I have a 2004 F-350 4WD lariat, short bed crew cab, with 96K miles on it. Completely bone stock except for new 285-75-16's on it yesterday. I'm really worried about having problems with her even though I bought a complete extended warranty. I want an exhaust to make her sound tougher like my old 7.3 and also maybe gas mileage? If I went to Ebay to buy one, is there a better brand or length or anything? I'm thinking a 4". Also the tunes and all everyone is talking about, are they worth it and SAFE? I had something on my 7.3 but it was on there when I bought it and it made the truck fly and smoke the tires like nothing, I was so impressed but now this 6.0 doesn't have it and it also has a HUGE lag about 2 seconds to fully spool up the turbo if I'm already moving, is that normal? Thanks for all your great help in advance. One more thing if I want to add a picture for my signature or what I've done to my truck how do I do that, mainly the picture thing I can't figure out...thanks again.

 

Equipped as my signature states; my truck is safe, dependable and has about 1/2 second of turbo lag on a bad day...

It'll give anything a run worth looking at--twice, and still gets 17mpg+ when I'm not pushing it hard. It'll get 13.5 mpg when I am pushing it, and 10mpg when I'm pulling my 9000lb toy-hauler (running Matt's Aggressive Tow Tune).

My SCT tune of choice, is the Aggressive Street Economy from Matt, Spartan Diesel Technologies.

4" CAT back exhausts are--IMHO--all the same (from a performance point of view). I like my Silverline because 1) the cost was low, 2) it's all stainless steel, 3) it looks good, and 4) it was very easy to install.

 

you were doing great till you said they are all the same.

You need to buy a system that has a good name/reputation. There are quite a few that have had bad experiences with exhaust systems send incomplete, wrong parts or parts that just don't seem to fit right. I bought MBRP and the install was a breeze.

 

True... My position was not clear. I edited the post to say what I mean :-) Thanks!

 

Get a 4 inch system(silverline or MBRP I believe are the top two choices in this forum). Depending on the area that you are in and your views on the issue getting a cat delete pipe with the system will also boost sound and you will be able to swap the cat if you have to go thru emissions(depending on what those emissions are as well, here they are a joke but I'm still exempt so I don't have to deal with the lines for my truck thankfully). Exhausts have been "reported" to have bumped up the powerband up the rpm range and getting custom tunes might help resolve that. I don't know the strength of that position, but some have said that they have noticed that as well. As far as tunes go, make sure you go custom with this engine in particular. Matt is the person that I would recommend, but there are one or two others that people would mention as well. Off the shelf tuners just have a bad reputations from most people on here and I know that I liked custom much more then the off the shelf tuner that I once had and as far as safety is concerned, you have a much better chance of it being safe with a custom tune then you do with a one size fits all tune.

 

Thank you all for your help. I plan on getting the 4" exhaust hopefully in the next month and then I'll be calling Matt for a good tune for my truck. The turbo lag is difficult for me to deal with and the sound would be great. Thanks again and I'll let you know how it comes out...