Hi.

I have a good friend with a 2003 6.0 and he is interested in getting the EGR delete kit.

His reason in looking to get this is his truck is running poorly. He has 180,000 miles on it and it was purchased second hand fro mthe original owner. Although it is a sharp looking Lariat, make no mistake this truck is a working farm truck seeing both long periods of idling, offroad driving and also highway miles.

He has heard positive things about the EGR delete kit and has ordered a basic delete kit minus the head studs, similar to the Sinister EGR delete kit. He has also ordered 4" exhaust with this as well, eliminating the cat.

What can he expect from this mod? How challenging is it to accomplish by himself (install). Does this require a re-flash of his computer, or will the CEL stay on? Are there are any other concerns with this? Or any other hints or mods that are both user friendly to do and easy on the wallet. He is a smart guy with a decent compliment of tools.

There are no major modifications to the actual drive train of the truck. Other than a front end leveling kit.

I have done a search on this and was unable to find any specific information about this. Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

It is going to take him most of a weekend to do it him self but if a tech is doing it they can get it done in a little less than a day with no problems. If the kit did not come with intake gaskets go to the dealer and get a set he is going to need them the up pipe on the back of the engine is going to be a pain in the *** but it can be done. I had the dealer do mine just because I did not have the time or the garage to work on it and there will be a CEL but you can have some one rewrite the stock tune to turn of the CEL if he does not want to get more out of it for reliability reasons. Also make sure he cleans the intake out of the EGR stuck open because it will fill the intake with soot.

 

Ok, so today we took the EGR valve off.

HOLY CRAP was this thing dirty. There was more crud on this thing... Well, we soaked it, sprayed it scrubbed it and now she looks like a brand new nickel.

Stuck it back in an the truck was tough to start, but did, idled rough for a bit, but then idled smooth, to be expected.

We were not able to drive the truck but only rev the engine and he thinks it feels a bit smoother.

Another interesting find. While the truck was running (in park) and held at about 3,000 RPM when the fan clutch kicks in (he had his defroster on by accident) the truck RPM's dropped over 500 RPM. Is this normal?

This is just another of many problems he has had with this truck. I was thinking a bad alternator, but it is brand new.

Sorry for all the questions, thanks again for any help.

 

For the average joe I'd say an egr delete would take you all day buts its not rocket science. Also depends on the type of delete route you take.

If the truck is running rough all the time it more then likely needs an injector or two. Possibly a FICM

So your saying you held the truck at 3,000 rpm and the fan kicked on and the truck dropped down to less then 500 on its own?

 

If the defroster was on, the A/C compressor kicked on too. Between that and the clutch fan kicking in, I can see it dropping 500 rpm.

 

I run my truck on high idle in the winter to warm it up with the defroster on and the truck may drop 50-75 RPM but it should not drop 500 RPM just because the fan and A/C kicked on. I would say it's time for your friend to take the truck to a diesel shop and have it looked at because there are more things going on with this truck than an EGR problem.

 

I agree.

I do understand about the AC compressor kicking in during defrost mode, I could hear the clutch engage.

I also agree that this should not cause such a drastic drop in RPM, or if it did it should only be momentary and the motor should compensate and come back up to 3,000. This is not the case here, it would stay at about 2,500 RPM.

He is looking into taking it to a shop. Trouble is it could be a costly and lengthy fix so he is trying to research and fix what he can on his own before forking over some serious coin for a shop to work on it.

He drove it home today and I am anxious to hear if the EGR cleaning helped with the sluggish acceleration and rough running. Hopefully we can narrow the problems down.

Its a sharp looking truck with 186,000 on the clock, I know it has plenty of life left in her, just need ot get a few things straightened out.

Again, keep the suggestions coming.

 

If this is on the electronic side of things such as the FICM or injectors or some thing else he is going to need to get it diagnosed by some one that has the equipment to do it because you can only go so far with over the counter code readers on these trucks. Unfortunetly the expense is part of fixing these things I just wrote a check for $568 just for front rotors and pads on my truck and only $70 of that was labor.

 

If he is going to all the expense of doing an EGR delete then I would SERIOUSLY suggest that he look into doing head studs. The stock bolts are weak on the best of days. Now is the time to do them.

 

The 6.0 saga continues....

He had the EGR delete done and a 4" exhaust added. Now the truck wont even start! Cranks and cranks but a no-go.

Sounds like he is going to have the truck towed to Ford and go from there.

Can anyone chime in on maybe what the cause is? Would doing the EGR delete without flashing the computer cause this?

As always, any advice or help is appreciated.

 

Sounds like his FICM has died.

 

Thanks for the reply Zaairman.

I watched a few YouTube videos of bad FICM's and that sounds like it might be the issue.

Do you think the EGR delete in some odd way contributed to this? Or was this just bad timing?

Also, as far as replacement goes. It seems as though its a pretty straight forward swap? Just bolt on the new one, plug in the wiring harnesses and go?

 

This EGR video made me chuckle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpWhH9jMayg

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