Congrats! You made a great decision. I hope you enjoy your 450 as much as I have been enjoying my 250. The 6.4 really is an awesome engine, as I am sure you can tell after spending almost a week with the truck. Mine had 1000 miles on it within the first 9 days and I average between 13 and 14 MPG. I really don't tow much or haul much, so mine will be an expensive grocery getter. If I was towing a lot like you do, I would have opted for the 450. I like the fact that my 25 fits right into our 2-car garage along with my wife's Explorer and two motorcycles.

 

Think about the contradiction you just stated. The exhaust temps were getting too hot and it was igniting unburnt diesel in the exhaust and that it never made it into the engine? How can you get unburnt diesel in the exhaust without it going through the engine? The only way would be plumbing a fuel line directly into the exhaust. Blatantly dumping that much fuel into the engine most definetly does shorten the life, look at the 03 6.0L when Ford tried making their own injectors. It would wash the cylinder walls and contaminate the oil, this in turn would wipe out most of the seals in the engine. If you're dumping that much raw fuel I can guarantee that there is now fuel in the oil. If that was a programming problem then thats a pretty major glitch in the maps. I wouldn't be at all suprised to find bad inj. o-rings on those particular trucks and by tuning the fuel WAY back they compensated.

Aside from that you're talking exhaust gas temps hot enough to ignite raw diesel. That takes quite a bit of heat, but you knew that right? Regardless of how the system is supposed to operate you don't want to see any temps higher than 1250* preturbo or you will start having problems with piston damage. Basically you start to melt the inside of your engine. It wouldn't suprise me if they were running in excess of 1300*.

There is programming problems going on, but it seems they're just groping around again like they did with the 6.0L hoping to find the right solution. There also sounds to be some mechanical issues in the engine that need resolved. Honestly this engine has not had a good track record thus far, and will take at laest 2 years to get things fully straightened out on it. These new Tier III emmissions systems are very complex and difficult to deal with. We've been fighting issues on our 10.3L Ivecos for almost 2 years now. We're now getting them to where they should be.




While I don't know if Navistar was not paying their fair share of 6.0L warranty costs that started all the animosity between the 2, it wasn't really all their fault the 6.0L was the disaster it was. Ford insisted on running their programming in the trucks, which it seems they are not that good at. They also tried making their own in house HEUI injectors for the 03 6.0L instead of buying them from Alliant like they always had. Obviously they don't have the quality control to do this on the scale they needed. The 6.0L that Navistar ran in their own brand of trucks had only a fraction of the warranty problems that the Ford version did. This trend even went back into the days of the 7.3L. The engines always seemed to run better with the programming Navistar had intended to run with the equipment designed for it (Ford liked to tweak the engine hardware for their liking).



As to the embelishing the 6.0L problems, I really wish I was. We currently have 2 03 F550 4x4 service trucks. One is an early 6.0L, while the other was a late 03. The early 03 has had a huge list of problems. Its gone through 2 full sets of injectors since I started with this company 2 years ago. Too many EGR valves to count, and a turbo last year. Its got about 3 pages of repair history, but it should actually be higher due to the fact that when we're in the field we HAVE to have the truck, so it doesn't always get to a dealer when a problem arises. Its in the process of being Lemon Lawed. The other 03 has been better, but last year it lost 4 injectors and the hpop. Our 2 new 07s will be 6.0L trucks as well, so I'm really hoping that the engines are what alot of people are saying. Our 03s will have to stick around for another 5+ years before they are fully expensed.

 

I'm gonna sit back and wait for 2 or 3 years and see what happens with the 6.4, if it turns out to be a real star I'm trading my F150. I'm kinda wishing Ford would give Navistar the boot in the next few years and drop a real good engine in there. I work for a company with 10 F350s from year 03 thru 07 and each and every one of the trucks has either had atleast one injector be replaced, or blown the turbo. They also seem to smoke really white at certain RPMs. I worked at an International Dealer for a year aswell and they were just as bad as Ford for warranty problems with their own engines. So far the 6.4L is looking good, if they are having problems with that new exhaust system I would just run down to the performance shop and get an aftermarket system, problem solved, who needs emissions junk anyways. Thats really the only problem I've heard of for the 6.4. Its not a very good truck for the due it yourselfer mechanic. I was at my local dealer the other day and they had the cab lifted right off the frame so they could work on the engine. Thats a pretty heavy duty job to do in your own driveway haha.

 

First of all, re-read what I initially wrote, and what you just wrote. There was no contradiction. I stated that the problem with the exhaust shooting flames was not damaging the engine itself, nor was it from a mechanical failure in the engine itself. The PCM was programmed incorrectly, which would cause the problem. I don't need captain obvious to tell me that the fuel came from the engine, thanks, I'm completely mentally retarded and didn't know that.

