Tuning, Turning, Tweeking the IDI 7.3

[Boston]

OK so I've spent the last 2/3 days trying to research how to tune my IP pump... Its been a challenge to find a step by step description of the process. So for all those other folks who have IP questions how about we try and put together an IP pumps for dummies thread.

I'm the perfect guy to start it. I just swapped mine out for a rebuilt one. With no relative positive effects. I'm not far from going to a diesel shop although I've read countless warnings against doing exactly that.

assuming you remove and install the IP correctly IE, didn't screw up the drive gear then we eventually get to tune the little darling.

several issues that effect tuning one of these things.

1) lack of availability of the proper tools. IE a few specialty items that are a must, are very expensive, and are not easy to find at your local used parts counter.

timing light.
very expensive, most shops don't seem to have them, so how do they get these things tuned ? They are available for rent, (Icanfixitall) but all of them are rented out. Its either park your truck and twiddle your thumbs, or find another solution. Today's question is, how do you alter the timing on the 7.3 IDI diesel?

pyrometer
The mystery begins, if its something that I was supposed to have provided a threaded hole for somewhere on this new $600 dollar set of Stans Whopping Pain in the Ass Headers, then nope. not happening any time soon either. Haven't found a hand held one yet ( OK just found then, laser sensor, about $100 ) but the dash mounted ones seem to be a few hundred bucks and although the pictures available on the net are worthy of our best microscopes it seems like they have a screw in probe of some kind that likely screws into the exhaust somewhere. Except on mine. Solution, buy the hand held laser site good to 1000F model.

Turn the IP.
Apparently this retards or advances the injection of fuel into the cylinder. I suspect this is whats meant by "timing" a diesel, but that ones still up in the air. Tried it, not as easy as it sounds and once accomplished made no discernible difference, as least going towards the passenger side, tomorrow maybe I'll dismantle it again and try setting it to the drivers side. One trick I did learn tho, a chain style oil wrench works wonders to pursued this thing to move. Cause its a *****. Question, if turning the Ip as far as it can to the passenger side from its original position centered does nothing, what might that indicate?

Safety tip
don't turn the IP when the engine is running, apparently this can screw it up.

Fuel
Apparently if your some kinda contortionist you can get at the mystery screw that turns up the fuel. Rumor has it, its easy to do, but spills fuel. I haven't gotten desperate enough to try this yet.

Sounds pretty simple, turn up the fuel or rotate the pump, except one thing, without the proper tools to measure what your doing, you might as well be Donkeyote.

two days in and I've had no luck trying to tune this engine, still smokes like a ***** at low RPM although that could be the fuel being slightly contaminated with WMO. It idles and runs fine, but no power. Very frustrating. Tomorrow I rotate the pump to the drivers side and see what happens. If I see no difference with it turned as much as it will go in either direction I can only conclude that there is a much deeper problem than what can be addressed with the typical tuning techniques.

Maybe we can get a blow by blow description of how the fight is supposed to go and from there many of us novices might find some solace in the knowing.

 

[OLDBULL8]

You'll feel a whole lot better when you get up in the morning. A glass of tomato juice will help clear the hangover.

 

[Boston]

Ran out of beer Saturday, which might be a big part of the problem. Working on it without a beer in hand has got to be some form of error that might be leading to all these issues with tuning that thing.

Idles great, responds well, goes slow.

Its got new injectors, new IP, new headers, new 4" exhaust, should run like a bat out of hell. Runs more like a mouse out of the kitchen.

 

[damac]

take a picture from top looking down to show just how far advanced you have the pump. by not moving any further do you mean you cant make it move any further or its hitting the hose?

take a video of it running.

what kind of smoke, does it stink like diesel?

i just timed my truck with a meter and have messed with the timing before just to see what happens. truck will still start and idle when its retarded enough to put out constant white at idle and little clouds when stomping on it with the truck empty through the city.

 

[Dieselcrawler]

Out of curiosity, how are you going to get pyro temps with a infared temp gun while driving since that's when temps are most important?

 

[hesutton]

I'm sorry to say but, without a timing meter or a timing light with a ferret adaptor, it's just a guessing game. To time the IP, you gotta use one of the two methods. A digital timing light with an adjustable advance feature with a ferret adaptor is probably the cheapest way to do this yourself. Chris and I gave it a try at the 2010 Rally and checked it with a SnapOn MT1480 and it gave the same result.

You got to put a probe in the exhaust if you really want a pyrometer. I know you had a huge ordeal with the Stan's headers, but it is what it is.

