In The Shop With Our Ford F-350 For Some Much Needed Upgrades
Story By: Kyle Callen
Photos By: Brandon Bunch
A good truck is the key component to any weekend on the trail. If there’s a destination in mind and you’re not able to get there or get home, then what’s the point of loading up and going? With the increasing towing demands, our 2013 Ford F-350 has made life much easier and the service bed is something I no longer think I could live without. Last time you saw “Blacky”, she was rock stock with 200k miles on her, and at that time we replaced all the suspension components with BDS suspension and let the engine breathe a little better with an MBRP exhaust. The ride quality has been astronomically better while the exhaust note made it more fun to drive. In less than a year we have put 40k+ miles on her, but the high mileage isn’t scaring me yet as we do regular maintenance and we drive her pretty easily.
A lot of the miles we’ve thrown on have been late at night through rural parts of the country. Sleep is something we aren’t big fans of around here. The stock headlights are okay, but they aren’t phenomenal. Knowing we would need some light on the service box for the late-night field repairs, we reached out to Baja Designs. Delivering products among the best quality in the industry, we knew they would provide the light we needed while enduring the brutal conditions we put them through. They set us up with the mounts to put their 20” OnX6 Racer Edition light bar in the front bumper and the fog light kit which replaces the factory fog lights with their Squadron Pros. I opted to run the amber lenses on the Squadrons to help ease the strain on the eyes as the nights grew long.
Baja Designs did all the homework and made the fog light kit a direct plug-and-play, while the 20” bar ties easily into the factory accessory switches. These 2 lights alone make the late nights on the road easier on us. No more worrying about dear or animals jumping out in the road or what lies ahead. We see it all now. Once the plethora of S2 lights are added to the service bed, we will essentially no longer need the sun to work, however, it would be good to sleep on occasion.
With all that extra load on the battery, we knew the 5-year-old batteries would quickly die, leaving us stranded. After doing a ton of research, Full Throttle Battery provides a very high-quality replacement that will make sure the engine starts and the lights come on for years and years to come. There is nothing special about swapping out your battery to a better one. Simply pull the negative cable, then the positive. Remove any hold-downs and simply reverse the order to go back in. Although we always carry our Rugged Geek battery jumper, having good batteries in the truck is a solid piece of mind.
With regular maintenance comes a lot of air filter changes. This truck spends a lot of time on the road and in dirty air getting to riding spots. For the price of all those air filters, it was time to invest in a good air intake system. Knowing that S&B makes one of the best systems for the UTVs, we did some research and found they made a system for this old 2013 Ford. This would also compliment the MBRP exhaust and maybe, just maybe, make a touch more power. By no means are we trying to make more power, but who would say no to that? The 37% better flow along with the 99.29% efficiency of the filter would mean the 6.7 will have plenty of clean air, even in the worst of conditions.
The major selling point was the dry reusable filter. With the average air filter running about $40 and getting changed every 2 services, it would be no time flat before the reusable filter that does a better job, pays for the entire system. Installing the complete S&B system is a cinch to install. Anyone with a basic set of hand tools can do the job in under an hour. Removing the old air filter and air box gives you a good visual of that corner of the engine itself. A solid visual inspection of a high mileage engine like Blacky’s is always a good idea. The S&B intake tube has built-in provisions for the air intake sensor while the long continuous tube should move more than enough air for this old girl.
All the upgrades we are doing to this truck all have thought and reasoning behind it. This is a work truck that needs to last another 250k miles while being reliable and keeping service costs to a minimum. We are spending money in places we deem fit, like lighting, suspension and powertrain, while not going overkill on stuff like cool LED accent lights, stereos, and refrigerators. We are also spending the time to do the research on what parts and manufactures will work best for our budget and goals. This is definitely no Brad Deberti SEMA build, but it is a darn nice truck at a very affordable price. Stay tuned for what’s next for Blacky.
