New purchase have ?'s

[Danmerica]

Hello great site. I'm new here and sorta to diesels as well.
I'm looking at buying an idi(92ish-94) in the near future. I have been searching craigslist, classifieds ect.. just to get my bearings on what to expect. My budget will be $5000 tops. What should I be looking for, as in mileage, good and bad signs. Also, during my research I found out that Ford put a factory turbo on the 7.3 during it's latter years. My question is, should this model be avoided and just find a non turbo or is the factory turbo a good set-up?

This truck I'm planning to purchase will be a daily driver, occasional towing but nothing rigorous. Maybe a few performance mods down the road but nothing extreme. Justa dd work truck.

Thanks in advance.

 

[towcat]

welcome to the site
where is TX are you at?
are you willing to consider a '86 reg cab truck? if so, I do have a non-TX abused kali truck for sale.
as for the drawbacks of the factory turbo system, the only drawbacks are in the exhaust side. check out my thread on "modding factory downpipe" and you can see the differences.
other than that, a turbo really wakes up these trucks

 

[Danmerica]

welcome to the site
where is TX are you at?
are you willing to consider a '86 reg cab truck? if so, I do have a non-TX abused kali truck for sale.
as for the drawbacks of the factory turbo system, the only drawbacks are in the exhaust side. check out my thread on "modding factory downpipe" and you can see the differences.
other than that, a turbo really wakes up these trucks

Fort worth area. Thanks for the offer but I really need something with a back seat. I have a alot of crap I carry with me and need the back seat option.

About the factory turbos, I noticed on the spec sheets that it only adds minimal power gains over the non turbo. Are there aftermarket turbos that can be added to a 7.3 to gain more power than the stock turbo. If so is there any drawbacks to adding significant power. I've heard the idi's can't handle too much over stock without major work done also.

 

[towcat]

Fort worth area. Thanks for the offer but I really need something with a back seat. I have a alot of crap I carry with me and need the back seat option.

About the factory turbos, I noticed on the spec sheets that it only adds minimal power gains over the non turbo. Are there aftermarket turbos that can be added to a 7.3 to gain more power than the stock turbo. If so is there any drawbacks to adding significant power. I've heard the idi's can't handle too much over stock without major work done also.

first.
throw the factory info on the IDI's out the window.
Why?
the ******** in marketing couldn't have a IDI show up their new darling, the powerchoke....
second.
the IDI has been proven it can be safely modded to log a gazillion miles without leaving the driver stranded. Just look around here for proof.
third.
these motors have high compression, you don't need much boost to get kicked in the pants. Intercoolers are your best friend in helping the control of EGT's. I've been kicking the snot out of my '92 and I did a major back in 2005. since then, there has been no major work for the truck and I commute between TX and Kali with it.

 

[icanfixall]

Welcome to the forum....Any turbo truck you find will be great. Even if its an early 6.9 with an aftermarket turbo. Really all these international motors have an aftermarket turbo on them... even the Ford turbo motors from 93 1/2 year. Thats all the time they were offered in our trucks. Just the last 6 months of 93. Really any turbo will work fine on these motors. Banks, ATS or Hypermax are great turbos. Some like the waistegated style and others like the non waistegated turbos. A 92 truck will have a serpentine belt setup. If you look and don't see this then the motor may have been replaced with an earlier motor with V belts. The block serial number will tell you what year the motor is. The 7.3 motors numbers start at 500,079 and go up to 1,116,330. From there up they are turbo blocks. Really the same motor with just a few internal changes but you can use these blocks as a non turbo motor too. Any number below 500,079 is a 6.9 motor.... Mileage isn't really a big deal but maintance is. If a 7.3 has not been taken care of it could be an issue. All 7.3 motors have very thin cylinders so they flex during every combustion. This causes a cavitation problem and eats away some of the cylinders from the coolant side. You need to ask is SCA were added to the coolant to prevent this. You can read up on cavitation here. All diesel motor suffer from this from differant degrees. Cat.. Cummins just to post a few. An E4OD auto trans is liked as much as its hated in this forum. I for one enjoy mine but.... Its been heavily upgraded by BTS so it will live longer than I... Ford did some modes to them over the years. I don't think you can find one that has not had the upgrades done to it. They didn't last to long without these special upgrades. Figure you will get the best fuel mileage from a set of 3.55 gears. If your looking at a lifted truck with much larger tires on it maybe a set of 4.10 gears will work better for you. Lots of possiblitys available when it comes to gearing and tires. Most of all these turcks all have a fuel tank issue. The fuel pickup screen breaks of and you can only use about 3/4 of whats in the tanks. Then you trun out of fuel. Upon refill you only get around 12 gallons in a 17 or 19 gallon tank... Easy fix. Just remove the sender and add som fuel rated hose to the pickup. Tanks all it takes to use all the fuel in the tanks. Any dash gauges are nothing more than an idiot lite with a pointer... Just how much oil pressure do you have when the pointer is on the N or the L in the word NORMAL... Same goes for the coolant temp... After many miles the oil cooler o rings harden and you get oil in the coolant... Not a death of the motor but. Its an involved job for a first timer. After its repaired to remove the oil from the cooling system use Dawn dishwashing soap. Run it for a few days and drain .... do it again and drain... Flush out a few times and refill with coolant and distilled water only. any other water will leave minerals in the cooling system causing plenty of issues later on.... I hope this isn't causing you to rethink buying one of these trucks... They are stupid simple to keep running. All they need is 9 volts to the injection pump and fuel. They will run forever. A set of 8 injectors is around $230.00.... Can't buy a powerstroke injector for that. We can remove an injector on the side of the rods in under 15 minutes and be running again. No need to remove a valve cover like any psd, cummins or duramax....

 

[BrandonMag]

Congrats on your decision to purchase an IDI.

There's plenty of guys that have gotten multiple hundreds of thousands of miles out of these motors.

As far as spots to look for when checking out a potential buy:
http://www.oilburners.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7597

If you decide to purchase a 7.3, this is a must read:
http://www.oilburners.net/articles/cavitationartic.html

Welcome to the site! Spend some time here, read as much as you have time for, ask questions as needed. Most of us are here to help and be helped ourselves. In the long run, this site will save you plenty of $$$ and you'll meet some good people as well.

 

[redneckaggie]

fort woth area I live in stephenville, man we are sure starting to get some people from up here show up

 

[Danmerica]

fort woth area I live in stephenville, man we are sure starting to get some people from up here show up

We are not far apart I live off 377 near benbrook area