Project: '94 CC F350 Service Pickup

[War Wagon]

I decided some time ago that I was going to make my '94 F350, seen in my avatar, my new service rig. I am shooting for a balance of economy, power, reliability, longevity, and durability. I want it to pass anyone I want to loaded and pull whatever I hook on to with ease. I've been collecting engine upgrade parts for a couple years now, and I finally tore in to it. This was the original plan:

New head gaskets w/ ARP studs. Updated valve seals. No head work unless necessary. Hypermax has some IDI valve train parts I'm curious about.
Cam (R&D IDI performance Stage 1)
Hybrid 093 turbo system (R&D IDI performance) w/ 3" turbine outlet/down pipe upgrade
Exhaust-3" down pipe to 4" straight (ATS/MBRP)
Intercooler (Banks Technicooler)
Custom air filter system. Not sure what it's going to be. I will figure it out when I get there.
Coolant filter
Injectors (Not sure what kind yet. Open to options)
Injection pump (Not sure if I will just turn up the running one I have or upgrade. Still making up my mind. Open to options.)
Upgraded lift pump system if needed.

Later on swapping in some 3.55 gears for my 4.10's. I plan to make enough power that I will not miss the 4.10's. And, then If I think I need a little more gearing a ZF-6, but most likely not until the ZF-5 is worn out.

I had hoped and planned for that to be all. My plans changed when the heads came off. I found three cracked pistons, cylinder walls with little to no cross hatching left, and four pistons that look like they got a little hot and started to melt a little right wear the precup enters the combustion chamber. I was not happy or impressed. It ran great prior to tearing down. I was just going to do a top end build and figured being well taken care of all its life and in great condition for its age and milage that the short block part of it would be in good running condition. Also, recently I have had a small amount of oil in my coolant. I will make a pressure tester for the oil cooler to make sure that's the issue.

Now I know "This thread is useless without pictures". I'm going to try and figure out how to get them on here.

So, the new plan is to keep going pull the engine tear it the rest of the way down and make it right. It's hard to see the piston damage I'm talking about. I will try to get some better pictures later.

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[War Wagon]

Now on a lighter note. Here is the 2007 STAHL body I bought and my custom built front bumper.

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[FordGuy100]

Looks like you got yourself a 093 ATS "customized" firewall with all that soot....mine does too!

 

[junk]

Interested to see the Hybrid turbo system. Looks like a fun build. I really like the front bumper. I just got done fitting a 99 up ranchhand bumper like that to my 89 I'm putting the 92-97 nose on. So I'm a big fan of purposeful bumpers!

Regarding the transmission swap really check out the gear ratios first before doing the ZF6. I did a bunch of looking at that one time and it seemed like a lot more hassle than it's worth. It only really gives a granny 1st gear if I remember correctly.

 

[War Wagon]

Interested to see the Hybrid turbo system. Looks like a fun build. I really like the front bumper. I just got done fitting a 99 up ranchhand bumper like that to my 89 I'm putting the 92-97 nose on. So I'm a big fan of purposeful bumpers!

Regarding the transmission swap really check out the gear ratios first before doing the ZF6. I did a bunch of looking at that one time and it seemed like a lot more hassle than it's worth. It only really gives a granny 1st gear if I remember correctly.

I've been following your build and that Ranchhand looks good on there. Better Than the one that is actually for an OBS. The gear swap is definitely more beneficial than the ZF-6. I've looked into it quite a little also. I would like to do it someday anyhow, but that's for another day.

 

[junk]

yeah getting down to 3.55's will be really nice. Truthfully 3.55's are almost a little high. If I was to buy gears for my truck i would probably look at 3.73's. I think that would be a perfect gear for pulling grunt and running empty economy.

When I pull with 3.55's I can run OD, but at 65 I"m normally just under 2,000 RPM. I would actually like to be a bit higher. Now I'm referencing my 93 with a tired motor, new stock type pump and factory 093 ATS turbo. So I'm definitely not in the HP range you will be once your back up and running.

 

[tanman_2006]

I know it's different engines but gm has 3.73 gears in some 3/4 and 1 tons. I feel 3.55(3.42 for us) s and a 5 speed would be a good combo because at 60 you can run 4th towing and still be reasonable on rpms. My problem is gettgetting my loads moving sometimes and with a 5 speed and 4.10s I need lower gears to get rolling w/o alot of clutch. A 7.3 makes torque lower in the rpms than me so you might be just fine.

