Nik's 97 350 build thread
#587
#588
#589
Well another little update. I got the truck to pass emissions. Pass is a loose term I guess, little did I know where we moved does not require them on anything. So that’s nice, wasted 80 bucks though…Since we got it all put back together we have put about 800 miles on it. Been running great too.
Going to dig into the water injection issue tonight and confirm it’s the solenoid, hook it all back up and have it ready to go. I was planning on towing the goose this weekend but we are supposed to get a good snow, and I’m not going to attempt it. Just finished lifting the trailer 3.5” last night, and I hope this will resolve my bed crimping issues in and out of driveways.
I still need to rewire the head ache rack, and add the reverse lights in as well. (My reverse lights have never worked, I believe it’s in the wiring on the frame rail, not the switch)
The big news is we finally found us a solid core builder 7.3 here locally. So Monday I’m going to go pick up motor “2.0” to start tooling with and building into a pulling horse. Got a list of parts I need to order, but I’m going to hold off till next fall. I’m sure I will have a million questions once I get into the bottom end, but a motor is a motor, they are not rocket science, so I will see how I fair I guess. I can only blame myself! It comes with all the accessories, and is a direct drop in if I wanted. Has 140k on it, but he said it has a lot of crank case pressure. Story behind it was he sold it to a cummins mechanic who had a 7.3. He dropped it in and fired it up, and ended pulling it back out due to crankcase pressure. Pressure supposedly wasn’t bad, but wasn’t what he paid for a motor that should have still been very tight.
Anyways we are getting a good deal on it, I don’t have to drive a 1000 miles to get it, and now I have spares of almost everything. Might rebuild the two turbos I have sitting here and try to pay for the motor with them.
The only difference is it’s a 95 and not a 96 like mine (I need to change the title of this thread :-)). I know the 95s had a different front cover, HPOP and a few other items than the 96 did. I’m not positive if it is a 95 motor or an early 96, but I will be able to confirm once I get it in my hands.
So that all being said I need to buy another engine stand…
Going to dig into the water injection issue tonight and confirm it’s the solenoid, hook it all back up and have it ready to go. I was planning on towing the goose this weekend but we are supposed to get a good snow, and I’m not going to attempt it. Just finished lifting the trailer 3.5” last night, and I hope this will resolve my bed crimping issues in and out of driveways.
I still need to rewire the head ache rack, and add the reverse lights in as well. (My reverse lights have never worked, I believe it’s in the wiring on the frame rail, not the switch)
The big news is we finally found us a solid core builder 7.3 here locally. So Monday I’m going to go pick up motor “2.0” to start tooling with and building into a pulling horse. Got a list of parts I need to order, but I’m going to hold off till next fall. I’m sure I will have a million questions once I get into the bottom end, but a motor is a motor, they are not rocket science, so I will see how I fair I guess. I can only blame myself! It comes with all the accessories, and is a direct drop in if I wanted. Has 140k on it, but he said it has a lot of crank case pressure. Story behind it was he sold it to a cummins mechanic who had a 7.3. He dropped it in and fired it up, and ended pulling it back out due to crankcase pressure. Pressure supposedly wasn’t bad, but wasn’t what he paid for a motor that should have still been very tight.
Anyways we are getting a good deal on it, I don’t have to drive a 1000 miles to get it, and now I have spares of almost everything. Might rebuild the two turbos I have sitting here and try to pay for the motor with them.
The only difference is it’s a 95 and not a 96 like mine (I need to change the title of this thread :-)). I know the 95s had a different front cover, HPOP and a few other items than the 96 did. I’m not positive if it is a 95 motor or an early 96, but I will be able to confirm once I get it in my hands.
