OK I am back, now a little about me, I grew up on a farm, my grandfather owned the local Ford dealership back in my home town.
My life has been spent trucking, building stuff or operating heavy machinery.
When the fouth engine was not up to my expectations I had contacted Ken at DPS with the intention of buying an engine from him.
But time was against me by the time I had money in my hands from the buyout, I have snow customers that I had to make arrangements to take care of, hence the salvage yard motor which took to much cash to still buy a DPS engine.
So after I disassembled the engine, first I took the block and heads over to the machine shop to be hot tanked and checked out.
I wanted every thing well withing service limits, everything magnafluxed that could be done.
Everything was lloking good except the cylinders, they needed 30 thou to get them back in shape.
I felt comfortable with that, still left me 80 thou more cylinder wall than a 7.3 has.
Also the coolant passages we looked inside all of them as much as we could see with a bore scope, nothing raised any red flags.
So 30 over it was.
Time to check out the rods and crank, they were perfect.
As I say this, there was evidence this engine had been rebuilt not to long ago and a lot of parts had been replaced.
So the crank was polished and it was good to go.
We ordered Sealed Power hypereutectic pistons and rings, stock height 30 over.
Sealed Power cam and lifters.
New valve springs, 7.3 rockers, push rods and 7.3 turbo valves.
Bearings came from Sealed Power I believe....been to long now.
Gaskets were Fel Pro.
While we were waiting for parts, Joe the machinist did clean up the head passage castings just a little, the ports were matched on the intake and exhaust side, nothing major though.
When the pistons, rings and bearings came in, I had him cut 40 thou off the piston tops.
I had the rotating assembly balanced to 5000 RPM.
Joe went ahead and installed the crank and pistons while we waited on the head parts.
He installed the valves in the heads and gave me a call when the rest of the parts came in.
I picked everything up and took it home to finish the assembly process.
ARP head studs, ATS upgrade turbo .85 AR if I remember right and a Melling oil pump.
Everything wiped down with acetone to remove any traces of oil that may contaminate the sealing surfaces right before assembly, this was repeated for every part.
ARP studs, torqued to 105 Ft Lbs in four steps, also installed to torque and removed four times with moly assembly lube on the studs before the final install.
Everything inside the engine was stock torque settings, a dab of Locktite to make sure it stayed there.
Everything was painted blood red with Ceramic high heat paint on the engine exterior, but I thought it needed a bit of contrast, so I got some Silver high heat ceramic paint to do some of the stuff like the turbo, exhaust manifolds, brackets and such.
I also wrapped all of the cross over pipe, turbo up pipe and top of the down pipe with a double layer of header wrap soaked with ceramic paint to keep as much heat as I possibly could in the exhaust before the turbo.
More exhaust heat = more exhaust volume = more turbo boost
I put it together, used the stock 6.9 fuel system and left the boost set at 10 PSI for 5000 miles.
What a long way 5000 miles is when you are dying to play with a new toy.
Ran it very easy, varied speeds all the time and all that good breakin stuff like you should do.
EGT never went over 800 degrees, thermocouple in the number 8 exhaust port.
At 5000 miles I cranked up the fuel to max and raised the boost to all it would do.
Almost no smoke at all and 19 PSI.
My exhaust is 3" from the turbo, and three feet after the turbo it splits to two 3" stacks.
No muffler, and no bends sharper than 30 degrees untill after it splits.
On the intake side, I am running a 40 sq in intake scoop beside the radiator, reduces to 6" round, then 4" round to enter the stock ATS filter box.
If I run a Purolator filter the turbo is seeing 2.5 PSI pressure on the intake side at 70 MPH.
With K&N it is seeing 5 PSI at 70 MPH.
OK time for smoke, Ken built me a set of Stage 1 injectors.
I ordered a stock DB2-5070 IP from Ford.
Internal fuel screw bottomed out, then backed off 1/2 flat.
RPM set to over 3800 RPM
;
DPS injectors and the IP went on at the same time.
We have smoke, but nothing extreme and the turbo boost was hitting 23 PSI.
Max EGT went up to 1000 and it ran good.
Timing advance, Power Stroke rattle big time while the cold start timing advance is on, almost there after it kicks off.
Now it is starting to wake up.
OK time for external fuel screw....
SMOKE at last.
So now it has been about 6 months and I am starting to stand on it harder and harder.
One morning I was headed north in the early morning hours of December, nice and cold outside, truck is running great.
Cummins wants to play with the old Ford, blow smoke in the face and all that.
So lets see what we have, smoke on boost going over 25 and suddenly smoke gets blacker and the boost drops a couple pounds.
Great, blew head gasket I think.
Get to where I am going, sure enough, pressure in the radaitor, more than normal.
So I run it easy going home, no pressure in the radiator.
Next morning pulling that same hill about 24 pounds, the boost drops a couple pounds again, pressure in the radiator again.
Not loosing coolant, run it easy and everything is OK.
So that weekend, the engine comes out.
Valley pan has funny marks by the number 7 port.
Heads off to be sure though, heads gaskets look perfect.
All kinds of soot around the 5 and 7 exhaust port and both of the cross over pipe connections.
New head gaskets, new valley pan, new exhaust manifold gaskets and go through the NAPA exhaust gasket bin till I find a gasket that will work for the manifold to Y connection as well as the cross over pipe connections.
Also a can of spray copper high heat gasket maker.
Also grade 8 bolts that are to long for the intake and exhaust manifold bolt holes.
Reinstall the heads after sanitizing the surfaces again, torque to 110 ft pounds this time.
Custom cut each bolt to where it is bottoming out as it starts to tighten against the manifolds with no gasket in there.
Remove them in order, spray all the mating surfaces with three coats of copper gasket maker and let it all dry.
Assemble with gaskets and double washers under each bolt head, torque to double the stock torque value for each.
Install the exhaust gaskets from NAPA with tripple layer copper gasket maker on each surface there as well.
Engine back in truck.
That was 13 months and 35,000 miles ago.
Since all the exhaust is going into the turbo now, smoke is rather light again if the turbo is spooled.
Max boost is over 26 pounds.
Max EGT is right at 1200 degrees, if the hill is long enoughand steep enough I can hit 1250 if I really try.
How much power?
More than the U joints, drive shaft and transfer case can handle.
I get about 3 months out of a set of rear drive shaft U joints, but that is not to bad, I can remove the U joint with my fingers aftewr the clips are removed.
I just hope the driveshaft makes it to warmer weather.
I replaced the U joints last weekend, used a 9/16 wrench and a pair of needle nose pliers.
Never had to get out from under the truck.
Drop the U joint loose from the yoke, remove the clips, swap joints, bolt it back up.
10 minutes to do both joints.
I have also split one transfer case in half pulling a hill grossing about 24,000 pounds.
Dyno means nothing to me, put a load on it and go find a hill.
Fortunately I live in WV, I don't have to look very hard to find a hill.
The street beside my house is a 32% grade.
As a final parting thought.
You can take a Stroke or a Cummins or a Duramax and drop that 500 dollar chip in it and increase the power.
You also paid close to 50,000 dollars for the truck it is going into.
That 50,000 dollars operated my truck for the last 10 years.
It put tires, insurance, licenses, fuel, repairs and upgrades in it.
My 4000 dollars worth of engine parts and machine work is in that figure.
Now tell me how dollars per horsepower figure again.
Great history lesson!!!!!!
