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We can repair your dead FICM!
This section will grow and be expanded upon over time, but some things to seriously consider on the maintenance front include:
1. Backflush the oil cooler - lose the Ford Gold coolant. Backflush the oil cooler and migrate to an ELC coolant to save both your oil cooler and EGR cooler. Migration to an extended life coolant that is CAT-1 rated, such as Delo ELC after a complete multi-pass flush that includes a chemical flush with VC-9 (Restore) and Restore+ followed by a backflush of the oil cooler and heater core. An excellent write-up can be found here. Additional supporting steps are here.This process ultimately brings back the effectiveness of the oil cooler to actually cool the oil, but perhaps more importantly prevents the limit of coolant flow into the EGR cooler which is responsible for so many EGR failures! To see if your oil cooler is clogged, compare your engine oil temperature against your coolant temperature. A properly functioning oil cooler will result in oil that stays within 10 degrees of the coolant when driving at freeway speeds not towing. A delta of 11-15 degrees under these conditions means that your cooler is at least partially clogged. Once the delta exceeds 15 degrees, few have had success clearing the blockages with a backflush procedure, though there is logic in performing it to try and, regardless, as a way to flush the system out prior to replacing the oil cooler.
2. Install a coolant filter. Installation of a coolant filter to catch the casting sand that remains in the block even following the above coolant flush. We offer an amazing option from Sinister for $150. Installing a coolant filter will help improve the life of your water pump, sure, but will most importantly protect your oil cooler from clogging.
3. Get gauges. Gauges will save you money. Acquisition of a gauge like an Edge Insight CTS, Edge Insight CS, or ScanGauge II (note that the ScanGauge doesn't support add-ons like the ability to monitor exhaust gas temperatures or like the ability to prevent engine shutoff until exhaust gases drop below 400 degrees (to save your turbo from frying), but does allow the entry of custom Program ID's [PIDs] that allow you to monitor everything that the engine computer knows about). These items are available for sale through our intake form! All of these gauges can monitor oil temp, coolant temp, FICM output voltage, battery voltage, ICP's, IPR duty cycles, and a myriad of other handy things.
4. Monitor your EGT's. Acquisition of a gauge to monitor Exhaust Gas Temperatures - a good choice being the acquisition of the temperature probe that works in conjunction with the Edge Insight CTS. Keep your EGT's below 1500 degrees fahrenheit at all times to prevent burning the exhaust valves in the heads and never shut off the truck when the EGT's are above 400 degrees to save your turbocharger. Note that this item, too, is available for sale on our intake form!
5. Use 5W40 synthetic. Migrate to a 5w40 synthetic motor oil (especially in the winter months), such as Shell Rotella T-6, ensuring that you only use Motorcraft or Racor filters. Doing so will make a dramatic difference in cold weather starting and make for better cold engine performance while providing a slight fuel economy boost as well.
6. Get the Blue Spring Kit and save your injectors. Installation of the new and improved fuel pressure regulator spring that will help ensure that the fuel pressure remains above the oh-so-critical 45psi. This 'Blue Spring Upgrade' could prevent damage to your injectors in addition to helping avoid a no-start condition. Just ask for it on our intake form when you ship in your module! A great installation write-up can be found here. Many Ford techs have been trained to place a 3/8" or so blue dot on the cover if the spring has been replaced already. If you don't have the dot, you likely don't have the spring.
7. Install a fuel pressure gauge. Installation of a fuel pressure gauge - another case where the Insight CTS can help you - to monitor your fuel pressures. More than one 6.0 owner has had to replace all of their injectors when something simple like a fuel pump failed.
8. Get safe when towing. Installation of the simply amazing RAS product to provide for dramatically safer towing and general handling by beefing up the payload capacity of the rear springs without increasing ride harness. After you review the information on their site, contact us and we'll set you up with the solution - saving you precious dolllars off retail in the process!
9. Get a more free flowing exhaust. Migration to a 4" turbo-back exhaust to drop exhaust gas temperatures about 200 degrees while decreasing back pressure. We sell both Magnaflow and MBRP in aluminized and stainless. Both are awesome bolt up and go vendors. Either setup is absolutely louder than stock, but your engine will be happier and most report fuel economy gains of 1 - 1.5mpg to boot.
10. Exercise those variable veins in the turbo. Drive your truck 'like you stole it' about once a month to ensure that your turbocharger veins get fully exercised and don't start sticking.
