JAMADOR

Figure it’s about time I start one of these, even though it’ll be a pretty slow progress thread/build.

It was a process getting into this truck. With the growth of my wife’s business, it was becoming less & less practical to haul our inventory with her Flex, so we decided to get rid of our Civic & get a truck.

We originally started looking at used trucks. Test drove a few & scoured the Houston dealers looking for something I liked. Came close on an Oxford 2013 FX2 SCrew, but wasn’t in love with it.
Got hooked on a Ruby/Pecan 2013 Platinum, but the dealer wouldn’t play ball & was solid (high) on the price.



Walked on that one & found a Tuxedo/Marina 2014 Limited 4WD, started thing moving on it, then was told by the dealer that they couldn’t sell it to me due to the brake recall.



That pushed us to looking at new trucks, which I never thought would work into our budget. I knew I wanted a Sport (not a fan of chrome at all) & the 2.7EB. Wasn’t aware of the multiple options for the rear end at the time.
We started with a 2016 Lithium XLT Sport SCrew, was pretty sold on the truck, but it didn’t have Navigation or CarPlay, and I wasn’t 100% sold on the Lithium.
Found a 2016 Magnetic XLT Sport at the dealer’s sister lot across town, with NAV & the pano roof, negotiated off the ‘protection package’ from it & the price was a wash.
So, that’s the one we ended up with: 2016 F150 XLT Sport SCrew 2WD 2.7EcoBoost 3.31 rear end. It had about 500 miles on it when I took delivery; my dealer was the truck’s 3rd dealer, factory delivered to a dealer on the west side of town, moved to my dealer’s sister dealer in NE Houston, then transferred to my dealer in N Houston. Luckily the front windows were already tinted to match the rears.

The day we brought it home:

JAMADOR

Doing truck things & hauling our 7x12 cargo trailer for our business:


First things I did were to remove the front plate, Sport bedside stickers, EcoBoost door badges & F150 tailgate badge.



Shortly after it went in for a LineX, went for just the standard.



Added a Cravenspeed Stubby antenna. No noticeable reception decrease.

Thanks to the ForSCAN thread, I’ve added HDC:
Before:

After:



Also, made some minor ForSCAN changes: GT Splash screen, climate menu enabled, heated seats on home screen, key chime disabled, Bambi mode, Global windows, auto re-lock, APIM menu color (may switch to GT Blue).
Upgraded to Sync3 V2.2, but haven’t replaced the USB hub yet, so no CarPlay. But, I have a Note5, so I use AndroidAuto.

JAMADOR

Did some light towing over Thanksgiving last year & hauled our old Civic up to my sister. Houston, TX to Albuquerque, NM. The 2.7 had no problems over the whole trip & did decently with fuel as well, 14-16MPG there & 19-21 coming back.

With my mom’s 2014 SRW F350 Platinum PSD


Had to give a Raptor a tow in early December


Removed the air dam last week & much prefer the look.

JAMADOR

Decided to do some lighting upgrade, thanks to BlackBoost & bhamilton, I bought a pair of these LEDs for the low beams.

After about an hour or work, it’s a much-improved picture at night.
Mid-Install:

Finished:


A few comparison shots:


Low Beams:

Low beams & fogs:

Bambi Mode: High + Low + Fog



Plans are to put the same bulbs in the foglights at minimum, the color difference is pretty noticeable.

JAMADOR

And that’s how she stands today. Have things planned to do, but we’re working on buying a house, so no big purchases for right now.

There are days (usually when towing our sail of a trailer on a windy day) that I think the 3.5EB would’ve been better, but considering 80-90% of my driving is not towing, I’m more than happy with the 2.7EB.
If I could do it again, I might have look a little harder & tried to find a 502A Lariat Sport, but it wasn’t in the budget at the time. I didn’t drive any with anything other than the 2.7 & 3.31, so I don’t have any comparison reference to how it would drive with the 3.73 gears.

Looking at Fuelly, I’m sitting at 18.0mpg over about 9k miles. Considering probably 2,000 miles of that was towing (1,000 with a car dolly to NM & the rest local with our business trailer) I’m pretty pleased with the economy. The worst was towing the cargo trailer (empty) up to my dad’s to get it outfitted a bit better for us on a really windy day, so it was 4th & 5th gear for an hour each way at highway speeds; I think we got about 9mpg that day.

JAMADOR

Future Mods/Projects:
Next on the list is likely to add the OE brake controller
Rear wheel well liners
LED third brake light (OE Lariat+)
If they’ll work the same, some 2018 LED taillights, otherwise 2015-17 BLIS LED
Black switchback Anzos
Morimoto LED foglights
Bak MX4 cover
Livernois daily & tow tune
OE LED SuperDuty rear license lights (once confirmed they’re direct plug-n-play fit)
Hellwig RSB
Husky/Weathertech mats
OE Tailgate damper
Replace fender F150 badges & F/R Ford emblems
PTM Mirror caps
Lit/homelink visors
Fox 2.0 rear shocks
Vinyl wrap door pillars
8” cluster

Bigger projects:
OE ambient lighting
OE memory driver seat & mirrors / Lariat door panels
Maybe Katzkin leather down the road a ways / Lear rear seat with armrest
LED cubes in rear bumper
Front/Rear dash cams
Aux rear camera on trailer (if it can be done & integrate with the stock APIM)
Kill all interior chrome
Audio upgrade

Maybe Projects
Raptor steering wheel
Exhaust/downpipes
Intercooler/CAC ??Maybe??
36 gal gas tank
Wheels – Serious struggle to find any I like (not a fan of the fake beadlock bolts)
Brake upgrade
Lariat Sport grille
LED Light Bar
Projector upgrade in Anzos (distant maybe)

Firerunner

iTrader: (3)

Do you get people flashing you with these lights? I'm thinking it's time to do something to mine until I can afford the OE LED lights

JAMADOR

I've been flashed once, and that was with our loaded trailer behind us. Otherwise, have not had an issue yet.

In other news, crossed over 10k on Sunday.

JAMADOR

Got a rock chip on 6/1, when I left for work on 6/2, it had spread to this:

Now, it's about 2/3 across. Guess I need to price a new glass & check how much my deductible is.

Firerunner

iTrader: (3)

That sucks....do you have the soundscreen windshield?