Antarctic IDI Build

Wait...WHAT...awwwww man...if I'd have know you was gonna start the Ambo up...would've liked to have seen dat!
Sub'd to see the final product...

Oh ANd...the SuperDuke is running like a BEAST! I actually passed some cars yesterday...

Had an eventful ride in the ambo yesterday while working on getting the wastegate set just right to keep it from over boosting on downshifts and swapping speedo gears in to get the speedometer accurate with the 37s. Was driving down my usual test route on I10 on the long hills outside Comfort had a blowout on one of the rear tires at 65 just outside Boerne on my way back to the shop

Luckily other than the exhaust getting tweaked and my shorts needing a quick replacement nothing or no one was hurt. I had a good jack and impact in the truck with me so I was able to swap it out on the side of the road, but it’s not an experience I’d like to go through again, 12k lbs lifted on three wheels isn’t a fun ride, just glad there wasn’t a trailer behind it. Otherwise, very happy with how the ambo is running with the new intake setup, as long as you don’t let the E40D dog itself below 2200 it’s got plenty of room for egts and good power for pulling itself up these big hills, and ice cold ac with outside temps well into triple digits. I did have the fuel filter light come on once the rear tank got below 1/3, and it started loosing fuel pressure until I pulled the prefilter off and blew it out. Very odd that it’s still getting clogged since that tank was cleaned out before being reinstalled, but after refilling the tank it was fine. I’m thinking the selector valve is passing some crud and blocking things up, so I’m going to clean it out and replace the main fuel filter again.

Now that the egts are under control, the coolant and trans temps are much better, coolant never got above 210 and trans never above 220, I’m thinking once the stock cooler is deleted and the new cooler added on the return from the rad trans cooler it won’t have any issues keeping the trans below 200. Double checked for boost leaks once I got it back to the shop and were still solid after getting some miles under it and getting the under hood temps nice and hot. Currently reworking the exhaust and removing the muffler to try and get the egts down a bit more, and trying one different size speedo gear, I’ve got it 5mph fast at 65, which is closer than it’s been, but I’m thinking one tooth change will get me where it needs to be.

i have played the "ride the blown out tire" game a couple of times now, once while towing a nice load of firewood on the trailer doing about 70 down the interstate. one of the few times my son heard me really swear. i felt bad after i got it stopped, i think my reaction more than the actual danger to the truck turned him white.

still not a game a like to play

Got the speedo dead on this time, and found the happy spot for the wastegate where it stayed safe even with a trailer behind it but didn’t sacrifice spool up, got a video uploading of it. I ordered what I needed to finish up the new exhaust, going to put a v band at the transmission instead of the band clamp, for the time being I just put a turn down off the downpipe to keep heat off the trans, really isn’t very loud as you can tell in the video.

I also finished up the external cooler mount and deleting the stock unit, it took some time fiddling with the orientation and line routing but I’m pretty happy how it came out.

All the lines run outside the frame away from the heat next to the water lines, and dont come any lower off the cooler than the bottom of the cab. I figured out how I wanted to control the fan and built everything on the bench, I start off using an oem ford (Mercury) fan temp switch (easy to get at any parts store or dealership) in-line on the incoming trans line that supplies a ground to the fan. In-line to that is a switched ground that will go to a toggle in the cab so that if the temp switch fails you have manual override to turn the fan on. The fan will get power in the accessory or ignition position, and is protected by the same relay/breaker/fuse combo I used on the e pump circuit.

Had to reupload the video, here it is

Of course I upload the wrong video, third try’s a charm

Ambo time! We had some 20* mornings here lately and the poor ambo was struggling, I did a voltage drop test across the driver side to passenger power lead and had almost 5v of drop when cranking so we replaced that lead with 4/0 marine cable and replaced the terminal ends with fresh copper lugs and new battery terminals, truck cranks as fast as these batteries are gonna support which is much better than it has before.

Also got the temp switch setup for the trans e fan cooler, fan comes on automatically based on incoming trans temp and has an override switch in the cab next to the manual high idle so the fan can be manually activated without the key on to cool the trans off at stops without the engine running.

Alternator went completely dead finally so have a 220 amp 3g on the way to delete the ambulance package setup and modernize it a bit.

My God! For a second, I thought that I was looking at a red boa constrictor under your hood!

Never too much copper!

Got my 225amp 3g kit installed, totally different truck now. Had to turn the regulator down with the fuel pump putting out more volume at the higher running voltage, batteries crank the truck much quicker now that they’re being fully charged to 14.7v, and with all the light and sirens on the alternator keeps charging above 14V at idle. And no more belt screaming!





Installed the backup camera, much needed in this rig. Ran the wiring with the rest of the ambulance lighting wiring through the cab and into the overhead console in the box.

Went through the rotten cab mounts with an energy suspension kit, picked up a good inch of firewall clearance over the turbo and no longer have vibration from the downpipe rubbing the cab when backing the ambo, might have room for a bigger turbo now...









Cab doesn’t have nearly as much give and feels way more steady, but especially with the rear view mirror in it makes the box seem pretty loose in comparison, but I’m sure pulling the rear spring blocks is going to help that.

Looks mean! There's always room for a bigger turbo.

Thewespaul said:

Installed the backup camera, much needed in this rig. Ran the wiring with the rest of the ambulance lighting wiring through the cab and into the overhead console in the box.

Click to expand...

Love the thread’s info!! What aftermarket wired backup camera setup did you go with?

Installed the backup camera, my truck looks good back there, @Thewespaul

What's with that boxed section of the frame? Never noticed that on these trucks before.