Okay got it. So the fact that, knowing my buddy, he FOR SURE cut corners on fuel quality, if now why he is in this predicament?
No, has nothing to do with the fuel you use.
He will need to get a catch can for that truck.
I had problems at 20k miles and even got a check engine light on and went into the dealership and they told me there was a ton of oil inside my intake and throttle body and they had to clean stuff out. They said this was normal every 10-15k miles on the truck LOL.
That was when I realized for some cars\trucks catch cans are essentially required to prevent oil and crap going in places they shouldn't.
On the Hemi we don't have those problems (to that extent) because fuel cleans areas that would get gunk built up on the 5.3 from GM. I believe some Fords have a similar problem but were made in a way so it was not as bad as GM (but not like the design of the HEMI).
You can lookup catch cans on GDI engines and learn a lot about what is going on with those 5.3s, it's not all BS marketing.