How reliable are stock 6.0's?

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03BlackWidow

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Mine was only stock for the 1st 3,500 miles and it had problems all 66k miles before it died. Now the truck is back to stock w/ a brand new motor, heads etc..

Im not trying to make any kind of power just to be reliable and get decent fuel mileage out of it. Should I leave it stock or put a small tow/mileage tune and turn the egr off? Only mods done are afe stg2 xp, spearco, magnaflow turbo back, fuel system and suncoast superduty kit w/ billet input. The egr is open and the headstuds are out so no more playing w/ the 6.0 here.
 
block off the EGR cooler up pipe get a SCT just to turn the EGR valve cycle down..and you should be pretty good..
 
we have one that has been stock since day one. it now has 65,000 miles and today it sits in the shop getting new injectors installed.
 
Abrannan19 said:
block off the EGR cooler up pipe get a SCT just to turn the EGR valve cycle down..and you should be pretty good..
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not to disagree with you, as personally i found a slight MPG gain w/my egr off also, but it is very common in fact that the economy tunes with the EGR left on have been getting BETTER fuel economy on certain strategies..

mine is blocked off completely at the uppipe, but i'm still needing to do the whole cooler delete/manifold thing.. (do you still offer those by the way, as yours are one of the nicer looking kits i've seen)

but i personally know 2 guys that had their sct tunes written to turn the EGR back on and they have seen an improvement in MPG...

for me, economy was never the goal, and even if it meant losing mileage i would still turn it off for the simple fact that i don't want that hot exhaust and gunk going back into my motor and taking the place of some fresh o2 that i can mix with some more # 2 ya know !!

btw, how are you liking those 200 sticks , you've had them for a few months now right ?? i've got mine pretty close to dialed in finally with this nonvvt unit and eric has been trying several things and i'm fairly confident it's almost there as far as street manners and shifting goes.. but man thepower is great..

i've been meaning to ask you (and sorry for the hijack guys) but are you running a vgtss type turbo, or just an 03 stocker ? and what are your EGT's like with a vgt and those big sticks ?? i ask because i was pleasantly suprised to find that my EGT's are now lower with my 200's than with my 175's (which i suspect had just been abused too many times to be reliable) so i'm half tempted to put my vgtss unit back on in an effort to keep turbo lag down since i took the bottle off and havent' decided if it's going back on (water/meth maybe )
 
oh but to answer the posters OQ...

it really all depends on the truck my friend..
i know guys that have NEVER done a single mod their trucks and have had nothing but problem after problem after problem and they swear up and down the 6.0 is the biggest piece of crap on the planet..
unfortunately there are a lot of "bad ones" out there, but at the same time there are a LOT of good ones out there that take a lickin and keep on tickin..

some guys puke even with head studs (mine does now but only AFTER THE STUDS),
And like i say before i built up my motor and studded it when all i had was bolt ons i put about 30K HARD miles on it at between 400-440HP and it never once broke down , puked, left me stranded, overheated NOTHING...

i did go thru a few trannies, but it the trucks defense, when the first tranny grenaded i was about halfway from my house to phoenix (6hr drive from vegas) and i drove the rest of the way to phoenix, spent the weekend with my inlaws, and DROVE all the way back home and to the tranny shop.. of course the carnage was extreme, but it did NOT leave me stranded. this has been the BEST, MOST RELIABLE truck i have ever owned and i don't see myself getting rid of it anytime soon.
 
yes I still have delete kits. and thank you.

you may hev me confused with iracemx6

I have 190's and a stock turbo.
 
Abrannan19 said:
yes I still have delete kits. and thank you.

you may hev me confused with iracemx6

I have 190's and a stock turbo.
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oh my bad sorry to make that mistake.. :)
what year turbo ? and what are your egt's like with those sticks ?
i can only imagine because i had serious problems with EGT's and i had smaller ones than that when i was running my first vgtss
 
let me know if i can help, maybe work something out ??

i've got an 03 style VGTss unit fully ceramic coated both housings. DFL coated vgt vanes to prevent sticking, machined turbine housing.
65mm compressor , and the drain tube and pedestal.
was only on my truck for a week, and then my nonvvt arrived so i took it off..

it's good for 550HP easily w/enough fuel and no NOS.. if i remember you have the bottle though, so if you have fuel you should be able to come dangerously close to the big 6 with it.
 
