Hello all,

I am in need of experienced advise! I have an '03 F350 6.ol 4x4 with 170K miles that i use daily to pull approx. 13,000 lbs on gooseneck. Over the last 6 months (and 25K miles) I have had to replace coolant resevoir, turbo, and currently in the shop for head gaskets and new ARP bolts, with injector #3 not working and #5 weak (all 8 are getting replaced), and an EGR delete!!!!! Needless to say, i am into this truck for quite a chunk of $$$$. It has almost become personal at this point! It currently has no additional "tune", but does have guages (pyro, trans, boost) most likely from previous owner - it has been flashed back to stock since I have owned it. With all this being said - does anyone have any suggestions as to what else I should be looking at, expecting, etc. to go wrong. Or any preventative advice. Not quite sure whether to keep the truck - the hemoraging has to stop somewhere. i love the truck - when it runs right....thanks for any assistance you can offer.

 

get the oil cooler rebuilt. also think about a serp belt, take a look at the water pump pully if the black paint is gone the belt has been slipping and the pully should be replaced and at the same time I would also look at the belt tensioner.

Im still not sure about egr cooler deletes myself. I need to do a little bit of resaerch and call a navistar engineer and ask a few questions.
My current take on it is that the delete kit will incress combustion temps and pressures.
The added egr gasses help reduce nox. NOx is produced at temps abouve 1500 degrees. So if we look at a simple pressure cooker and understand that 3 lbs of pressure applied would equal 1 degree of temp it makes me a little uneasy.
Just my current thought on it but that may be subject to change.

 

Thanks cheezit! I have talked to alot of people here at home,TX, and have not had the oil cooler recommended. Could I respectfully ask if there is any specific reasoning?? I am sincerely trying to learn. Also, on the egr delete - I am being told that increasing exhaust pipe size to 4" from turbo back will work in conjunction with the "delete" to cause egr's to run much cooler. Does this make sense?? Thank you for your time!

 

what part of Tx. Im not far from the metroplex myself.
A pluged oil cooler will cause egr coolers to fail as well as excessive eot temp. keep in mind the max eot temp is nomore then 15 degrees over ect. High eot leads to cracked heads and the engines inabaility to cool it self correctly. This will also cause the vfd (cooling fan) to come on more often. A cooling fan will add to the total load calc of the engine causing icp/ipr to incress that equals milage going down in theory. The key here is engine load. the less load the less boost needed at some point the pcm will take over and shut the fan off to make more boost till it goes to fail mode. so in short lower eot equals lower operating temp and abit not really noticable possible better economy.
I think you got a little lost with the egr. the added pipe and delete of the egr is claimed to lower the EGT. EGT stands for exhaust gas temp, that would be the temp at the outlet of the back of the turbo. if that get to hot then you would suffer a melt down of the turbo at min and the engine at worst case.
the issue I have with the delete kit at this point in time is the incress in cyclinder head pressures. EGR being injected in the combustion chamber will drop the cyclinders temp wich acts to do 2 things.
1) reduce nox by keeping temps below 1500 degrees
2) if we reduce temp we should reduce pressures.
As I stated im doing as much research in to the egr delete kits to see if my theory hold water. right now its just a stated opinion, with a little basic theory.
the theory is that it takes 1 pound of pressure to change a boiling point by 3 degrees. so there as temp goes up so does pressure. think of it a pressure cooker.

 

also forgot to add that eot above spec can also lead to head gasket failers.

 

If you are deleting the EGR you might also need to get an SCT with an EGR deleted tune for it. It can cause issues with the stock programming when not showing EGR flow, thus the reason for the custom tune. I can't remember all the specifics, I think it might throw a CEL, but I haven't done this so I don't have all the ducks in a row. If I have any cooler issues I will more than likely do the delete, but as of now it is still intact just the valve has been unplugged for @ 2 months. Maybe somebody else will help out with additional info.

 

He also needs a coolant filter to protect the oil and egr coolers and other coolant related parts.

 

I thought about that too, I guess it IS still a good idea even if he's deleting the cooler. Good call!