7.3 pulling heavy and high egts
 

Hey guys I have been a member for a long time but I have never posted anything I have got lots of great info from this community through the years I appreciate it. Here is my cuurent situation. I am running a 2002 f250 cc short bed 7.3 auto. Lifted 5" on 35" tires, stock 3.73 gears. My list of mods are:
Dp tuner stock, high idle, 50hp tow, decel, 80hp econ, 120hp
Volant cold air intake
Stock exhaust with muffler delete
Banks impellar wheel
70 psi fuel press spring
Waste gate wired shut
Fuel ports in the head drilled out larger
Gauges fuel press, egt, tranny, boost
pull a 35' fifth wheel that has a gvw of 14,000lbs. The camper empty wieghs 10,000lbs. So I know 14,000 is over my limit so I pack it as light as I can and I have never weighed it but I'm positive I'm not over 12,000lbs. Wich is a heavy load but not out of my trucks means to pull it. I live in western Pa and its pretty hilly. I have a hard time keeping my egts down when climbing hills on the interstate. I usually shift down manually when I can to keep my rpms up. But I still have to keep backing out of the throtle to keep at 1150° specially on a long climb. At that piont I'm less than half peddle and I have losts more power left to pull me up the hill. I know there is still some more things I can do. But I can't afford to do them all at one time so I'm asking your opinions. I was thinking about putting a different air filter on either a k&n rd1460 or a napa 6637 those 2 filters look to be a bit larger than the one I'm running the filter I have is a cleanable but its cone shaped. I can go with a full 4" exhaust. I was considering dropping my ring and pinion to 4.10 so it would bring back closer to stock because of my tire size. I have changed out my up pipes not I did stay with the stock set up but I replaced the pipes the gaskets and the clamps with factory ford ones I don't beleive they are leaking. I do have original cac boots on and they do have oil seeping out around them so I'm proba ly loosing a little boost there but not a lot. I can still pull boosts up to the high 20s. What do you guys think? What is going to give me the most change? Thanks ahead of time.

I tow 12,000 lbs cross country and was in your neck of the woods in May. I had to monitor my EGT's for a while, but then some friends on here showed me the light. It is called a Borg Warner SXE turbo with a T4 mount kit of your choice.

Here is the thread detailing my journey to coming to the decision I made and the results.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...been-made.html

There are a few more detailed threads about the SXE turbo and their experiences. The old way of big injectors and a Garrett 38R are no longer valid if you are in a state that allows you to do things to your own truck to make them better. I run this turbo on 255,000 mile stock AD injectors and have zero EGT's issues and plenty of power even going up grades. No more running the RPM's up to 2800+, no more boosting to 32 lbs of boost, no more watching the EGT gauge, no more BS...

Here is a video I created of the install to show it is simply bolt on parts.

Many of the cone cleanable filters do you no favor on filtration.. The 6637 type do very well.

The SXE turbo is on my list when the 38R goes out, but pretty expensive too.

Your tires are doing you no favors, but dropping a gear helps as you see. What speed are you doing on the hills? These trucks
are not modern and powerful like the new ones so sometimes we have to go a bit slower.

1150* egts isn't that bad for the weight you towing, you can run at 1300* or so as long as it isn't for more than a couple minutes. A full 4" exhaust and down pipe, along with a 6637 style intake will help, I like the Donaldson blue 6637 filter from Riff Raff. Back when my truck just had stock injectors, 4" exhaust, Riff Raff billet wheel, 6637 intake, and a Hydra with the tunes that come with it, I could tow 6-7K all day in the 140 tune and never see over 1200*, even in the WV mountains I could do 70-75 in 6th gear with no egt problems, I also have 3.73 gears and 35s. I never towed has heavy as 12K with that setup but there is no doubt in my mind that if I had it in a 40-60 hp tow tune I could drop a gear and pull any of those hills with that weight, and not run the egts to high. I wouldn't spend the money on a T4 setup if your just running stock injectors with a 50 hp tune.

