Truly Bullet Proof
This is where the actual upgrades started taking shape. For starters, Bullet Proof will re-sleeve the injector bores in the cylinder heads to prevent cracks in the bores from letting fuel into the coolant. This process actually takes a couple weeks, so ours were sent off to be re-sleeved and will most likely be used on another 6.0 down the line, while Juan pulled a pair from their stock to use. At the same time, he put in new head studs and head gaskets, as well as a new set of OEM injectors courtesy of Alliant Power. Typically, Bullet Proof doesn’t replace the injectors during this process, because they say that a lot of times, injectors get blamed for issues that actually come from elsewhere in the engine: usually the stock FICM. They still inspect them to make sure nothing is amiss and will reinstall them. In our case, we simply wanted to spruce up the truck and figured we might as well use new injectors since we’d be in the heart of the engine anyway.
The next piece of the puzzle was Bullet Proof’s oil cooler. Their version replaces the OEM oil cooler for one that uses an air cooler that looks a lot like a miniature radiator. The stock oil cooler is removed and replaced with a shiny oil transfer block, which has an integral HPOP screen that removes the need for the flimsy OE filter, which is prone to breakage. Once that’s in place and the rest of the engine is put back together, hoses run from the transfer block to the front of the condenser, where the new oil cooler is mounted. From there, more hoses run to the new oil filter, which gets mounted down under the front bumper.
After the oil cooler installation, Juan installed a new BulletProof billet water pump, which was pretty simple to do with the front of the truck taken apart. But that was just a prelude to the main reason for the trip: the new EGR cooler itself. As we discussed last month, the stock coolers suffer from poor design and clog easily, which leads to overheating and structural failure. Bullet Proof’s design improves the flow of coolant through the EGR to eliminate the problem at the source. Once it was installed onto the intake manifold, Juan dropped the whole apparatus into place and began to button everything back up.
Along the way, we saw a lot of little improvements, from the newly shiny turbo to new fluid caps to a 7.3L fan clutch adapter. That adapter allows the truck to use the mechanical fan clutch from a 7.3 instead of the electronic fan clutch that’s standard on the 6.0. This allows the fan to come on earlier and run longer, improving overall engine cooling.
Bullet Proof’s final addition to the truck was their improved fuel injection control module. It features an all-billet aluminum housing to increase heat dissipation and also has a thicker, vibration-resistant circuit board that’s designed to better handle the voltage output. We went with the 6-phase version, which has two additional redundant circuits to spread the work load.