# Down Graded But Upgraded Tv



## Braggus (Aug 8, 2010)

I liked my 2010 F-150 but wanted a little more for towing so I downgraded in years but up graded to a 2008 F-250 turbo diesel with a 3:73...anyone with one any suggestion would be great, this is my first diesel. it has 31k miles on it.


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## Justman (Jul 22, 2006)

Very nice truck. Should pull your OB a LOT better than the F150!









Best advice I can give is to take care of it---and it should take care of you for a pretty long time. 30K miles is pretty low for a diesel, so you have lots of years left on it.

Congrats!


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## mmblantz (Jul 1, 2007)

Smart move







----Mike


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## Joe/GA (Aug 14, 2009)

Good looking truck, Jim. I see you stayed with the same color. Good choice! Congratulations and I hope you have many, many years of excellent towing with her.


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## Braggus (Aug 8, 2010)

Joe/GA said:


> Good looking truck, Jim. I see you stayed with the same color. Good choice! Congratulations and I hope you have many, many years of excellent towing with her.


Thnx Joe, just love that color for some reason...
Is it wrong to just want to hook up and tow it...lol


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## akjason (Jan 2, 2011)

Great choice in truck! I myself just about two months ago picked up my own 2008 F250 with the 6.4 engine. I have now taken my OB out with it twice, and it is amazing. Pulling hills at 55-60mph with more room to go if I wanted it, handles it great. I only tow the 21RS, fully loaded but I know it could easily handle so much more. Make sure to make use of the tourqshift transmission, it's a dream for hills. With tow/haul enabled it firms up shift points, and acts as an engine brake for coming down hills. All you have to do is hold your breaks down for a few seconds on a down hill grade and it will down shift, then hold the gear until you press the gas again.

All in all you will love your truck as I know I love mine!


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## Joe/GA (Aug 14, 2009)

Braggus said:


> Good looking truck, Jim. I see you stayed with the same color. Good choice! Congratulations and I hope you have many, many years of excellent towing with her.


Thnx Joe, just love that color for some reason...
Is it wrong to just want to hook up and tow it...lol
[/quote]

No Jim, it ain't wrong to want to hook up and tow it. If you haven't already done so, shame on you! LOL!Heck, if it was me, I would have hooked her up and towed for 30 minutes or so. I love the dark red color. I think because it looks so good when I spend a whole day cleaning and polishing it! My 2005 F-150 was a deep red also. It was called Torredore red. I don't know if I spelled it right, but it is Spanish for bull. Like the red cape that the Matadore would wave at the bull.
So...if you haven't done it, get out there and tow with that nice diesel!


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## rsm7 (Aug 8, 2009)

Congrats Braggus on buying an awesome truck, and no, I'm not biased!









A few things to know about the 6.4.

The manual says to change oil every 10k miles for normal use and 5k miles for severe duty. If you listen to "internet forums gods" lol they say to follow the severe duty schedule. Reason being is the regen process is hard on these diesels. You could end up with fuel washing the cylinders and diluting your oil. Not saying you will. Check your oil weekly and watch for signs that the oil level is rising, they call this growing oil, its an indicator that your oil is getting fuel dilution. I've been changing mine every 7500.

Fuel filters are every other oil change. Use only genuine Motorcraft parts. Everyone agrees they are the only ones that seal properly and if you have a failure related to an aftermarket filter Ford will deny your claim.

Locate your fuel/water separator on the drivers side frame rail and drain a small cup of fuel out once a month.

Avoid excessive idling. A diesel engine will not get to optimum temperature by idling, you have to drive it to warm it up. Start it, give it 15 seconds and go. This is all in your diesel engine supplement book. Excessive idling also washes the cylinders with fuel leading to oil dilution. The other thing is because it is not at optimum temperature the valve train gets varnished with deposits. If it has idled for some time for whatever reason dont shut it off without driving it to bring the temps up and burn off these deposits and clean it out. I know the common thought is that diesels are made to run forever and they see big semis idling all night but it is out of necessity. Because they need to sleep in their truck they have to run it for heat/air/elec power. Semis come equipped with an idle bump switch to raise the idle and offset this somewhat. You can get one of these installed on your truck at a Ford dealership if you feel the need.

