Building a 6.9 to kill

[Abull78]

ok, so after some reading I am leaning towards keeping a stock bottom end, except for the piston. The 6.9 has four bolt mains, forged crank, forged rods. Aside from balancing and possibly knife edging the crank, the bottom is just gonna get cleaned up and re-used. Is there anyone with PnP experience on these motors? I don't know anyone that I would trust taking the heads too. I suppose I could clean them up a bit myself but, I am leaning towards having a pro opening them up as much as possible.

So just to sum up, the bottom end is decided on. Still need to find the best way to fuel the motor and some input on heads would be helpful too.

 

[93f250idi]

I wouldn't see a point in intercooling a n/a truck. I think your right about the restriction too! Nice truck can't wait to see some more pics of the build!!

 

[93turbo_animal]

To be honest I didn't notice really who was posting what as there was so many post to read it just seemed several had kind of a bad vibe towards a new guy and I know we all have our bad days and things don't nescesarily come across right over the net and I know many here take pride in this being a brotherhood first and truck forum second. So no harm no foul

I don't know of any guys that have tried to run an intercooler with out turbo as theres no point as the air wouldn't be any cooler then a good cold air intake design unless your gonna run it thru a water to air cooler with ice water in it but then I think like you said there would be to much restriction to be beneficial.

 

[rjjp]

My dead **** 1986 F250 6.9, T19 4speed, 4,10"s, leaky rear main seal, grant steering wheel and skull shifter knob. Tires are 35"s

What is available? I am here for ideas and leads. What is available on the injection side of things? Don't hog the secret sauce, share the recipe!!!!

One word Moose. Mel (agnem) gets a rebuild that is higly recommend.

 

[1994IDI]

Question, do you guys run intercoolers on a non turbo truck? Seems like the gains from cooler air would be robbed from the restiction the intercooler would put on the incoming air?

I have not even got my turbo'd truck intercooled yet, and have not had an N/A IDI, so I am not a knowledgeable source of information on that. My guess would certainly be that is would not be worth the time or money.
There will be more members chime in with cylinder head advice. I know Gary (Icanfixall) did a lot of work on his heads, and we have several others that will be able to offer a lot of knowledge on the machining. But definitley get them opened up one way or another. Same with the intake manifold, and possibly even the exhaust manifolds for the power numbers that you have in mind.

 

[Abull78]

Hey abull are you in vegas? I saw a truck exactly like that on craigslist not to long ago called the guy cause he had an 01 with a knock he was willing to give the 86 to some one who could fix it turned out it was a 5.4 gasser in the 01 so I didn't get it. If you are in vegas might want to stop by J&S diesel and see if they got anybody that still knows thees pumps Like Scott did RIP. He built a lot of Pumps for some high powerd rigs including a P pump to suport 120psi of boost on a cummins forget how was building the rest of the truck I think it was edge but not sure of coures the engine blew up befor 120psi. I've seen fire rtinged heads for these on Hypermaxes site IIRC but it could have been a miss print. Also give hypermax a call about the CCs they could get out of a DB2 they are pretty giving with info from what I've heard from guys building Ppumps for 466s.

400hp doesn't sound rediculous to me the DB2 could definatly suport that the bottom end would take it the block would take it. Now weather or not you can get it to breath enough to make that power for more than a dyno run at a time with out melting things I'm not so sure but it could still drive around fry tires race pull a sled. But if you try'd to tow with it you might run in to trouble with out detuning it first.

Hahahahahaha, George, yeah that was the same truck!!!! I spoke to J&S, after spending sometime on the phone with them I would not be using them for any portion of this build. I am sure they have a large amount of pleased customers BUT, I really didn't get a good feeling from the person I spoke with. As an example, the offered to turn up the IP on the truck for $250 bucks, I thought that was interesting as it took me 5 minutes to do. They might just have an abnormally high labor rate 5 minsx $250 = $3000 per hour, that is just a tad on the high side. I did however find another shop with an extremely old man and he was like an encyclopedia on the 6.9!!!!! I am sure I will be using them for portions of the project.

