Kiki 06 Ford E-350, 6.0 Diesel, Van Conversion

[kikisadventures]

I thought the tuner was specific to motor not necessarily model, ie the tuner doesn't care if the 6.0 is in a F-350 or a E-350. I clearly haven't done all my homework on this yet as the tuner isn't super high on my priorities.

 

[kikisadventures]

I'm in the process of building a coffee table (pics to come later). It's my first real wood project so it'll be good practice. Anyway, the base is made from 1" square tubing and that gave me an idea...

The 1" tube sits pretty nicely on the roof flange. I think I could probably fabricate a high top. I threw one together with the correct overall dims in SolidWorks just to get the gears turning. The tubing weighs 130lbs. I can probably shave off ~20 lbs by optimizing it. The skin is 18 gauge/0.05" for now. That would weigh 280 lbs if it was steel or 98 lbs if it was aluminum. I'm leaning towards steel for ease of fabrication. For comparison, the fiberglass weighs 280 lbs.


Pros
Cost. I'm guessing that's probably <$1000 in material vs $5000-6000.
It'll be load bearing so I can put a roof rack on top of it for sitting on
Easy to frame in my own windows/fan/AC
Easy to work with steel vs fiberglass
I can make it whatever shape I want it to be

Cons
It'll be at least a month to build (working on weekends only)
Probably heavier
Corrosion
Maybe won't look as nice

 

[RememberTheFallen]

I thought the tuner was specific to motor not necessarily model, ie the tuner doesn't care if the 6.0 is in a F-350 or a E-350. I clearly haven't done all my homework on this yet as the tuner isn't super high on my priorities.

I could be wrong but from what I understand the tune is completely different from F to E so a tune designed to add 100hp to a 335HP F350 does what to a 245HP E350?? I did see someone mention that it would actually be a 190HPish tune (100+90hp difference) but I don't think that is the same.

Good luck on the high top. I designed my roof rack around 1" tube sitting in the gutter. Sure you noticed but it isn't flat. I had to incorporate a curve to it.

Also that is a lot of weight up high. IMO, you would have better luck finding a cheap fiberglass high top at a Pull Part.

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[kikisadventures]

I'll be sure to research the hell out of it before I pull the trigger.

If I could find a 30" high top in a pick and pull I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I haven't been scanning for super long but I haven't seen any high tops let alone one for my model and the height I want.

Your roof rack looks great. The tubes bend enough to match the contour if I clamp them so I'll just built it in place. I just measured the thickness I made my truck firewall out of and it's actually 20 gauge steel with a few removable 18 gauge aluminum panels. That thickness should be fine. 20 ga is 75% the weight of 18 ga so I'd be looking at something closer 210 lbs for the skin. I'm sure I could drop the weight of the frame itself substantially so that really doesn't put me too much over the fiberglass weight. The roof rack is just a pipe dream as of now. It would be cool to sit up there to watch races or have dinner when there's a view. It would probably only cover the back half and essentially just be a deck with removable cable railing so we don't kill ourselves falling off. That could also be aluminum.

 

[kikisadventures]

I finally finished the the coffee table so I have more time to start building



Looks like the first trip will be from Los Angeles to Denver towing my truck so I want to get it dialed in for a long road trip towing. I finished replacing the ball joints and swapped in new shocks. I tried to get fox shocks for the front and rear but weldtec doesn't sell them by themselves and Agile wasn't responsive enough to get the order through. I feel like there's a market to sell shocks to non-lifted/non-4x4 vans so I'm not sure what their deals were. I ended up going with bilstein comfort shocks (33-176840, 33-187563 ). I found the best deal here: https://www.shocksurplus.com/products/bilstein-b6-shocks-set-for-1999-2014-ford-e-350-super-duty-rwd. I don't plan to do a ton of offroading so I probably didn't need the fox anyway. It drives night and day different. The old shock were completely blown. I like the new shocks so far but I don't have a lot of miles on them yet.