Now I'm going to contradict myself. When you are towing or working the engine hard you need to idle it for a minute or two to bring the exhaust gas temps (EGT)down. Shutting it off with high EGTs is hard on the turbo. Your EGTs will also be high when it is in regen so again you will have to let it cool for a minute before shutting it off.

To summarize, warm it up by driving it, cool it off by idling it.

The 08's originally displayed "cleaning exhaust filter" on the dash while in regen. Then Ford released a PCM update and now it only displays for 2-3 seconds and returns to normal. If yours stays on you dont have the latest flash. Ford just released another flash you will want to check on. They claim if you dont get it they can void your warranty if there is a claim that could have been prevented. That leads me to aftermarket dashboard moniters. They will display anything in your computer that is tracked but you dont have a gauge for. For example EGTs. The 6.4 has a pyrometer already installed and the info is in the computer theres just no gauge to display it. The moniter will also display when you're in a regen. There are several out there but I just bought an Edge Insight CTS. http://www.edgeproducts.com/product.php?pk=145&pvk=405 I got it on Amazon for 399. I liked it because it has a video in port so I can add a cheap backup camera for $25-30. Mostly I wanted to moniter EGTs and regens. It will also display and clear engine codes, Reprogram speedos for different tires sizes, all kinds of stuff. Its just a moniter, not a tuner. Thats a different thread entirely and I'll stay out of that one lol!









I've tried fuel additives and didnt really notice any difference in mpg's. I really cant say when it comes to longevity.







Not using one right now but others swear by them.

Try to keep your fuel above a 1/4 tank in winter to minimize condensation in the tank.

If I think of anything else I'll be sure to post it. She's a beast! Enjoy!


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## Braggus (Aug 8, 2010)

Yeah Joe already told the DW we are going this week end even if it is to the WalMart parking lot...lol...
rsm7, this is some great info there...thnx for your help.


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## Braggus (Aug 8, 2010)

akjason said:


> Great choice in truck! I myself just about two months ago picked up my own 2008 F250 with the 6.4 engine. I have now taken my OB out with it twice, and it is amazing. Pulling hills at 55-60mph with more room to go if I wanted it, handles it great. I only tow the 21RS, fully loaded but I know it could easily handle so much more. Make sure to make use of the tourqshift transmission, it's a dream for hills. With tow/haul enabled it firms up shift points, and acts as an engine brake for coming down hills. All you have to do is hold your breaks down for a few seconds on a down hill grade and it will down shift, then hold the gear until you press the gas again.
> 
> All in all you will love your truck as I know I love mine!


tourqshift transmission is the tow/haul right?


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## akjason (Jan 2, 2011)

Braggus said:


> Great choice in truck! I myself just about two months ago picked up my own 2008 F250 with the 6.4 engine. I have now taken my OB out with it twice, and it is amazing. Pulling hills at 55-60mph with more room to go if I wanted it, handles it great. I only tow the 21RS, fully loaded but I know it could easily handle so much more. Make sure to make use of the tourqshift transmission, it's a dream for hills. With tow/haul enabled it firms up shift points, and acts as an engine brake for coming down hills. All you have to do is hold your breaks down for a few seconds on a down hill grade and it will down shift, then hold the gear until you press the gas again.
> 
> All in all you will love your truck as I know I love mine!


tourqshift transmission is the tow/haul right?
[/quote]

The Torqueshift is just the auto 5-speed transmission that shipped with these trucks. They called it the "torqueshift" transmission. The tow/haul is like the overdrive button on the F150, where enabling tow/haul changes shift points, but it also does the engine braking.


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## Braggus (Aug 8, 2010)

akjason said:


> Great choice in truck! I myself just about two months ago picked up my own 2008 F250 with the 6.4 engine. I have now taken my OB out with it twice, and it is amazing. Pulling hills at 55-60mph with more room to go if I wanted it, handles it great. I only tow the 21RS, fully loaded but I know it could easily handle so much more. Make sure to make use of the tourqshift transmission, it's a dream for hills. With tow/haul enabled it firms up shift points, and acts as an engine brake for coming down hills. All you have to do is hold your breaks down for a few seconds on a down hill grade and it will down shift, then hold the gear until you press the gas again.
> 
> All in all you will love your truck as I know I love mine!


tourqshift transmission is the tow/haul right?
[/quote]

