Best Custom Tunes Dealer? Anyone???
 

Looking for the BEST custom tune dealer, especially with tow issues....:-wink

I'm using Matt's SRL+. Runs great.

Matt @ Gearhead. tell him how much you are towing and all the mods and he will make your tune to suit your needs. My tow tune works great. Really like the SRL

Well I take it since you have posted this that your concerns have been alleviated from the detrimental long term effects of tuning a 6.0.

Any of the respected tuners out there for the SCT should be able to take care of what towing needs that you have. I don't really think there really is much of a price difference among them, but I haven't used SCT in a few yrs so I don't really know all the players anymore with that device.

I use Matt's tunes as well....you can get his 3 tune package for 100.00 . His shifting is the best on this board.

Well, as far as my concerns I have spoken to several people that use them and they have never had any problems because they drive it the way it should be driven. Frankly, there are as many people who say it will be a problem as there are that say they wont. I went to several mechanics and they all said that it will not damage the engine as long as I watch my temps and drive it sensibly. I am gonna give Matt a try and see how the 8k tow tune works out.

It amazes me that you state you want 300k reliable miles, yet you ignore warnings of too much power (other thread), black onyx gaskets, and the fact that you have turbo issues (if you previously posted correct info regarding properly tightened boots blowing off on stock programming).

Most people ask - how do you know BO gaskets are trouble when they are warned. Then we could show you a thread where measurements were taken showing it to be thinner (and besides, many reputable shops are no longer installing them).

I see no questions regarding the advice that too much power will cause issues with fuel delivery .............. first sign will be low fuel pressure which will significantly jeopardize the injectors. Besides that, the stock transmission will not hold up to 500 hp. That creates the impression that you feel you already know what you are going to do. If so - then do it and good luck.

Just a gut feel, but did you get the engine work done in Georgia .... ?

you big meanie.
a cheap shot, but very well aimed. :-drink

everyone brings something to the party, and you can
learn from everyone.... i've had a number of folks here
very gently suggest that running the banks IQ is not
in my best interest, but i've ignored that, 'cause it's
paid for, and installed among other chrome plated
BS reasons, ignoring the accurate advice of more
experienced people.

so, i've got a call into matt, to see if i can turn the banks
to the stock setting, so it does nothing, and i can just use
it for the gauges, and run a tune of his, with a +40 atlas
on the ficm.

so, the OP has helped me more than he knows, and i owe
him a debt of gratitude. i looked at his unwillingness to
acknowledge the obvious, and it looked too close to my own
for comfort.

but... but... but.... the banks was $900 installed.... i sputtered...
better to throw $900 in the trash, then to dance thru the
powertrain again.

When i said the 150 hp comment i did not mean i was going to tow with that or run it all of the time. I plan on running a higher tune when NOT under tow and i drive responsibly. Trust me when i say i am not ignoring signs! I have put a ton of money into this 6.0 to hopefully prevent the notorious problems with this engine, although i am already a little put off by it. As far as the turbo problem, its not actually the turbo. The turbo i just had installed is a brand new garrett powermax and it isnt but a week old. The problem was the hose keeps popping off and from what i have been reading that is a common problem that is hard to fix. Wish like hell i had an answer for that on. Maybe i can do some sanding and cleaning, apply a new hose with some epoxy, tighten the sh%t out of it and it will work. I am at a loss as to wether i should sell this and go to a dodge or keep it. For the price i bought it for i could still make money. No, the repair work was not in Georgia.

I took advice and called Gearhead. They are making me a custom tune for my SCT for towing purposes. I am not going to run a high tune for that.! I also had some lengthy conversation with them on the do's and dont's and i took heed. They informed me that using custom tunes are ok and will not damage the engine as long as you dont drive it like you stole it all of the time. As i said in another post i am contemplating just selling my 2004 f350 (king ranch) dually with 37,000 miles, that i bought about a month ago) and go to a different line of trucks. Especially after reading a lot of stuff on here.

I'm sorry if I have a hard time with that one. It's going to be harder then you think to drive light with the skinny pedal after getting your new found power especially initially.




Black Onyx gaskets though are pot luck though. You might have good ones, you might not. Also some of the supposedly notorious problems aren't really so, but I digress on that one.

Really? That just doesn't sound right.

64mm turbo in my truck. Other then the turbo and the turbo pedestal everything else just bolted up right to it. Never had a hose blow off and I'm pushing at max 52 PSI of boost when I really get on it. Unless there is a physical issue, but this is the first I'm hearing of this problem.

however, it seems you pull pretty heavy loads,
and you are running more power than most folks
here, and seem to have been doing it for a pretty
long while.....

what are you running to make that work for you?
i looked at your profile, but not many details
other than injectors and turbo change.

do you have a thread somewhere where you have
your cookie recipe for the perfect 6.0L?