 

[opusd2]

I think ram air would be more efficient in an NA truck since the intercooler would seem to me, anyway, to be a lot of constriction without something pushing the air through. But I haven't tried it at all, just thought a lot about it myself and ended up thinking I would just toss on either a cowl intake like on an HMMV, or something grabbing off the front of the truck. If I ever do go turbo, which I would love to do because the whine of the turbo just gets me tingling in a lot of places, I would want to run an IC then pull from either out the side like on a bigger truck or the cowl once again. Even though it would be loud. And that would be fine with me since I don't like carrying passengers anyway. I always thought a shaker hood scoop from something like the newer Rustangs would be pretty neat. But then again my truck is so close to being a truck from Mad Max already, I was just thinking of going the rest of the way to Rat Truck Land.

But yours is a nice starting point for a pretty project. Maybe a Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde kind of deal. Like I feel sometimes about myself when I get burnt out. I just REALLY appreciate that you don't have those NASTY 22" jobs on your truck. To me they just look like crap, and probably lose a lot of off road ability without any real sidewalls...

 

[93turbo_animal]

ok, so after some reading I am leaning towards keeping a stock bottom end, except for the piston. The 6.9 has four bolt mains, forged crank, forged rods. Aside from balancing and possibly knife edging the crank, the bottom is just gonna get cleaned up and re-used. Is there anyone with PnP experience on these motors? I don't know anyone that I would trust taking the heads too. I suppose I could clean them up a bit myself but, I am leaning towards having a pro opening them up as much as possible.

So just to sum up, the bottom end is decided on. Still need to find the best way to fuel the motor and some input on heads would be helpful too.

Again finding a pro that knows anything about these motors is gonna be tough, but as for PnP there was a process that they pumped an abrasive putty thru the head to mimick air flow and it cuts and smooths as it goes.

 

[George D.]

Hahahahahaha, George, yeah that was the same truck!!!! I spoke to J&S, after spending sometime on the phone with them I would not be using them for any portion of this build. I am sure they have a large amount of pleased customers BUT, I really didn't get a good feeling from the person I spoke with. As an example, the offered to turn up the IP on the truck for $250 bucks, I thought that was interesting as it took me 5 minutes to do. They might just have an abnormally high labor rate 5 minsx $250 = $3000 per hour, that is just a tad on the high side. I did however find another shop with an extremely old man and he was like an encyclopedia on the 6.9!!!!! I am sure I will be using them for portions of the project.

Yeah they have gone down hill since scott died. Hold on shop with an old dude that is an encyclopidia on 6.9s we got one of then old dudes but he's pretty much against the whole idea adding power to these engines. If you want I can bump your timming a bit for now, depending on where its at of coures.

 

[Abull78]

Yeah they have gone down hill since scott died. Hold on shop with an old dude that is an encyclopidia on 6.9s we got one of then old dudes but he's pretty much against the whole idea adding power to these engines. If you want I can bump your timming a bit for now, depending on where its at of coures.

Im down for that, Ill buy the beer!

 

[George D.]

Sweet!

 

[opusd2]

I just remembered that when I was a kid of 20 and had my 82 Grand Prix with the 5.7 diesel, I was sure I wanted to turbo charge it since the stock manifolds provide an easy mount, kinda. But then I realized I'd have to jump in the thing and ring the cylinders and do other upgrades to handle ANY kind of power addition and in the end I just said to hell with it and just did some external adjustments, removed drag, and adjusted the size of the rear wheels to come up with some more ponies.

The point I was trying to make, is that at some point in our lives we all want to squeeze the lemon for every drop. But as time goes on there is a certain pride in just attaining reliability and smoothing out the beasts inconsistencies for a better engine. There are so many ways to toughen up these critters and I am sure they could take a lot more abuse than most of us give them, but for me I like the fact that my pig of a 6.9 will tow what my brother's 94 Dodge Cummins will, only slower. Then again I set the truck up right where he is careless.

