Advice on 6.0 Powerstroke mods
 

Heres the deal guys...I have a 07 f250 powerstroke with an 8 inch lift and 37 inch tires...the engine is all stock...about the best i ever get with it fuel mileage wise is 14 lately its been closer to 12...what are the best mods I can do as far as an intake and exhaust go? Is it worth it...what other ways are there to improve mileage...Thanks for all your help.

Stock intake is good for about 500hp and helps you maintain the warranty for the motor. An exhaust might gain you 1-2 mpg at best. The best way to up your mileage is to drop back to stock height and tire size. Since I'm guessing that probably won't happen you'll get the best results by putting an egg under the skinny pedal and trying not to crack it. 12-14 is about the best I would think you'd see with the lift and wheels. I'm running about 15.5 mpg in town and 18 mpg on the highway and my truck is stock.

I get between 14 and 18 out of one of our great big english gallons with a bullydog a ram air filter and a big chimney.

x2

When you slap on a lift and big tires like that, you can't expect anything approaching reasonable fuel economy...what is more important to you at the moment?:confused:

The reason your getting horrible mileage is due to the larger tires. The final drive ratio you now have is drastically different than that of stock. In effect it's almost like you're towing a moderate load at all times now due to the lowered ratio.

If it were me I would re-gear the truck to at least a 4:30 ratio. It will save your transmission and drive train and it will make the largest difference in felt power.

If this is an all stock 6.0PSD I wouldn't start modding for big power without doing head studs or you're asking for a world of trouble. If you start putting a chip on the thing and adding intakes and other performance items you MUST at minimum have a set of gauges to monitor EGT's as well as accept the fact that you're going to eventually blow the head gasket.

The 6.0 is a great motor, but you can't performance mod the thing, run those great big tires on the stock ratio, and expect it to last forever. If you insist on modding, first go with a 4" exhaust. Lower egt's = happier motor = longer life.

FYI watch this video it directly applies to your situation: YouTube - FUBAR BIG TIRES KILLS TRANSMISSIONS

That guy is a flat out genius when it comes to Power Stroke Diesels. I advise every PSD owner to watch his videos. He's forgotten more that most will ever know.

That guy in the videos knows absolutely nothing about Powerstroke performance. On top of his ignorance, he is also ripping off his own customers. What's sad about that video is the clutches are burning up instead of the torque converter. With oversized tires, the torque converter takes the abuse and burns up first. Since it's the clutches instead, it's the fault of the builder. This guy is building crappy transmissions, denies warranty work, and blames the tires. It's really bad, because a bone stock reman from Ford would last longer than his rebuilds.

Find a quality trans builder, and they will guarantee the transmission no matter what tire/gear/power combo you run.

Do yourself a favor and stop getting advice from Powerstrokehelp.com. If you aren't convinced that he doesn't know jack squat about Powerstrokes, watch the video called "7.3L Connecting Rods.. Powder vs. Forged". That's the worst video ever. The Powerstrokehelp videos are the running joke of the diesel world.


As for mileage gains to the OP.... intake and exhaust alone will not help with mileage. Those are supporting mods for power. If you are driving for mileage, it means you are very light on the pedal. When you aren't using the power, the stock intake and exhaust flow well enough not to be a restriction. Slapping on an intake or exhaust only helps with airflow when you are really putting a lot of power to the ground. Of course, at that point, mileage is gone anyway.

If you are planning to mod the truck, it was suggested to get head studs. That is a must for these 6.0L's. In addition, I would also recommend an EGR delete.

Some good advice so far...(some :) )

First question, is how are you calculating mpg ????
if not by hand and especially if you have not changed the computer to account for the bigger tires, etc...
then there is NO WAY you are calculating miles per gallon correctly.....
the miles on your odometer would be way different from actual...

but I can "gaurnteeeee" you a sure fire way to improve mpg on ANY vehicle..... ????!!!


Change drivers !!! or at least change driving STYLE....

NOT that I care about my mpg since I bought a big honking Excursion... but IF I wanted to, I could easily get 20 % better mpg... EASILY !

Now it would take me longer to get there, and I would be passed by most, but feathering the throttle like it had a brittle egg under the accelerator, COASTING whenever I see a stopping situation coming up, removing ALL unneeded weight out of my truck, etc....

Yes, the tires,wheels, and gearing are a big drag on your mpg, but bet you go hard all the time too :) relatively at least....

Am NOT a enviro-freak, but if you are really concerned about mpg, drive differently !

hope this helps !

Im very easy on the pedal. From what i have gathered from research it seems as if an exhaust and intake are basically a waste of money...I have often wondered about regearing the truck...does anyone know what this costs and what would be the right set of gears to go with?

Exhaust is not a waste of money, it just won't get you any huge mpg gains. It will lower your exhaust gas temperature and make the motor live longer. With a lift and larger tires, better gear ratio would be the best place to start. Also have your dealer reprogram the PCM for the tire size and gears. A programmer will get you some gains, but if the programmer stays within the limits of the maximum cylinder pressure, the gains are small. The programmers that get large gains in power and fuel mileage are the programmers that raise cylinder pressures up beyond what is safe to run in a 6.0L and results in head gasket failure and a host of other problems.

Absolutely not. Exhaust will help you now rather your are "chipped" or not. Intake will help you when you hit about 500 hp(which would take more then a tuner to get there), however I wouldn't say that is totally a lot of power. I'm at 508 and there are still alot of stock cars that put out more horsepower then that in stock form, so just from a hp perspective, there are more powerful vehicles out there. Yes I know of the obvious differences, so those don't need to be expressed, I'm just going by pure hp numbers here.

It is highly suggested, but not an absolute must depending on how you are achieving "your" power via tuning. EGR delete though would be another thing recommended.

Off the shelf tuners, that would be true, but that doesn't happen all the time with custom tunes. When Matt was writing tunes for SCT, his hybrid race tune had less cylinder pressure then Bulldog's extreme tune and his hybrid tune put down more RWHP then the BD tune. More often then not what you said would be the case if "your" talking about Banks, Bullydog, and/or Edge, not so much with custom tuners(the person), if they do that then they aren't as good as some of the ones out there, because there are tuners(the person) out there that can achieve good high solid hp numbers without really raising the cylinder pressures so high that ruin the engine. I know too many that are running custom race tunes that still have stock bolts to say that "you" will always need headstuds when modding the 6.0.

Thread moved to the 6.0 forum :-X22