I used to have it in my siggy, but it was getting too long with everything.

ARP Studs
Ford Gaskets
ITP's Fuel Regulated Return
Fluidampner
FASS 150/180
Suncoast Heavy Duty Rebuild
64mm Non-VGT Turbo
Spartan Stage I Injectors (155mm^3)
Spartan Phalanx Tuner (doubles as OBD-II gauge)
TFT, ECT, Boost, Volts, Oil PSI, EGT, and Fuel PSI gauges


Nothing in one concise spot (atleast not that I can remember) just spread out all over in various posts.

52psi of boost is pretty dag on impressive. There are a lot of forums on here about the hoses blowing off. They get oily and just blow and a ton of people have experienced this problem. Just google it and you will find the forums.

That is a stock issue, to me it read like you connecting it to your powermax.

Yea its stock issue that is puzzling. Maybe i should've worded it different. Sorry bout that. what is you overall opinion of the 04 6 liters? Should it stay or should it go?

yes sir, you are entitled to every single one of those
horsepowers. may you, and they, live long and prosper.

the tranny, torque converter and input shaft is >$5k.

which, if you look at it objectively, is a good deal for
a strong transmission, when a stock rebuild with labor
is over $4k, depending on the gouging index of the shop.

the phalanx tuner i do find interesting... is the matt that
writes tunes for them the same matt that everyone sings
the praises of on here, or is that a coincidence?

Oil soaked boots are easy to spot. If you have that problem then you should know it and would have been easy enough to mention. Since you didn't mention it, the assumption is that it is not an issue for you and you have another problem. In one of my other posts I mentioned not only the turbo, but also the EBP sensor (but I also mentioned a ccv re-route which will eliminate the oil in the intake). You also need to be sharing what boost numbers you run ........ BTW - there have been posts about bad PowerMax turbos right out of the box. Not a lot of them, but enough.

I have been around a long time and I know of no one boosting at 30 psig (stock boost range) that has boots blowing off as long as they have a quality oil resistant boot (the new OEM or riffraff boots are good choices), maintain minimal oil in the intake, attach the boots when everything is clean and oil-free, using clamps tightened to 9 ft-lbs. If your boots have been exposed to oil for a long time and you haven't changed them out, then you should. Fords early boots were susceptible to degrading with oil exposure - the new boots are supposed to be more oil resistant, but the ccv re-route is the best way to go - just google it, you will find the posts. Yes, that is all old news, but who knows how much you are aware of.

Tex is well aware of the issues that many have had with boots blowing off - he is just saying that it is not a mystery. Apparently he is a good case study on running extremely high boost successfully. I wouldn't recommend it for very many folks - you have to have a good shop to get the work done properly to manage that, and even then there are risks.

With stock OEM gaskets holding up beyond 750 hp, why would you want to risk pot-luck? High costs decisions justify low risk answers (especially when the low risk answer is not much more money!).

Please share any information on these "notorious problems" - this thread or a new one, either will work!

IMO BulletProofDIesel does more detailed studies on aftermarket parts than 99% of the industry and when they documented dimensional differences between BO and OEM, that was sufficient. No one else that I am aware of is doing that type of research.

Thank you kindly. We have been doing so very nicely for about for about 4 yrs now.

No, this is a different Matt. The Matt I am talking about is the one that sponsors the 6.0 forum. Matt at Gearhead came around after my time with SCT.

What concerns me is how much the mechanic that he had working on it knows. That's the thing.

My boosting at that range has calmed down since I first got it, but boy was it fun. And it really didn't take that long to get up that high either.


As far up that I was aware was a 600HP going on stock gaskets. I'm surprised that they were some that went higher. At 750Hp I would even probably have been thinking about something else outside of stock, but you are right. If it has been tested for a good amount of time at 750HP, then really I don't see a whole helluva lot of FTE people needing to go with a/m gaskets on these trucks.


I'm just concerned about some of the other parts that they sell under the moniker of "bulletproofing the 6.0". Some of which most people have done here. The biggest pool of evidence that most people cite is tainted. I think (and it's me just thinking here) is that people have certain notions towards some of these parts and that is what the are going off of. Either previous experience or notions about other people that they know and their previous experience and thoughts about parts that fall under the same category. If enough people believe it, you will find someone that will supply products for that market. Rather or not it is really needed.

I have been told that some guys soak their turbo boots in simple green overnight to help with adhesion to the pipes. I don't know if that is true or not, just passing it on??????????