Turning up the fuel really requires not special tools at all. Just remove the cover on the IP gear housing and get the dowel at 12 O'clock. Remove the cover of the passenger's side of the IP and use a 5/32 allen to turn the screw clockwise. BUT, YOU GOTTA HAVE A PYRO FIRST.

Sorry, I know you are frustrated, but, hang in there. You'll get it figured out.

Heath

 

[88beast]

static timing should be good enough for a new pump to run at a usable spot till timed. static timing is 1/8-1/4 to the passenger side of the truck. just use the lines where the ip bolts to the housing.

to alter timing is easy. advance is rotate the pump to the pass side to to retard go to the drivers side. remember to tighten all 3 mounting bolts.

when changing an ip do not remove the ip housing without removing the front timing cover too so you can properly time, removing only the pump is fine for most pump swaps.

the fuel shut off solinoid (fss) is located on top of the ip. its the terminal thats larger than a standard spade connector. i bent a s tandard spade out to fit it then crimped it on with vicegrips.

now the other terminal on the side of the ip is the cold timing advance this will hook to a coolant temp sensor in the drivers head. this advances the timing to keep the motor running when cold.

the fuel screw is located under a plate on the passenger side of the ip. remove the throttle linkage and youll see a triangular plate with 2 small bolts its under there. when the plate is off and motor at tdc you should see the scrrew its a small allen head sunk into a hole in the rotor. out gets you more fuel in less. you cannot do this while the motor is running because it turns as the motor does, also it holds fuel in there and that will dump out. 2 flats without a pyro is not going to hurt anything on a stock pump but can you trust your builder to put it all back to stock.

torque screw is located bottom back of ip. this is only on newer models but your reman may have it. it will increase torque when turned in (iirc)

for a pyrometer (egt gauge) the highest you want to go is about 1000 -1200 degreese f.
anything over has a good chance of causing damage. mounting the pyro is key. the best spot is by the back cylinder in the manifold but on the y pipe works too. if you have a turbo pre turbo is a good spot.

and a pyro tip to check the pyro use a temp gun. that will let you know if the pyro is close.

now wvo wmo etc. can cause more drastic issues with a new pump if timing is slightly off you will know it due to burning differences with the fuels.

when you swap pumps make sure to fully bleed the air out of the fuel system. when i swapped mine i put fuel in the fuel screw cover and then put it on then hit the bleader on the fuel filter till she fired and keept it in till i had a steady stream only about 45 sec of cranking total that way. then i reved her till the miss stopped and then i had fuel to all cylinders and was satisfied.

also the pumps on these trucks are lubed by the fuel so make sure to add something to keep them lubed since ulsd sucks. i use lucas and have heard about all the diesel treatments out there will work.

this is all ive compiled about the tuning of a pump and is to be taken as you wish but it is generally taken as turth

 

[hesutton]

2 flats without a pyro is not going to hurt anything on a stock pump

Tom, I've got to disagree with you there. A completely stock IP on an N/A IDI can and will generate dangerously high EGT's! Adding more fuel will only accelerate the process. Pyrometers should be on all these IDI's, N/A or turbo, stock or modified.

Heath

 

[Boston]

take a picture from top looking down to show just how far advanced you have the pump. by not moving any further do you mean you cant make it move any further or its hitting the hose?

its not even close to he hose, I think I might have moved it about 3/16 max more like 1/8 off its original centered position. Thats as far as it goes without drilling new holes in it. The oblong slots where the bolts go through it are just not that long, no way I could possibly move it sufficiently without modifying it to actually hit the hose.

take a video of it running.

what kind of smoke, does it stink like diesel?

hard to tell, its more like bluish white, probably because I've still got a leaky fuel filter heater ( new one is on the way ) air intrusion and because the fuel tank has a little WMO in it. I don't think smoke color is going to help me out much till I get those two issues resolved.

i just timed my truck with a meter and have messed with the timing before just to see what happens. truck will still start and idle when its retarded enough to put out constant white at idle and little clouds when stomping on it with the truck empty through the city.

Crawler
I'm not. I think I might have had enough of these headers, Stans sucks by the way . They should have informed me of the importance of having a pyrometer port as well as not put me through the ringer over there headers which didn't fit. Cost me 6 weeks of fighting with them just to get those clowns to honor there guarantee, at which point they said they'd fix it but it voided there guarantee, *** is that ****. I asked a lot of questions before I ordered these headers and never even heard of a pyrometer until now. All in all I would never do business with them again nor would I be able to recommend them to anyone. Sounds like anyone who knew what they were doing would have informed the customer of various important extras that really should be included when a set of headers are built. Not a prayer in hell I'm going to be pulling these things back off and starting over. = hand held pyrometer.