11. Install a bypass oil filtration kit. The Amsoil version that we sell is a good fit here. This isn't so much for extended drain intervals since the 6.0 motor is known for shearing perfectly good 40 weight oil down to 30 weight by about the 5-6000 mile timeframe (this due to the around 4,000psi that the oil sees given the high pressure oil system). Rather, it's to save your injectors since they are SO incredibly particular about needing clean oil going through them. Stock filtration filters your oil down to 28 microns, which is pretty impressive until you realize that this setup will filter the oil down to two microns...
Of course, it would be a good idea to ship a sample of your oil off to a lab like Blackstone Laboratories just to be sure you can't score a longer interval next time you are draining at 5,000 miles, but don't count on it. The approximately $400 you spend on the kit will pay for itself in longer injector service life, the significant side benefit of longer bearing life, and the possible benefit of longer oil change intervals.
12. Remove and clean the fuel pump. The fuel pump, AKA the 'HFCM' or horizontal fuel conditioning module is where your primary fuel filter goes into and gets riddled with crud some of which that ultimately passes through the fuel filtration system and into your injectors. Brake cleaner is the tool of choice to remove all the goo, though note that you'll want to pick up some quick disconnect tools to remove the module. Note also that the brass drain plug is SOFT. Be sure to insert your allen wrench COMPLETELY IN the module to remove the water/fuel as step one in the removal process. A great video on the procedure can be found on YouTube, compliments of Bill Hewitt from Powerstrokehelp.com. A writeup on the removal itself is on thedieselstop.com. If you DO end up damaging the plug, we offer a handy thumb screw version for $20.
13. Upgrade your alternator wiring. Run a wire, preferably with an inline fuse in it, from the stud on the back of the alternator directly to the passenger side battery. Augment this with a wire from one of the alternator mounting bolts to the vehicle frame. Doing so will allow the maximum current from the alternator to reach the batteries. Although it has for years been speculated that there is a relay or other current limiting device between the alternator and the batteries that didn't allow charging to occur until after the glow plugs turned off, the majority of the basis for seeing battery voltages stay in the 11.9-12.1 range for up to two minutes following engine start up is the alternator's inability to keep up with the load placed on the system from the glow plugs (a STRONG reason for a larger alternator - see the next tip). The alternator uses an internal voltage regulator to limit current flow to that required up to the limit of the device. The only external control is in the instrument cluster, where a charge indicator light is intended to illuminate in the event of alternator malfunction.
With an OEM alternator (though see #14 below), use not less than 4 gauge wire. With something bigger, go bigger. Many use 1/0 wiring (about the size of your thumb) for this task via our cable kit available for $110.
In addition, as the passenger side battery is what is hard wired to both the glow plugs and the starter, this battery takes an absolute beating. While the driver and passenger side battery's are interconnected via a 6 gauge or so wire, this wire size is unable to transfer all of amps necessary to truly provide the real-time assistance that the passenger battery needs. We offer a sheath-protected 4/0 (about 1" diameter) wire to augment what the factory gave us for an additional $110 with all of the necessary hardware to make a clean installation. So, for $220 in total, you get the complete setup depicted in the overall install.
Here's a shot off the overall install, Some pics for your review: Alternator closeup, passenger battery closeup, driver side battery, negative grounding and fuse block/battery connection, fuse block detail.
14. Get a better alternator. The stock alternator is truly undersized for the application as it puts out only 65 amps at hot idle and 100 amps when driving down the road at full operating temperature. It's the same part number used in the Ford Fusion! Further complicating things is the 230 amp draw caused by the glow plugs primarily right after the truck starts - check out this Fluke log compliments of user MisterCMK on FTE. So...if your alternator is putting out less than 13.3 volts at hot idle (as measured at one of the batteries) with all accessories (headlights, blower motor, heated seats, inverters, radio, etc) on, consider moving to a DC Power alternator. If you buy it from us, we can save you a few nickels off of picking it up from them directly, but you can review all of their options at their site and get back to us for a quote.
The 185 amp OEM series puts out 100 amps at hot idle and is a solid choice for you if you don't run a plow, winch, or serious inverter and live in a southern climate. If you live in a colder climate, consider how much of the 230 amp initial draw from the glow plugs, etc running at startup you want to cover (the more, the merrier), but minimally look at the 190HD. If you want to bump up higher given that most F series trucks have about 100 amps of gear that can be turned on from the factory and you are concerned about ever drawing down the batteries just to keep the engine running, move up even more.
