. Only thing I can think of anyway, I know you said they did head work, but I dunno how good they did it.

 

completely agree.

 

Coolant passages in the oil cooler can become clogged due to debris in the coolant. This restricts flow of coolant to the EGR cooler allowing the EGR cooler to overheat and eventually fail. It's not uncommon for EGR cooler failures to be linked with clogged oil coolers.

 

Sorry to hear of your troubles! It really does sound like a poor job was done by the dealership.

You may have another problem if I read the post correctly (in addition to oil cooler / egr cooler / repeat head gasket problem). You say the boost is "pinned". I'm not sure what you mean here unless you have an aftermarket gauge that was exposed to a boost higher than its rated max pressure and the needle "pegged out" and has stayed there. If so, you could have stuck turbo vanes and the turbo either needs cleaning or replacing. If your gauge max is 35 psig, then it is under ranged but I BELIEVE you should rarely exceed 35 psig. NPCCPARTSMAN seems to be the exception (only one?), he peaks at 42 psig on the track and he knows his turbo vanes are not stuck. for most of the others, 35 psig seems max.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/7...max-boost.html

Check your coolant - any oil in it? Also, check your oil level - is it overfull?

 

Yes I have an aftermarket gauge and under heavy load its at 35 PSI and stays there momentarilly until I back out of it. Another interesting thing , when the truck is in stock mode I can get the boost up to 30 psi. Is that normal ?

The dealership I went to does quite a few 6.0 trucks. They were one of the only dealers that seemed pretty educated on the head gasket problem. I can look in the motor and see that it has new heads. When they checked the block for warp, maybe that was not done correctly. If the block had a warp problem, what would have to be done to fix ?

I am so frustrated. I was all ready to install the SNOW water/meth system. Now my plans have obviously changed.

 

john, before you go back to the dealer try tutning the truck back to stock and romping on it some and see if it pukes. im betting your getting flash boiling in your cooler from the much hotter gasses from the tuner on xtreme setting.. come to think of it, dose eric shut the egr off on that tune? Its been known with the egr shut off and a hot tune you could melt the solder on the inside of the egr cooler, causing premeture failure. jack the end of your truck up when you get home tomorrow and in the morning pull the egr. if you see coolant you know the coolers bad

 

As I don't know enough about the 6.0 to speak on it but in my gas powered hotrod world that shounds like poor workmanship or bad machine work. Sorry to hear about the issues.

That brings me to my next question that I have been wondering about for a bit, lost of folks here want to play "add a tuner/chip" and I'll have a hotrod.

How many of you actually work on your own vehicles ? I do not love doing it but I can and will to verify the work is done right.

My dream is to make enough for a full time mechanic for the herd of vehicles in the garages and driveway.

66 Bronco W/351C
67 Bronco W/351W
64 SS Chevelle Malibu
70 SS 454 Chevelle
70 Vette Convert

 

Denman81

When you say jack the truck up, do you mean the rear so that the coolant is visable when you pull the egr ? What are your thoughts on the truck having the tea kettle noise again ? Thats the thing making me sick to my stomach because it finally went away initially when they changed the studs.

 

To my knowledge that is pressure escaping the bottle, now it could be because of flash boil that is true, does your reservoir have the new fill lines(min, max lines for coolant level)? If it does and they were paying attention I doubt flash boil would have occured, I say that because I don't have flash boil with the new lines and I'm running hotter tunes then you are more then likely. I'm willing to bet it has something to do with the heads, just because when my stud work was done, it still puked(on the dyno of all places) and thats when we had to do the machine work and now no puking.

 

Yes and no. I'll do it if I feel comfortable, but if it's something that I am not, I have zero problems with outsourcing.