OneStockQuik6.0 said:
These 6.0's are very reliable...
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Only if your stock, or run something like banks that doesnt increase boost levels too much. The 6oh in my eyes are not reliable. Thats probably why Ford motor company sued International for warranty claims.

Forrest Nearing said:
I'd follow the advice in your sig
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I agree :clap:


Not trying to bash the 6ohs. We have about 5 in our fleet and all have had blown head gaskets and some more than once. All with nothing more than just a SCT intake and exhaust. And thats the truth. Currently there are 2 that are starting to puke again with studs. This is not including my personal truck
 
Robts said:
Only if your stock, or run something like banks that doesnt increase boost levels too much. The 6oh in my eyes are not reliable. Thats probably why Ford motor company sued International for warranty claims.


I agree :clap:


Not trying to bash the 6ohs. We have about 5 in our fleet and all have had blown head gaskets and some more than once. All with nothing more than just a SCT intake and exhaust. And thats the truth. Currently there are 2 that are starting to puke again with studs. This is not including my personal truck
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spoken like a cummins conversione

speaking of that robts..hows the twins working out on your 6.0 we heard so much about during the build..but.we haven't been hearing much lately(after completion)..how is it running?
 
Robts said:
Only if your stock, or run something like banks that doesnt increase boost levels too much. The 6oh in my eyes are not reliable. Thats probably why Ford motor company sued International for warranty claims.


I agree :clap:


Not trying to bash the 6ohs. We have about 5 in our fleet and all have had blown head gaskets and some more than once. All with nothing more than just a SCT intake and exhaust. And thats the truth. Currently there are 2 that are starting to puke again with studs. This is not including my personal truck
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Robts don't talk bad about the 6.0's since you couldn't get it figured out and gaved up on them..My 6.0 hasn't let me down, As you know it's been doing a great job...
 
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OneStockQuik6.0 said:
Robts don't talk bad about the 6.0's since you couldn't get it figured out and gaved up on them..My 6.0 hasn't let me down, As you know it's been doing a great job...
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Frankie I will say I did put down 668hp with the VGT-ss. You have no idea what Im doing or what my plans are. Just because Im on the cummins side asking questions everyone thinks I gave up. This thread is about how reliable the 6oh is and I told everyone how the trucks were doing in our fleet. I will tell everyone my blue truck is not my only truck. Please dont get them mistaken
 
I still have my egr block off and my sct theyve just been pulled off the truck. Same with the headstuds and some of the other stuff. I had headtuds, firerings and an egr blockoff and it still was puking coolant and blew a headgasket. So im going to leave the stock headbolts in and not turn the sct up.
I havent put more then 2,500 miles on my truck in the last 2 years because of things breaking and using a horrible diesel shop to fix it all. Now I just need it back no more playing around.
 
Robts said:
Frankie I will say I did put down 668hp with the VGT-ss. You have no idea what Im doing or what my plans are. Just because Im on the cummins side asking questions everyone thinks I gave up. This thread is about how reliable the 6oh is and I told everyone how the trucks were doing in our fleet. I will tell everyone my blue truck is not my only truck. Please dont get them mistaken
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Well your plans eventually were to go where no other 6.0 have gone before, As you had mentioned before?I will say this again to me the 6.0 is reliable..Maybe some people don't have good luck with them?
 
03BlackWidow said:
Mine was only stock for the 1st 3,500 miles and it had problems all 66k miles before it died. Now the truck is back to stock w/ a brand new motor, heads etc..

Im not trying to make any kind of power just to be reliable and get decent fuel mileage out of it. Should I leave it stock or put a small tow/mileage tune and turn the egr off? Only mods done are afe stg2 xp, spearco, magnaflow turbo back, fuel system and suncoast superduty kit w/ billet input. The egr is open and the headstuds are out so no more playing w/ the 6.0 here.
Click to expand...

the specs from ford for the flatness of the heads and block stink. if the heads and the block have been checked and are alot better than the .004 to .006 in 4" that ford says is good then you should be ok. if the moter was built to fords specs then i would suggest takeing the heads and having them decked after that you should be ok for whatever you want within reason.
 
My 6.0 has 70,000 miles on it and I have had no problems. 68,000 of them were with intake, exhaust and Edge Platinum. I did quite a bit of towing and hard driving. I have about 2000 miles on our compound kit and it makes about 57psi but it is now fire ringed and head studded. Will know how race ready it is tonight. We have street legals here tonight.
 
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