Hi y'all, I'm new here. Here is my question. I have an old 1990 F-250 with the 7.3L IDI. It was my everyday driver now it's going to be my project truck. There have been no mods done to this thing other than the 5 speed trans. has been rebuilt and i got rid of the dual plate crap. So, here is my question. What mods can and should I do to the truck. I know I am deff. going to do a complete tear down and start from scratch. The big reason why i'm asking is i know some about diesels, but not a lot. So, this project is also a learning experience. Any info would be helpful.
Need help and idea's
- Thread starter lee7866
- Start date
flareside_thun
Reviving The General Tao
Welcome to the site! Here's a link to help you get started.... http://www.oilburners.net/forums/search.php?searchid=537174
papastruck
Full Access Member
Welcome. The first place to go is to the sticky section of this forum. I found it well worth a lot of time just reading through and searching key terms. You'll get a good idea of what problems are particularly pervasive, who might be in your area, similar projects to what you have in mind, etc. That's not a direct answer to your question, but there are a lot of options, and sifting through all the info will help you make the mods that work best for you.
icanfixall
Official GMM hand model
Welcome to the forum. My guess is you have a 7.3 engine but... Thats only a guess because of the year... any engine be it a 6.9 or 7.3 will bolt directly in the same location. So lets say its a 7.3. Adding a turbo is the most bang for the buck you can do for these idi engines. Some like the 6.9 blocks because of the thicker cylinder liners but the head bolts are only 7/16 inch compared to the 1/2 inch in the 7.3 blocks... Both blocks should have a set of ARP head studs installed. Then you will never lift a head because of weak bolts. The 7.3 new bolts fail at 153,000 psi and the ARP studs fail at 200,000 psi. The 6.9 has long been known to have head gasket issues. The addition of quality head gaskets and studs is the fix for that. We do not bore the 7.3 because of the already way too thin cylinder walls. Instead we sleeve all 8 cylinders. Most of the 7.3 blocks have a issue with cavitation. Thats talked about plenty in this forum. Its tiny vacuum bubles that form when the compression pushes the cylinders out. Then those bubbles colaspe and crach into the cylinders on the coolant side. This removes a tiny bit of metal. Eventually this worms a hole thru the cylinders and the engine hydrolocks. That can destroy the engine because liquids don't compress. The break pistons. Sent rods thru blocks called windowing a block. We have done lots of differant things to increase the hp and life to these engines. You can read in my signiture below what I have done as a test bed for others. Reducing the builtin internal drag will turn loose the hidden hp in any engine. When you remove the mains and rod bearings look closely at them. If you see wear more to one side then thats an alignment issue causing undue drag to the crank. Line honing or boring the main webs will straighten that. Pistons will show wear if the cylinders are not bored square with the crank. All V8 blocks have a twist so deacking the block to true them up will add hp. There are many other ways to pull out the lost hp in any engine. Its called blueprinting the engine. We don't really turn high rpm but the rotating parts need to be balanced. All the injectors need to be poping open at the same pressure. If one pops at 1600 lbs its advanced in that cylinder. If one pops at 2100 lbs that cylinder is retarded. This changes the engine power strokes. It makes the engine run ruff. Porting and polishing the heads will get the air in and out of these engines faster. These heads are not a gasser that can be ruined by changing the ports. All we do is force in as much air as we can by the turbo. Then add some fuel to that and away you go... In simple terms is sucks bangs blows and goes.
Read all you can about these engines and what others have done. Don't rely on just one oppinion and follow that. A turbo piston has the same dome thickness as a non turbo piston. They are over 1.2 inch thick in the middle. I have made plenty of measurements and found the demension to be around 560 to 570 thousands. Don't mill more than 15 or 20 thousands off the top of the pistons or damage to the top ring will happen. All oem pistons are Mahle so I called and talked to the head engineer named Eric about milling the pistons. Thats the deminesion he told me about. Enjoy what we have learned and shared with others. Its great reading and nobody keeps secrets about thier work here.....
Read all you can about these engines and what others have done. Don't rely on just one oppinion and follow that. A turbo piston has the same dome thickness as a non turbo piston. They are over 1.2 inch thick in the middle. I have made plenty of measurements and found the demension to be around 560 to 570 thousands. Don't mill more than 15 or 20 thousands off the top of the pistons or damage to the top ring will happen. All oem pistons are Mahle so I called and talked to the head engineer named Eric about milling the pistons. Thats the deminesion he told me about. Enjoy what we have learned and shared with others. Its great reading and nobody keeps secrets about thier work here.....Similar threads
