i had a question about my pick up and wondered if anybody could maybe help me out with it.. everytime i start my pickup i guess the heating core kicks on or something does, but when it kicks on it pulls my battery,lights,dash lights and everything down to where it almost dies and then the battery gauge goes back up to normal and then it will do it all over again for about 5 mins.. i was wondering if this was normal? ive never had one do that before.. any help would be greatly appreciated..

 

normal..... its the grid heaters... they all do it

 

It's normal, but if it's nearly killing your truck, you're going to want to test both batteries (individually) and check all of your battery cable connections.

I can tell mine cycle based on sound, but it doesn't affect my lights at all.

 

ok i will be sure to check both batteries.. i really appreciate it and also i was wondering if i put a k&n cold air intake on my truck would it really make any difference or should i go with something else.. i drive me truck state to state working in refineries and i was just wondering what i should put on it to help it out

 

Hey buddy I have an 04.5 and When I got it I put an AFE Stage II cold air intake and I love it I gained a few mpg's, I've used K&N but on gas vehicles not on a diesel

 

My lights dim when it's cold outside, but never pulls the battery down.

I did a K&N filter in the factory box at about 12K miles. It actually dropped my MPG by about 1MPG. It may have been to a pair of heavier boots. The little push button moniter that lets you know when the filter is dirty NEVER moves out of the green, where the factory filter was always in the yellow.

 

I can tell you the stock filter/box is good to about 500hp on the 3rd gens. When you get to the 450hp level, you're going to want to have some sort of reinforced filter, as you'll start sucking the filter in.

If you gain 3hp from going with an aftermarket filter at stock levels, something was drastically wrong.

A guy I know with an 05 was putting darn close to 500 hp to the tires, using the stock filter box. He did, however, have an aftermarket panel filter in it. He was also running a Smarty and a turbo back exhaust through a stack.

My 08 had an S&B intake, egr/dpf deletes, H&S black maxx programmer, and 4" turbo back exhaust. We both had Suncoast transmissions - he bought his, I built mine - and we both ran 13.8 in the 1/4 at around 95 mph. Oh, he also swapped in 5.29 gears to my 3.73s.


In short, I'd recommend skipping the intake for now. Get a smarty programmer and start saving for a built transmission. Or save up and get a built transmission before turning up the wick.


An exhaust brake will greatly extend the life of your service brakes, it'll help with warming up the truck too. One of the features I liked the most about the VGT turbo on my 08 was for the warmup mode. Enable the brake, then set the fast idle to about 1300 rpm and it warmed up really quickly.

 

ok thanks horatio i really appreciate the help.. im gonna look into that smarty.. wheres the best place to get it?

 

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