If you DO run a plow, winch, or large inverter, the 270XP is the alternator of choice. It's more money, sure, but you can run small cities off of the 180 amps it puts out at hot idle. Wow.
Of course, you should also consider coupling any alternator with the aforementioned auxiliary alternator wiring (see point 13 above) since the stock wiring size results in an excessive drop in voltage by the time it hits the batteries. A great discussion on all this, including the source of the above Fluke log can be found on FTE. DC Power posted a video showing the output of the 270XP unit as well.
Don't worry about over-charging your batteries with any of these options - the internal voltage regulator will only give the system the oomph it needs up to the capacity of the alternator but never more.
If your alternator is putting out the right voltage, but you are still concerned and just want a reason to move into a new alternator...we can help there too. We've seen many a FICM's logic board get completely fried by a bad voltage regulator - a common failure in any alternator even IF the voltage output measures within spec during your voltage test. It's a sad little reality.
15. Clean the oil side of the injectors. The injectors in the 6.0 tend to get gunk - often called a varnish - built up around the heads of the injectors. This build up causes the injectors to stick and your truck to idle horribly until things warm up and the varnish softens. To save the injectors from early death, consider asking us to ship you out a product called Hot Shot Secret. It is designed to displace two quarts of motor oil at oil change time and gets run the entire 5,000 change interval. This product acts like a solvent to remove the varnish build up and get the injector to function properly again. Best of all, you don't need to run this product continuously. After the initial clean up, most run a 'maintenance' interval with it about once every 15,000 miles using just half a bottle going forward.
16. Clean the fuel side of the injectors.While Hot Shot Secret is truly an incredible product, it does nothing to help clean up the goo that forms around the fuel side of the injectors. FP Diesel Extreme, previously known as Fire Power, solves this problem. Consider ordering a bottle of this from us, putting a quarter of it in the fuel tank before a fill up and know that you are cleaning up the entire fuel system, potentially saving you from injector issues. Like the Hot Shot Secret product, just use this product periodically to keep things happy.
17. Watch those batteries! This should likely be at the top of the list, but weak supply side voltage is the #1 reason for FICM failure. The official Ford spec indicates that during cranking operations, voltage is not to drop to 9.3 volts for more than 10 seconds. Letting batteries dip below 10.0 volts shouldn't ever be tolerated in actuality. Fully charged batteries left sitting overnight should measure 12.7 volts or maybe a bit more. If you are seeing numbers below 12.5, it's time to get those batteries on a charger! We recommend a good desulphating charger like is offered in the Battery Tender and BatteryMINDER line of products, though any smart charger will do.
18. Clean up the EGR valve. The EGR valve looks like a small soda can and sits atop the intake just to the driver side of the alternator. Just remove the two screws holding it in, disconnect the electrical wires to it, rotate the valve to expose the mounting flanges, install a wire loop to connect the two flanges over the top of the module (leaving a loop that sits a few inches above the valve), and use the alternator as a lever in conjunction with a pry bar or long screwdriver to pop the valve up and out. Clean up the (hopefully dry) gunk that you find, carefully inspect the two seals for damage, ensure that the valve moves as its supposed to, and reinstall it. The result is a smoother running truck.
19. Clean the Exhaust Gas Backpressure Sensor and the tube that feeds it. Look at the front of the driver side exhaust manifold and find the 1/2" diameter tube that leaves the front of it. Trace with tube back to under the master cylinder and you've found your exhaust gas backpressure sensor. Remove this sensor, clean it up or replace it, clean up the tube itself with a pipe cleaner and some solvent, and reinstall. Your work could prevent you from having a no-start condition!
20. Upgrade your turbo oil drain tube and oil supply lines. The drain tube allows faster drains and sit more squarely in the opening. The result will be less oil coking in the turbo. If your turbo oil supply line has the stainless steel flex joint, the update makes it a solid line.
21. Re-route your crankcase ventilation (CCV) line. This will keep the oil out of the intake system, out of the intake boots (the oil can make them deteriorate), and out of the turbo. It will also help the intercooler be more efficient at cooling the incoming air. Note that if you have more than a small amount of smoke from the poossibly now exposed CCV line, you have excessive blowby from your piston rings. I'll just apologize for clueing you in now. A great how-to writeup can be found on FTE.