Ive spent thousands, no further expense is justifiable unless it can be shown that at least some setting will result in significant additional power; = no timing light until some random setting at least shows promise of additional power. 4~9 hundred bucks is the range I've found on these lights.

I'm going to complete the hoses to the heat exchanger today as well as try turning the pump ( thing only moves about 3/16 in either direction ) back towards the drivers side. Retarding the injection just doesn't seem like it would add power tho. One thing that does bear mentioning is the oil filter wrench trick, The pump is really damn hard to move, only way I could even make it budge was to get after it with the oil filter wrench, and even then its way hard, there's gotta be a better way of doing this. I spent a lot of time and care getting those lines you can't reach on the IP is installed and making sure they didn't leak, makes no sense at all to try and bludgeon them loose in order to ease up the movement of the pump. I got it no leaks the first time, even fired right up first time, which I put in miracle status, I think the oil filter wrench thing should be a standard trick in moving these pumps. The lines will adjust. Its just really hard to do.

After that its fix the fuel filter heater ( parts on the way ) and add the 24 volt battery set up and I'd be ready to roll. Except that it runs slower than I can. Notably weaker than when I started.

 

[Ididriver]

Boston. You don't have to pull the headers back out to install the pyro.
As long as you don't mind laying on your back alil you can just drill and tap the end of the header were the pipes constituted and install it.
Really worthdoing.

 

[Dieselcrawler]

You can get probes for the pyro that only have a hose clamp that holds them in, just have to drill the hole in the pipe to stick it in. No need to remove the headers again. I would put it in one of the driverside pipes near the flange. About 2 inches away or so

 

[Boston]

while I am encouraged to know I could just drill a hole myself and make it work, I still think it prudent to prove that more power is attainable before I can justify any more money being sunk into this thing. I've spent a lot of cash and I'm not the in for a penny in for a pound kinda person. If at any point in the process there appears to be a significant roadblock then its on to the next project and cannibalize the parts off this one.

Deal is if I can't tune the IP sufficiently to at least show "some" power then I might have to reevaluate the entire project.

I worked all summer on this POS, pretty dam disappointing to fire it up and find out its a dog. Thing had more power when I started than it does now with all this performance crap on it. Its gotta be the IP somehow, I'll try moving it towards the drivers side today ( advance it I guess ) and see what happens

I was extremely careful not to disturb the gears when I removed/installed the IP pump, didn't take the gear cover off. So there is no way I screwed up the internal timing right ?

 

[Black dawg]

there will be lots of other symptoms of timing problems before it will ever cause a power problem. A pyro will tell what you need to know to make more power.

 

[icanfixall]

Adjustable timing lites are not expensise on ebay. I bought a snapon lite thats adjustable used for around $40.00. Just enter adjustable timing lies. Moving the pump towards the passenger fender advances the timing. To the drivers side fender it retards the timing.. Sorry for all your issues. I did not see this coming either. With headers my guess is your actually running cool on the exhaust. Problem is telling you to turn up the pump without a pyro. One flat may work out but its a risk. Now concerning this rebuilt pump. Just because its differant from what you removed means nothing about being better. I don't recall where you got it from either. It may have been improperly setup too and needs to be turned up some. This is where a pyro tells you these unanswered questions like what is the pyro temp now. Can it safely be turned up some. We are trying to help you get this correct but it does take some effort on members parts. We can only read what you post and make suggestions as to what will help. Being there and seeing it is so much easier to help with but we are still here helping. That wont change.

 

[OLDBULL8]

I'm not. I think I might have had enough of these headers, Stans sucks by the way . They should have informed me of the importance of having a pyrometer port as well as not put me through the ringer over there headers which didn't fit. Cost me 6 weeks of fighting with them just to get those clowns to honor there guarantee, at which point they said they'd fix it but it voided there guarantee, *** is that ****. I asked a lot of questions before I ordered these headers and never even heard of a pyrometer until now. All in all I would never do business with them again nor would I be able to recommend them to anyone. Sounds like anyone who knew what they were doing would have informed the customer of various important extras that really should be included when a set of headers are built. Not a prayer in hell I'm going to be pulling these things back off and starting over. = hand held pyrometer.

No big deal on installing a pyrometer sensor. The sensor will come with a SS strap and ceramic washer, just drill a 1/4" hole on the underside of your header at #8 cyl. and stick the sensor probe in.

Ive spent thousands, no further expense is justifiable unless it can be shown that at least some setting will result in significant additional power; = no timing light until some random setting at least shows promise of additional power. 4~9 hundred bucks is the range I've found on these lights.

A digital timing light can be had that will work for $100 at Sears or Azone and others for timing with the Ferrett pickup. Pic is an Actron from Azone $100.