So that all being said I need to buy another engine stand…
#590
#591
To start:
Maybe rods
Coated pistons
Springs
Pushrods
Studs
Fab my own billet plenums
Allthe other basic stuff. Not sure if I need to go as far as headwork and fire ringed head, but I just want it to be reliable. That is all. I do not hot rod the truck. I do not go to the strip or tractor pull. I do not race, I drive 60-70 mph on the highway and could care less how fast the truck is. I just want to lug my crap around behind the truck as long as possible is all. I will have some time to slowly build it, as long as the blowby does not keep getting worse on the current motor. I also plan on keeping this truck till my kids kick dirt over me.
That all being said I do not even have 1k miles on my current setup. I'd like to leave the truck alone and enjoy it for a while. I have plenty of other stuff to do on the other project truck.
Any advice is much appreciated! I am all ears. I have followed a few of your threads over on PSA.
#592
Honestly, I get the feeling that you're worrying about the blow by more than you need to. I showed you the videos of how blow by my junk has and I'm not even slightly worried. Did you compression test it?
If that's all you want from the truck, you won't need rods or any major bottom end mods.
If that's all you want from the truck, you won't need rods or any major bottom end mods.
#593
I will likely go fairly mild, but like usual I may end up going too far. I still have a lot of research to do and time to think about it. I honestly have not thought too far out besides disassembly and getting it to a machine shop. All I really want is a reliable second motor that will last a lot longer than my current one(160k). Sort of disappointed how short lived it made it, but I guess I can't complain with my learning curves I have put it through. I still think bad tuning with improper timing caused the better part of it. I'm not sure what caused my motor to go from next to none to a chit ton of blowby in 6k miles on a very mild setup and never ran in anything except a stock tune.(due to EGT issues with current tuning)
To start:
Maybe rods
Coated pistons
Springs
Pushrods
Studs
Fab my own billet plenums
Allthe other basic stuff. Not sure if I need to go as far as headwork and fire ringed head, but I just want it to be reliable. That is all. I do not hot rod the truck. I do not go to the strip or tractor pull. I do not race, I drive 60-70 mph on the highway and could care less how fast the truck is. I just want to lug my crap around behind the truck as long as possible is all. I will have some time to slowly build it, as long as the blowby does not keep getting worse on the current motor. I also plan on keeping this truck till my kids kick dirt over me.
That all being said I do not even have 1k miles on my current setup. I'd like to leave the truck alone and enjoy it for a while. I have plenty of other stuff to do on the other project truck.
Any advice is much appreciated! I am all ears. I have followed a few of your threads over on PSA.
To start:
Maybe rods
Coated pistons
Springs
Pushrods
Studs
Fab my own billet plenums
Allthe other basic stuff. Not sure if I need to go as far as headwork and fire ringed head, but I just want it to be reliable. That is all. I do not hot rod the truck. I do not go to the strip or tractor pull. I do not race, I drive 60-70 mph on the highway and could care less how fast the truck is. I just want to lug my crap around behind the truck as long as possible is all. I will have some time to slowly build it, as long as the blowby does not keep getting worse on the current motor. I also plan on keeping this truck till my kids kick dirt over me.
That all being said I do not even have 1k miles on my current setup. I'd like to leave the truck alone and enjoy it for a while. I have plenty of other stuff to do on the other project truck.
Any advice is much appreciated! I am all ears. I have followed a few of your threads over on PSA.
#594
Well I had a chance to put the new setup on the truck through the ringer finally. I think mid thread of this build you will hear me griping about rebuilding a Subaru motor…well I loaded loaded it up on a double dual trailer Monday again with a foreign manufacturer computer issue I don’t have time to trouble shoot. I also loaded up the skid steer to go get black n’ blu another motor. Trailer weighs 9140 empty, skid weighs 7700lbs and car weighs about 3300 lbs… So it was a good load. Made the truck work pretty darn hard.
That being said, boy what a difference does it make towing with the new setup. I could not push it over around 1225. Cruised around 850-900 on the flats. The hills even near 8000 ft of elevation did not get her over 1250. In the past with maybe 5k less behind the truck I could hit 1300-1350 on the same trip, and therefore started spraying water. It was a slow trip, never went over 70, and stayed right around 65, but boy I was pretty darn happy. The extra manifold pressure also helped quite a bit keeping it moving down the road.
