boost, no boost, boost, no boost

[derbinator]

I have a 05 f250. Had my ficm rebuilt by swamps diesel with the 54 volt upgrade and at that time, last fall, the dealer installed latest flash. my truck sat for a couple months. ever since my turbo has been giving me more and more trouble. At first I was always overboosting and going into limp mode per the new flash. now i am having trouble with low boost. i just picked my truck up from the dealer because they wanted to replace my ficm because of my low boost problem. he thinks my modified ficm is causeing all kinds of problems. they did clean the turbo and replaced the vgt with no luck. on the way home, about a 20 mile drive highway, i was unable to get any boost at all. i finally pulled over and held the brakes and started getting after the accelerator. all of a sudden i started building boost and a way i went with 20 psi. a couple miles down the road all i could get was about 10 psi and my exhaust was making a strong swish sound, blowing air but no power. any ideas? i have no codes other then the low boost and the dealer says the ficm is throwing one and i asked swamps about it , they assurred me i didn't have to worry about it.

[derbinator]

any advice here would be appreciated. I retested my ficm voltage and its good. I have not seen anywhere on these forums that the ficm would be causing my no, low boost problems and that is what the dealer wants to replace. I think he nuts. Anybody?

[NYC F-350]

The whole thing boils down to:
If you want a job done right, do it yourself.

The turbo is sticking. Call Tousley Ford. (800) 328-9552. Order the turbo reconditioning kit. You might even want to spend the 100 bucks or so for a new unison ring.
When you get the kit, take your turbo off the truck, split the 2 halves and clean it yourself and replace the unison ring. Be good as new.
Your FICM is very very unlikely to be the source of the issue.

[derbinator]

My truck is still in the shop. I just talked to the tech and he know thinks that the cat is plugged. He said he loosened some bolts at the down pipe to exhaust and know the truck runs great. I had a mrbp cat back exhaust put on a couple months ago, could that have caused an issue? Also I do recall that when I turn the truck off I would hear a rattle that I assumed was coming from the exhaust but figured it was a hanger or something. I am wondering wether to replace the cat or get rid of it and go turbo back? Any advice?

[NYC F-350]

Delete it if you can get away with it. There could be fines if you get caught, just so you are aware. The sound of the turbo will get louder through the exhaust once you delete.

If you have a "cat-back" system, all you would need is a cat delete pipe. Runs about 55 bucks....

[derbinator]

So does it sound resonable that it would be causing my problems?

[NYC F-350]

A restriction in the exhaust system would present issues. To what extent would depend on the size of that restriction.
It is possible that your plugged cat could very well be the source of your trouble.

[derbinator]

Just a quick update. I had the cat removed and it was junk. Loose guts and what not. Had a delete pipe put in and now my truck is running great. Just sucked it took 3 weeks to figure out, and the dealer I was going to actually treated me pretty fairly. After I got to talk to the tech himself I was way more confident in what he was doing, the manager is a nice guy but really should not be relaying information, he made me really nervous about what they were doing. Glad to have my truck back and running

[RodeoPapaStroker]

Just for my information, how many miles were on your cat?

[derbinator]

It had 50,000.