The T4/SXE is pricey, but it runs very well with stock injectors or big injectors. I have towed the same WV grades you are talking about in 6th gear, 2000 RPM, 20 lbs of boost, 1000 - 1100 EGT's and maintaining speed on cruise control. No downshifting, no high rev RPM's, no losing speed, no high EGT's...

I would state just the opposite of what your last sentence states because I have seen it first hand.

The T4/SXE allows for towing heavy safely and easily on stock injectors using the generic PHP 65 HP tune.

I forgot to mention when I'm backing out of the throtle I am less than half peddle to keep egts down and I keep loosing speed wich in turn makes my trany temp shoot up. I have not upgraded the cooler to the 6.0 yet but its coming.

Im not saying a T4 setup won't work well with stock injectors, I have read many posts where people say it works very well. Just in my experience stock injectors and a mild tow tune don't produce enough heat that egts become an issue with the stock turbo and billet wheel, as long as you have a good flowing intake and exhaust, and don't try to lugg it in OD too much going up hills.

I must have misread your statement and apologize.

I also agree with what you have said in the quote above. Although, if the OP wishes to run at the full potential of the engine I feel a mild tow tune is not what he has in mind. I could be wrong though.

What tune are you towing in?
Does the truck smoke while towing?
sounds like you already know you need to look at replacing the intake.
I would suggest building a leak detector and go from there.

No smoke when towing. The obly time I get any smoke is when I am in a higher gear and I step on the gas and the truck doesn't necessarily nees to down shift so it will smoke some till it speeds up. The filter system I have was on the truck when I bought it but after reading alot and listening to guys on youtube I have curiosities about my intake and how much difference there would be from the most common styles used.

So today i towed 12,420# an hour to a lake, my EGTs averaged 850 unless i lugged it in 6th on a grade and then i only hit 1050* Modded stock turbo, 4" exhaust, tow tune, 6637 intake. Could have bumped up the water/meth for more flow on demand and lowered temps more and possibly gained hp, but didn't need to. Im not familiar with your intake, but smoke before it spools up sounds like you might be restricted there

Step 1:
Get yourself a proper OBDII adapter and get your hands on FORScan and Torque Pro to monitor all the gauges available - to compare with your EGT gauge.

There is one thing you can do to lower your EGTs on the grades while towing heavy - and won't cost a dime. It's not a T4, a new HPOP, bigger exhaust, bigger intake, or lower gears... yank the chip. I know somebody that was towing heavy up a steep grade, and he had to keep backing out of it to keep the EGTs down - with a very similar configuration. He was logging his gauges at the time, and here's a graph from the key PIDs when he was fighting EGTs:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...694ca075c7.png

For those not in the know, here is the shorthand math: Low ICP (the yellow line) + High Throttle = High EGTs.

Step 2: The washable filters don't have the flow of the disposable filters, but that's not what's killing you. Saying that, I tried a washable - it didn't blow, but it sucked. I'm disposable all the way.

Step 3: 4" exhaust with a 4" downpipe is a win - even with stock tuning, injectors, and turbo. Do the 7-turn mod, cap the wastegate red line, and you can see the difference between 3 1/2" and 4" on the boost gauge.

Optional (but not needed at this time) step: Upgraded turbo. T4 is good stuff, but I went with a drop-in 38R (don't modify the 38R) and I had IH bellowed ups. If you never have to replace the turbo again, it's a wash in terms of cost. If you have to replace a non-serviceable 38R vs. a repairing a T4 turbo, you lost the bet (financially). Oh... and I didn't go to the bigger turbo until I had bigger injectors.

Another optional (but recommended) step: Click some links in my signature.

I really appreciate all your responses! That right up on the T4 turbo was awesome! I'm not ready to spend a chunk of money on a turbo yet but I'll keep that in mind. I'm going to start by change to a different air filter and double check my up pipes for leaks. I have a trip planed for next weekend I'll go back to stock to see what that does for me. Also I'll see what I can do to get a graph of my computer controls from a ford scan tool. Thanks a bunch guys!

Throw a 6.0 cooler in it and forget about all this other stuff!

There is a lot of good advice in this thread. Keep us updated with your course of action and what you figure out that might be best for your situation.