2003 5.4 superduty
 

Is a lockout possible and/or worth it on the pile of junk? Payed a good price on this truck but now I'm stuck with it. I was wondering if there was anything i can do to make me hate it less?

What explain this?

I have a 2007 F250XL 5.4 that I absolutely love. Maybe you can give a little more information about the truck and what you don't like about it and we can help.

A lockout? I assume you’re thinking it has variable cam timing, but 03 does not have that. It has a 2v 5.4l. What do you hate about the truck?

Other than the rust on my 03 5.4, My truck is great. It won't win any races, but it pulls everything I need it to pull with no complaints.

I knew she's a 2v but the mechanic I was talking to yesterday said he loves the 5.4, it's his favorite engine but you need to lock it out and put a tuner chip in it. Was very insistent on that.

Bought the thing for $2500 and needed brakes, good deal for what it is. Took me the 10 minute drive home to remember everything I hated about the superduty and to realize that it had nothing I liked about the superduty... thing felt similar to drive as my old 7.3 without my 7.3 😭.

Dana 50 front axle, what were you thinking Ford?! Vacuum controlled automatic hubs?! Why not go full electronic you cheap busterdz?! Thing weighs a bloody ton and a half more than a 9th gen. Horrible on fuel plus gas stinks, no nice diesel smell in the morning anymore 😭. Not mentioning the crappy transmission linkage and the "traction control". Or the stupidity that's the unit bearings. Things turn like a tree, and the million little electronic annoyances drive a guy off the wall. Still better than a dodge or a 6.0l but still..

ANYWAYS! I need to make this truck tolerable. It's got no balls, feels like a brick, slow as ****, and OMG it's a gas pig! Got it down to about 11.5 mpg with babying the throttle and cruise control where ever I can.

I had a list of things written down, then I deleted them all, so I have One question, If all you want to do is complain about this truck, why'd you buy it? Being a previous Ford owner with a diesel, you knew the 5.4L would be no comparison to that. The 5.4L is great little engine, that will work hard if you let it, but it's not going to work like a diesel or jump off the line and win any races.

I think it's a bullcrap post personally, first this truck has ZERO traction control features. He owned one and knew exactly what he was getting into, IF he did buy it then sell it! If the trucks clean his buying price is very fillable.
Then go buy a GM or a Dodge

Bought it because I needed another truck and the price was right. It's served its needs but now no one wants to take it off my hands except the woman.. if I'm stuck with the thing I want to make it more tolerable. I'm into it less than $3000 but the cost of fuel and insurance on something that gets 11.5 mpg and has no jam in the pedal makes my eye twitch. Will cost me about $1500 to do intake exhaust and a tuner but I was wondering if there was anything else I could do to the thing that would give some good gains on the mileage and oomf.

Don’t waste your time on the intake and exhaust or really even the tuner since it’s not throttle by wire the biggest improvement would be the shift strategy. What you want is gears 4.30s for stock size tires and you have to do the front and rear if 4x4 but will be as much as you paid for the truck though.

3.73 gears currently on 33" tires. Can't figure out if it was a leveling kit or a small lift but it's got an aftermarket suspension that's pretty decent quality.was thinking 35" and dumping the gears to 4.10 but it's got so little power and torque for such a heavy truck, I'd be shooting myself in the foot.

This will probably cost you just as much as you paid for the truck, but you can try installing a turbo.
https://www.drivingline.com/articles...turbo-upgrade/

I like it but the fuel economy is the drawback I'm not fond of. The need to run higher octane is why I ruled out a supercharger. Those dyno numbers though... shmexy!

If you were so concerned about fuel economy, why buy an old truck with an 8 cylinder engine??? You assumed you would get what type of mileage???

Go trade it for a 6 cylinder minivan and its 20 mpg and call it a day.

SMH

— Dave

Can't haul drywall in a minivan for starters and my last superduty was getting close to 22mpg which is better than that 6cyl minivan you just mentioned and I could actually use it for work. When you run a fleet of trucks that's currently at 5 vehicles, you notice the odd man out that's using nearly twice as much as the others despite seeing less work. I'm not about to waste 80,000 on a truck that's going to take 5+ years to replace it's investment after maintenance when I can buy an older truck for dirt cheap and see it pay for itself in less than a month. I can blow up 10 of these things for the price of driving a new truck around the block and profit from it.