I started accumulating some parts for upgrades. More info to come as I install. The only other thing I may do before the trip is insulate the floor to reduce the road noise.
Rear Camera: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B..._title_huc_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=AVL62AP02U78R
Stereo: https://www.crutchfield.com/S-Dlw3wOEdtgu/p_130DM1500/Pioneer-DMH-1500NEX.html
Hitch: https://www.etrailer.com/Trailer-Hitch/Draw-Tite/41945.html
Towing Mirrors: https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Manual...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
Cruise Control: https://www.ebay.com/itm/OEM-97-03-...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649, https://www.ebay.com/itm/1997-2003-...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

 

[RememberTheFallen]

I finally finished the the coffee table so I have more time to start building
View attachment 608952
View attachment 608953

Looks like the first trip will be from Los Angeles to Denver towing my truck so I want to get it dialed in for a long road trip towing. I finished replacing the ball joints and swapped in new shocks. I tried to get fox shocks for the front and rear but weldtec doesn't sell them by themselves and Agile wasn't responsive enough to get the order through. I feel like there's a market to sell shocks to non-lifted/non-4x4 vans so I'm not sure what their deals were. I ended up going with bilstein comfort shocks (33-176840, 33-187563 ). I found the best deal here: https://www.shocksurplus.com/products/bilstein-b6-shocks-set-for-1999-2014-ford-e-350-super-duty-rwd. I don't plan to do a ton of offroading so I probably didn't need the fox anyway. It drives night and day different. The old shock were completely blown. I like the new shocks so far but I don't have a lot of miles on them yet.
View attachment 608951

I started accumulating some parts for upgrades. More info to come as I install. The only other thing I may do before the trip is insulate the floor to reduce the road noise.
Rear Camera: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B..._title_huc_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=AVL62AP02U78R
Stereo: https://www.crutchfield.com/S-Dlw3wOEdtgu/p_130DM1500/Pioneer-DMH-1500NEX.html
Hitch: https://www.etrailer.com/Trailer-Hitch/Draw-Tite/41945.html
Towing Mirrors: https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Manual...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
Cruise Control: https://www.ebay.com/itm/OEM-97-03-...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649, https://www.ebay.com/itm/1997-2003-...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

Is cruise control as simple as a new wheel and wiring it in?

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[kikisadventures]

Apparently for many models it is. These are the reference links I have saved
https://www.sportsmobileforum.com/forums/f9/adding-cruise-control-21304-2.html

 

[kikisadventures]

Well that's not gonna work... They said it was compatible with my model of van so hopefully they can exchange it for one that works. The quality is really nice.


I started prepping for the stero. I was trying to pull the cigarette lighters blind without pulling the whole dash but had no luck. I decided to pull the dash instead of breaking something and once I had it out I decided to just make a new hole for the aux and usb for the stereo. Here is what the back side of the cigarette lighters look like in case that helps anyone in the future.



With the dash off I notice some funky stuff going on with the wiring. Anyone have any idea what that could have been? This is at the base of the steering column. The van was stolen at some point before I bought it so maybe it's from hot wiring?

 

[Raul]

Great project. I looks like you are more than capable of turning this thing around.

The wire mess could be from a trailer controller or, since this was a fleet van, a monitoring device.

For your high roof, I’ve been considering doing something like what you have in mind, but I do no thing it’s going to happened. I would consider a few things since you have a blank canvas. With the roof, this thing already provide very little rollover protection. Since you’ll be building an upper framing, build some legs and do a roll cage around the passenger area. If you plan to do floor to roof cabinets, use one of those walls as a structural wall. Lastly, I know it’s a draft, but add some triangles to the horizontal section of your roof.

 

[kikisadventures]

For ********** and giggles I decided to see what the passenger side mirror looked like and was dumbfounded. The new mirrors are right for that door. The drivers side door must have been replaced at some point with a different year or something. The mirror that was on there is a hack job. I'm pretty sure I can get the mirror to work by adding some more holes...hopefully

Drivers side


Passenger Side


New Passenger Mirror. It telescopes out about 3"

 

[kikisadventures]

The steering wheel and clocking ring came in. The wheel looks brand new!


More of the stupid wiring mess. The OCD in me wants to cut it out but that'll probably cause more problems than it's worth.

 

[kikisadventures]

I decided on doing the Edge CTS3 with the EGT add on. Seemed to be a lot easier than adding the individual gauges. Tuner is TBD but probably pretty far down the road. From what I read, I want to add the pyro sensor at the rear of the D-side exhaust manifold. Does anyone have any advice on the best place to go through the firewall?

 

[Bikersmurf]

I’ve seen many write ups on drilling extra holes in the door to mount that style of mirrors. I’d go for it and mount the d/s mirror also:

 

[plumber mike]

Diesel tech Ron(RIP) on Utube is a great resource for 6.0 technical info. Very knowledgeable and helpful.
It helped me figure out what to monitor on my torque app.

 

[kikisadventures]

thanks for the input guys. I'll look up some of those youtube vids