Fwiw, I have 4.56 gears sitting on the bench and have been looking for a ranger gear splitter for one of my rigs that grosses over 30k with farm equip and hay.

 

[War Wagon]

Any suggestions on pistons and bearing kits and were to buy. I'm not finding what I'm looking for online. I would think Mahle pistons are the way to go or maybe Motorcraft or International parts. For some reason I seem to think that Mahle pistons were OEM on these engines. Not sure on that though. Hypermax makes pistons but they appear to be for na engines not turbo blocks. I should give them a call.

 

[War Wagon]

Junk

I call it a hybrid turbo. Right now it is planned to be a modified version of the stock 093 turbo. It will be from Justin at R&D IDI Performance. He calls it a stage 2. Who knows, it could change again by the time I get this done.

 

[icanfixall]

All the idi engines came with Mahle pistons. They were the oem maker and they are the best hands down. Custom pistons are made out there too but they are costly too. When I pulled apart my oem block I found plenty of crosshatching in the borea. I had almost 375,000 miles on that engine too but it was tired. I was burning 3 gallons of water in the 32 mile trip to work and back each day. I never did figure out where that was leaking. Some starts the engine would lock up. Once so bad I needed a tow to get home. The tow didn't get to me by the time I hand cranked the engine thru so I started it up. Drove it home and parked it. I air tested the bare block to 35 lbs and never found a cylinder leak or anything. I felt it probably was a head gasket... There is a better bearing out there that Russ, typ4 knows about. Its a harder material made much differantly than the oem bearings. Be careful buying a replacement oil pump. The melling is of a lower quality than the oem pumps. They do not do quality controll on all pumps and some have a wide clearance. Russ found that out once. Thats was a good find too. I just found 2 new oem pumps I forgot I bought. I think International get around $700.00 for those. I would let one of mine go for much less than that. The melling pumps are around $200.00 on fleabay these days. REbuilding the block is what many here do a poor job of. First off finding a quality shop to do the machine work is tuff. Then bluprinting the block is very important. This is when all the machined surfaces are trued. Look at the rods and mains. If they show lots of wear on the sides those are poorly machined cylinder or main webs causing the side wear. Lost of machine work will make more lost hp because of the reduction of internasl darg from poorly machined parts. If Diesel Direct is still around in Florida give them a cal for parts you need.The last location I got stuff from Diesel Direct was 12180 Phillips highway Jacksonville Fl 32256. That was in 2007.

 

[War Wagon]

Got all the pistons out and the bearings, rods, and bottom end in general looks very good. No wear that I can see on the sides of the rods. crank bearings showed minimal wear. i haven't got the main bearings out yet. I have to decide now if I will just run a bead hone down the holes and put a nice new cross hatch on them or take the block to the machine shop and have it sleeved. My cooling system has had good maintenance. I don't think I need to be afraid of cavitation. Hopefully Russ will chime in and inform me of these bearings. New bearings, gaskets, and pistons would put me in good shape. Still need to have the heads checked out. Pictures later.

 

[tanman_2006]

If you feel comfortable with honing and reringing then that's the way I would go. Not sure who makes the best bearings for your application but total seal gapless rings are worth it.

 

[War Wagon]

Well, the heads need to be rebuilt and surfaced, and the block needs to be decked. I sent it all off to the machine shop I've decided to go with and I'm waiting to hear what all will need to be done. If some benefit from porting the heads could be had I would be ok with putting up the extra cash to get the best performing heads I can while I'm here. I won't know what pistons I will need until the machine work is done. I'm told that MAHLE makes pistons .010 and .020 under the stock hight, and with an anodized coating I'm told. I need to call MAHLE and get the specifics to decide if I even need to be ceramic coating the pistons if they come with an anodized top. The .010 and .020 under pistons would give me some options to lower the comp ratio. So, I am looking forward to that. If I could drop my comp and little and not need to send the pistons out for coating that would be great. I'll update when I know more from the machine shop.

 

[79jasper]

The cam will bleed off some compression. Which will allow you to run higher boost.

Is that why you want lower compression?

 

[icanfixall]

The Mahle pistons with the black anadoised coating will not accept a ceramic coating on top of them.. That anadoised finish must be machined and snad blasted off before ceramic coating. I only know of a 10 under piston for lowering the compression. I did not know Mahle had a 20 under too.