I understand what you are saying now. I agree that there are things people quote as absilutely necessary for bulletproofing that aren't necessarily a requirement. None-the-less, BPD is a business and they provide products that people should have and some that people just like to have.

The oil cooler and late model year water pumps are good examples of that. I know I don't need the external oil cooler, but if I were made of cash, I would have one.

The coolant issue is another example. Internet hype has made a complete "villain" of the Gold coolant, but it is fine when proper;y maintained and not exposed to abuse (and abuse can come from prolonged exposure to failed parts). I know you do not believe a coolant filter is a requirement, yet the solids many of us (I did, BBC did, etc) pulled out of the coolant system show its benefit. That being said, not all people saw solids in their coolant filters. Like many things, it is all an excersize in probabilities and acceptable risk. Same thing w/ BO gaskets ... some people seem to be doing OK with them, but their failure rate is multiple times that of OEM gaskets (after quality head machining and installed ARP studs).

Good discussion Evan!!

"what is you overall opinion of the 04 6 liters? Should it stay or should it go?" I vote you sell it & get another truck that is easier on you. You are aready questioning the 6.0, make some money & move on...

i'm probably as guilty as most for chanting the party line,
but i looked long and hard at going with OEM or external oil
cooler, and a lot hinged on doing the work myself, or having
it done. the delta between OEM and BPD is something like
$1,400. a mechanic is $1k a day, so if i did the OEM, and
at some point in the future had to do it again, it comes out
to the same cost as the external filter, redoing it once.

however, if it's what you do for a living, you look at it differently.

i do electrical contracting.... someone can approach a service
upgrade on their house, and it's $2,200~$2,900. huge sticker shock.
i look at it, and it's 6 hours, and $350 out of pocket for stuff.

as for the motorcraft gold, my engine was completely disassembled.
heads were rebuilt, radiator was flushed, everything pretty clean.
filled back up with motorcraft premium gold, and tap water.
engine rebuilder said he had never seen the benefit of distilled water,
so he didn't drink that koolaid. i didn't care, as i was putting a coolant
filter on to help keep the gunk out, and was planning a migration
to waterless coolant anyway.

so the engine has 6k on it since rebuild... and if you dip a long
screwdriver into the puke jar, there is 2" of suspended milky
sludge in the bottom of the puke jar. it leaves a gunky film on
the screwdriver / dip stick.

so, it either came from the water, or it came from the coolant.
so my plan is to stick on the filter, run it 5k miles, change the filter,
run it another 5k miles, and change the coolant to waterless.

now, if i was looking at that cloggy gunk, and i had an OEM filter,
i'd be a bit annoyed. there is nothing besides the radiator that
it can plug now....

It could easily be from the tap water. Coolant chemistry is based on a blend of things (typically sodium, potassium, boron, silicon, phosphorous, etc) - with one of many purposes being to keep minerals (calcium, magnesium, etc) in solution under high heat conditions. Depending on the minerals in the tap water, it can affect the coolant chemistry. Do you know how much silica can be in drinking water (especially if it is well water)? How about how much mineral content does it take to reduce the phosphate or nitrite corrosion protection? If a person doesn't have a background in water treatment chemistry, then IMO they are not qualified to decide whether or not they "drink the Koolaide"!

I wouldn't have used tap water. As Mark as said, there is no promises on what you'll get as far as chemistry goes other then minimal standards for our drinking needs.

I know I never used tap water when it came to chemistry experiments, so if chemistry is a must (as I do believe it is in coolant needs) then I would go with something that has more control over what is in it.

Is it well, is it city, has he changed his filters lately? Around here (and I would imagine in places like the Hill Country) you have a lot of limestone, that equals a lot of calcium deposits (high instance of kidney stones around here where people have well water as their tap). Things like that you have to be aware of.

agreed.

water here is from the colorado river, and it has enough calcium to
throw down a solid white crust on swimming pool tile. the only water
i've found harder than this is in phoenix. i've done a lot of work in
heavy commercial and industrial situations, and water treatment here
is major concern with boilers, food processing equipment, cooling towers,
etc.

what i should have done was delivered the waterless coolant to him,
and had that poured into the engine when it was all nice and dry.
but i didn't, and there we are... i'm not gonna get all twizzled about it,
cause the only thing that could be plugged by it is the radiator....
and while it was being rebuilt, i was doing research to see what the
best practices would be for oil, coolant, etc.

the one downside i see with evans coolant is availability. it's difficult
to get ahold of... i may end up with rotella ultar ELC and distilled water
after all is said and done.

thanks for your feedback.. i appreciate it.