The Torqueshift is just the auto 5-speed transmission that shipped with these trucks. They called it the "torqueshift" transmission. The tow/haul is like the overdrive button on the F150, where enabling tow/haul changes shift points, but it also does the engine braking.
[/quote]
got it...thnx


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## Braggus (Aug 8, 2010)

akjason said:


> Great choice in truck! I myself just about two months ago picked up my own 2008 F250 with the 6.4 engine. I have now taken my OB out with it twice, and it is amazing. Pulling hills at 55-60mph with more room to go if I wanted it, handles it great. I only tow the 21RS, fully loaded but I know it could easily handle so much more. Make sure to make use of the tourqshift transmission, it's a dream for hills. With tow/haul enabled it firms up shift points, and acts as an engine brake for coming down hills. All you have to do is hold your breaks down for a few seconds on a down hill grade and it will down shift, then hold the gear until you press the gas again.
> 
> All in all you will love your truck as I know I love mine!


Thnx for the info...


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## Partsman Ed (Aug 26, 2008)

I agree with RSM7, using Ford filters is the way to go.


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## Braggus (Aug 8, 2010)

Partsman Ed said:


> I agree with RSM7, using Ford filters is the way to go.


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## Braggus (Aug 8, 2010)

F250.....Diesel.......




























well worth the upgrade.....pulled this weekend and what a difference....


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## akjason (Jan 2, 2011)

Braggus said:


> F250.....Diesel.......
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Be careful with it! After a whole three months of owning mine im too the point of doing a tuner and removing the DPF/DOC to free up some more.... power. Oh these trucks are fun, and very addictive!


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## Braggus (Aug 8, 2010)

akjason said:


> F250.....Diesel.......
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Be careful with it! After a whole three months of owning mine im too the point of doing a tuner and removing the DPF/DOC to free up some more.... power. Oh these trucks are fun, and very addictive!
[/quote]
Would that affect a Warranty? just purchased an extended one from Here and don't want to affect it in any way. After the latest computer flash I seem to be getting better fuel mileage and don't lack pulling power.


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## 1jeep (Jul 24, 2007)

removing the cat/dpf is a federal offense, adding a tuner will void the ford warranty.

Now, i did this to my 6.4 and run a 100hp tune, with no dpf i get about 17.2mpg highway and dont make oil. Truck has been rock solid currently has 74k miles on it and it is my daily driver in/out of boston 5 days a week.
My ford dealer doesnt seem to care about the tuner, althouhg they know i assumed i had no warranty once i did this. If i had purchased an extended warranty i would not have gone this route and would have left it stock.


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## Braggus (Aug 8, 2010)

Going to keep it stock as long as there is a warranty.
When I had the 150 although it pulled it well there was always that nagging question in the back of my mind; am I jeopardizing my families safety, am I killing this truck? Now I have a little more "confidence" in what I'm doing....And it has to do a large part from this community of knowledge we have here.


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## akjason (Jan 2, 2011)

1jeep said:


> removing the cat/dpf is a federal offense, adding a tuner will void the ford warranty.
> 
> Now, i did this to my 6.4 and run a 100hp tune, with no dpf i get about 17.2mpg highway and dont make oil. Truck has been rock solid currently has 74k miles on it and it is my daily driver in/out of boston 5 days a week.
> My ford dealer doesnt seem to care about the tuner, althouhg they know i assumed i had no warranty once i did this. If i had purchased an extended warranty i would not have gone this route and would have left it stock.


True, The DPF is mandated by the EPA to have on these trucks so you will want to verify your local immisions testing prior to this. California troopers are suspected of being trained in how to identify trucks that have removed the DPF.

With that said there are multiple people that suggest removing the DPF / Cat increses fuel mileage, less wear and tear on the engine and with a quality tune will actually keep our trucks running longer and better. The Regen process put's a lot of strain on the engine which doing the DPF / DOC removal get's rid of.

I don't have any extended warrenty myself, and Diesels are exempt from testing where im at. Only time they get tested again is when they change ownership which is to certify they are in fact Diesel rigs. And there is a vast majority of 6.0 and 6.4's blowing BLACK smoke where im at and never see them pulled over.

Which tuner did you decide to go with? I beleive I will most likely go with H&S with the DPF/DOC Delete pipe. My truck is also my daily driver and I put on 75 miles daily with it too and from work.


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