OBVIOUSLY it is. BUT, that doesn't mean it damaged the engine, or that the PROBLEM started in the engine, either. the problem occurred in the exhaust system, and was corrected from a PCM update. Right?


As for YOUR contradiction, you stated that the engine has a bad track record, and that it will take at least 2 years to get straightened out. And yet, aside from this ONE PCM problem, you have yet to post other problems that are "plaguing" this engine and giving it such a terrible track record that you speak of. Not one. NOT EVEN ONE. the least you could have done is spend 5 minutes on google and at least attempt to back up your comments, but you didn't even do that. Good job further proving my point that the engine is NOT problem-laden and doomed for failure like the 6.0 was.

There is no way to know this early on if that will be the case or not, and your complete lack of evidence supporting that is proof of just that. All I am saying is that I find it UNLIKELY that Ford would release their truck with an engine with a high probability of having a track record like the 6.0, that's it. You have yet to prove otherwise

 

Sigh, one last time.



Yes the symptom was present in the exhaust system, but the root cause was in the engine. Think where the fuel came from to get to the exhaust. How can you have a problem with excessive fuel igniting in the exhaust system without a failure in the injection system? You simply cannot inject that much fuel without washing down the cylinder walls. That will not cause any immediate failures, but will can long term damage to seals. Its like accidentally running part of a tank of gas through the truck. Its not going to fail right away, but damage caused from this will manifest itself down the road when the injectors and fuel pump die due to scoring in the barrels from lack of lubricity.

There was a 2 fold problem here, the gross over fueling of the truck due to either a mechanical failure (ie injector o-ring, stuck plunger, etc) or somebody REALLY screwed up the fuel maps. The 2nd issue was the excessively high EGTs required to ignite that fuel downstream of the turbo. Temps that high will cause damage to turbo bearings as well as heat damage to other parts of the engine as heat is scavenged across the turbo into the intake charge.

If you were to do research about the intro of the initial 7.3L as well as the 6.0L both engines took about 2 years give or take to get the majority of the major bugs worked out. The 6.4L I would suspect will be no different. As another example of this is the CDC and Iveco engines we use in the 23xx and 7010/8010 combines took almost 2 years to get their main issues worked out after Tier III updates.

Your last comment still is wrong. The Federal Tier III emissions standards required all vehicles to be compliant by 08. The 6.0L simply cannot pass those standards, thus can't be run. Ford simply can't afford to not have a diesel offering in the market place and they had no other substitue diesel options, so whether the 6.4L was ready or not it HAD to come out for 08. They had planned to release it last year, but had supplier issues and pushed it back as late as they could to try and fix it. It shows good that they were willing to do this, but it in no way says that they're 100% sure that it was ready for the market. I'll bet if you were to ask the guys in development they'd have preferred another 6mo to a year. Being in product development myself this happens on a variety of things on a pretty regular basis.


Anyhow I'm done arguing with you on this, if you want to persue it any farther email me.

 

Ford's still pissed at International because they feel that International hung them out to dry when the first 6.0 liters were delivered and started having problems in regards to special service tools and tech support. No one at Ford really knew how to work on the engine, no one out in the field really knew how to work on them, the tools weren't available at the time of launch, it turned into a big fuster cluck the likes of which Ford or International has never seen.

The 6.4 isn't invincible either. I've read and heard first hand reports from guys in the field that are already pulling them down for various problems, like turbos, injectors, and head gaskets. Ford's just keeping them under the carpet a lot better than they did with the 6.0 liter.

The flames from the exhaust was most certainly causing damage to the engine, or at least the base cause of the flames. Listen to the videos on Youtube of how the thing sounds at idle. The particular truck in that video as I understand had a broken injector snap ring which was practically pouring fuel into the cylinder, washing down the cylinder walls, diluting the engine oil and putting a hurt on the bottom end of the engine.

 

If you get the 450... make sure it has the 4:88 gears.


My dad recently purchased a 450, and has been an amazing pulling vehicle for the short time he's had it. We took a trip to Moab with two Jeeps, and weighed in around 22,000lb. On the mountain passes, it did an amazing job. At highway speeds, stayed at the speed limit without a problem.

 

I bet those 4.88 gears get some great fuel mileage!

 

Amazing fuel milage... Fuel comsumption rivals my M2 Freightliner with 330hp M-Benz motor.

 

I took the 4.30's in the one I got...

My buddy works for Ford and told me the deal with the 4.30 verse 4.88 trucks. They cut the power back 25hp and 50lbs of torque on the trucks with 4.88's plus they get worse gas mileage. I got the 4.30's and his has the 4.88's. I get almost 2mpg more and have more power. Now true his may feel better with the 4.88's but I dont have a pulling problem.