OOOhhhhh..... The interwebs are a scary place. All those stories about the 6.0. All those problems! I have an 03 F350 with one of those ugly terrible motors. Not a spec of trouble, not a burp, or a hint of indigestion. The majority of 6.0 stories you read are from guys that say, "hey I put this tuner on", and "I was pullin this 15k trailer over the great divide at 70 MPH, and she overheated..."!" Yes, the torque to yield head bolts can be problematic if cylinder pressure is increased substantially. Yes, the oil cooler can be another sore spot if maintenance is not carried out. Yes, the EGR cooler can be a problem... they are in Dmax, and others as well. The FICM can go boink... usually a 180. power supply fixes it, the controller rarely fails. It's demise is usually an owner that lets the batteries go. Low voltage kills the power supply, and then the injectors suffer the same fate because you don't have a solid 48 volts on them. I have found no reason to run any of the fancy high voltage FICM's. You have to do whats right for you, but I've looked around, and for the money, because of their rep, the 6.0 can be had for cheap. I recently read of a guy that picked up an 07 with 29,000 miles because the owner didn't drive it for fear that it would blow. His 16,000 was a good investment, be cause even if he does everything to it he will only have about another 5k in the truck, and it will run another 250k miles. If you test drive a 6.0, I suggest you get some type of monitor, (OBD sender and smartphone app, or an Edge.. you are going to want one anyway) and look at the engine parameters while testing. Coolant to oil temp deltas should be below 15 while cruising unloaded. Look at the degas bottle for slime, and residue. If it still has gold coolant in it, you'll likely see a lot of both. Look for a constant 48 volts on the FICM readout. Use what you find as bargaining chips with the seller. Then get it home, and make a plan. You can go the full monty... Bullet Proof Diesel has a top shelf external cooler set up that works. the caveat being that if you hit a deer, you will damage that precious set up in a hurry, at great expense. They offer an upgraded EGR cooler if you have emission inspections, and want to comply with the Fed's. There are EGR deletes if you want to run afoul of the law, but you run the a low risk of being caught one day, and the fines are steep. To make it dead nuts reliable, you have to address the weaknesses, like any other vehicle ever. A complete flush of the cooling system using VC9 and a switch to Rotella Ultra ELC or Delo XLC is a must. If the temperature deltas are wacked out, replace the oil cooler. A factory cooler is less than 300 on the web. Upgrade to the BPD EGR cooler while you are in there. Or delete the EGR with a kit, but understand those can leak and you'll be back in there again, and they violate the law. Head gasket issues can be addressed if the PO has run a tuner. It's pretty obvious if you have gasket issues, the coolant will be puking from the degas bottle after a spirited run, and you'll likely see a lot of white smoke from the tailpipe. The heads must be flat, factory gaskets work just fine, and ARP studs are on every diesel site. You would find premium parts for whatever you were working on, the 6.0 is no different. If the gaskets show zero signs of problems, the studs can actually be snuck in one at a time without pulling the heads at all. The 6.0 can be very reliable if left stock, or with minor tunes to the FICM (50 hp Atlas tune works pretty dang good IMO), and replacement parts are plentiful to keep it running. It can be darn near perfect with some basic stuff, even if it isn't in good shape when you get it. Studs, machine work, gaskets, new oil cooler, BPD EGR, the proper coolant, 03-04 needs the billet 90mm water pump from BPD,( 05 and up with the 100mm, the newer pumps already have a metal impeller in the replacement world),a FICM power supply and some time will yield an engine that will be very reliable, and you'll still have less in it than you would a new truck. I know the post is long and rambles, sorry. Hopefully you can get the high points, and realize that it's not much different than anything else... address the weak points, upgrade where needed, and drive the heck out of it.