You know, do a lot of searching around the net and see what flops out in front of you as far as info goes. There are a lot of really good sources out there, and especially in here since most of us seem to drink #2 and **** #1 because we've been working on these guys so long. As for me, I've been working on International Tractors over 25 years now which is why I love my Thresher engine. But I know for sure there are a lot better sources than me because I've done mostly Ag work and they are usually Inline diesels, but share a lot of engineering and accouterments with our V8s.

As my dad always taught me, you can ask questions and learn about something all you want that way, but until you do it yourself you'll only have an idea what it's all about. And screwing up is a great teacher, albeit a costly one.

We're all here to help. And though I may not be a big fan of squeezing a lot of power out of these engines, I know they can handle a lot more than most of us work out of them. But my philosophy is that the more you push out, the shorter it will last. Engines are like that, so are cows.

 

[Knuckledragger]

I remember a 70's Ford truck that was in Four Wheeler Magazine in the 80's that was a bright blue. And I'll be damned if I can find that color, because if I do it would be waiting to get sprayed all over one of my trucks.

I think you are remembering Grabber Blue, something that was on Mavericks to make them look cool. It was pretty intense.

 

[Abull78]

I just remembered that when I was a kid of 20 and had my 82 Grand Prix with the 5.7 diesel, I was sure I wanted to turbo charge it since the stock manifolds provide an easy mount, kinda. But then I realized I'd have to jump in the thing and ring the cylinders and do other upgrades to handle ANY kind of power addition and in the end I just said to hell with it and just did some external adjustments, removed drag, and adjusted the size of the rear wheels to come up with some more ponies.

The point I was trying to make, is that at some point in our lives we all want to squeeze the lemon for every drop. But as time goes on there is a certain pride in just attaining reliability and smoothing out the beasts inconsistencies for a better engine. There are so many ways to toughen up these critters and I am sure they could take a lot more abuse than most of us give them, but for me I like the fact that my pig of a 6.9 will tow what my brother's 94 Dodge Cummins will, only slower. Then again I set the truck up right where he is careless.

You know, do a lot of searching around the net and see what flops out in front of you as far as info goes. There are a lot of really good sources out there, and especially in here since most of us seem to drink #2 and **** #1 because we've been working on these guys so long. As for me, I've been working on International Tractors over 25 years now which is why I love my Thresher engine. But I know for sure there are a lot better sources than me because I've done mostly Ag work and they are usually Inline diesels, but share a lot of engineering and accouterments with our V8s.

As my dad always taught me, you can ask questions and learn about something all you want that way, but until you do it yourself you'll only have an idea what it's all about. And screwing up is a great teacher, albeit a costly one.

We're all here to help. And though I may not be a big fan of squeezing a lot of power out of these engines, I know they can handle a lot more than most of us work out of them. But my philosophy is that the more you push out, the shorter it will last. Engines are like that, so are cows.

I get it, I do. There are purists and non-purists. Guys that restore cars and guys that restorod them. I dont think there is anything wrong with keeping your pig stock, I just prefer to jam a quarter stick of dynamite up the rear end of my pig. As far as reliability, if a stocker can get 600k+, i dont see why a slightly modded 6.9 couldn't see 300k. I will take a 400hp truck with 300k between overhauls all day long!

 

[opusd2]

Yeah, I may like to keep things so they run forever, but I have no problem with upgrading those items that are problematic or which would benefit from an increase in power or output. Like an internally regulated alternator instead of an externally regulated one that would go from dim to brighter to dim again with the rpm change of the engine on a Ford. Or those damn bad grounds!

Or if I was a purist I wouldn't be readying my 77 F250 highboy for a diesel conversion. I'm just saying I like to achieve bulletproof whenever I can, and an increase in power is fine. But I don't make enough money to justify putting something that could run forever to it's limits because if it went, I would be SOL.

Grabber blue? Holy Crap, that could be it! Man, what a bright color! Thanks for enlightening me, now maybe I could sleep with one less thing to obsess about.