So I am back at tinkering with this old beauty. Not many of my problems were fixed, but things were fixed well enough for me to drive it roughly 1000 miles over the summer for some camping adventures. But now with camping season slowing down, I would like to delve more into this motor.
My EGTs are still high while under load (Sierra Nevada mountain range cruising 35-45) and I need to confirm that my turbo is functioning. First I plan to test my gauge, then I will assess my intake for any obvious leaks. I see some black soot around the exhaust, I am not sure how much of a leak will affect boost pressure. I also feel like I am running out of gas pedal and barely maintaining 50mph on the grades from Placerville CA towards South Lake Tahoe CA. I would think the IDI turbo would be a tad bit peppier.
It should be. Do you have a boost gauge? What does it show when uphill and putting some pedal into it? What EGTs are you seeing?
Also, the van maybe is running lean? I never see black smoke from the tail pipe when I am accelerating under load. On the first start of the day I will have white smoke, but not for long. At what point should I up the fuel screw?
If your EGTs are staying under 1200, maybe start with a flat or two, you can adjust it easily enough, shouldn’t have to mess with it more than a couple of times to get it dialed in.
Do you have a timing meter? If so, what is your injection pump timing set to?
I recently had a fuel leak; it seemed to be coming from the fuel pump, so I swapped that out with another mechanical pump. I thought about doing the e-pump, but opted against it.
I’m a fan of E pumps personally, but the mechanical pump will supply adequate fuel for a Hypermax kit without an intercooler.
The van has been hard to start lately. It will fire right on up, idle for 5 seconds then die. It takes 30-45 seconds to fire back up and then runs well. From research, it seems like I have an air intrusion somewhere.
Sounds like it.
I snagged a new fuel filter and the fuel return line kit (Delphi from NAPA). I am going to swap out the fuel return line and all of my glowplugs while I am in there. I hope that fixes my issues for hard starting. I plan to also remove and cap the fuel heater and the water fuel sensor? on the fuel filter hub.
Sounds like a bunch of good ideas. What glow plugs do you plan to use? I recommend Motorcraft.
Do you have a factory style glow plugs controller?
Eventually I will swap the starter with a high torque starter. That can wait seeing as the current starter seems to be functioning just fine however.
The Powermaster 9050 has worked excellent on my 91. I recommend that one.
While I am tinkering, is there anything else I can delete from the motor that is not necessary and leads to more issues down the road?
There’s not much extra crap on these, sounds like you’ve got it covered. I usually give the engine wiring harness a diet plan… but that’s not necessary.
I will upload some photos of the interior soon; it is not perfect but it has worked well for my camping needs.
Looking forward to seeing your setup. I personally find IDI vans intriguing, there are very few of them around Kansas. I wouldn’t mind owning one, probably more of a cargo configuration, but I haven’t been able to find one.