I will note I only used a stock tune. I did not try anything else out yet, as I was pretty far from home and just wanted to see how she did the first go around. Did well.
Regarding the motor: Heck this is the cleanest motor I have ever seen come out of a truck. Maybe it was cleaned up before it went in the sellers truck and came back out. 140k on it and the symptoms are excessive crank case pressure, according to a Cummins mechanic. Originally it was bought to be a drop in, they put it in and stated it had a bit too much crankcase pressure, yanked it back out and sold it as a core. Came with all of the accessories and is super clean too. Valley does not have a trace of grime or sludge/oil/diesel. Anyways we got her unloaded last night and on a pallet till I get another stand. Pan is pretty dinged up from him moving it previously, but everything else looks great. Pretty much have a spare of everything now. I plan on parting a lot of the components I don’t need and maybe make a little off it, and still have parts worth keeping and a buildable block. Then the motor build starts next fall.
Few pics of it… I know we all know what they look like, just had to share what I consider a great deal on a super clean engine, and the beginning of the next project….
That being said, boy what a difference does it make towing with the new setup. I could not push it over around 1225. Cruised around 850-900 on the flats. The hills even near 8000 ft of elevation did not get her over 1250. In the past with maybe 5k less behind the truck I could hit 1300-1350 on the same trip, and therefore started spraying water. It was a slow trip, never went over 70, and stayed right around 65, but boy I was pretty darn happy. The extra manifold pressure also helped quite a bit keeping it moving down the road.
I will note I only used a stock tune. I did not try anything else out yet, as I was pretty far from home and just wanted to see how she did the first go around. Did well.
Regarding the motor: Heck this is the cleanest motor I have ever seen come out of a truck. Maybe it was cleaned up before it went in the sellers truck and came back out. 140k on it and the symptoms are excessive crank case pressure, according to a Cummins mechanic. Originally it was bought to be a drop in, they put it in and stated it had a bit too much crankcase pressure, yanked it back out and sold it as a core. Came with all of the accessories and is super clean too. Valley does not have a trace of grime or sludge/oil/diesel. Anyways we got her unloaded last night and on a pallet till I get another stand. Pan is pretty dinged up from him moving it previously, but everything else looks great. Pretty much have a spare of everything now. I plan on parting a lot of the components I don’t need and maybe make a little off it, and still have parts worth keeping and a buildable block. Then the motor build starts next fall.
Few pics of it… I know we all know what they look like, just had to share what I consider a great deal on a super clean engine, and the beginning of the next project….
#595
Honestly, I get the feeling that you're worrying about the blow by more than you need to. I showed you the videos of how blow by my junk has and I'm not even slightly worried. Did you compression test it?
If that's all you want from the truck, you won't need rods or any major bottom end mods.
If that's all you want from the truck, you won't need rods or any major bottom end mods.
My only other inclination is cracked pistons. I can't see it being a rings considering the oil and OCI I typically run, and the fact it went from nill to noticeable to people mentioning it to me at stop lights in a very short time is what really concerns me.
Anyways I'll post another video. I really need to compression test again to be sure.
#596
http://www.thedieselstop.com/forums/.../topics/141746 Post #10 explains the ring gap in these motors which is why the have so much blowby. I don't know how bad yours is but I'm sure you would have felt a cracked piston on your last run. In all honesty I wouldn't hesitate to do a compression test on the spare motor and if it's good set it up as a ready to drop in motor. My motor has a bit of blowby, though it is still pretty fresh. I've never been informed of it but I can see it seeping out from under the truck on a sunny day. My ring gaps were between .015-.016 top ring and .066-.067 bottom rings.
#597
Piston ring gap - Diesel Forum - TheDieselStop.com Post #10 explains the ring gap in these motors which is why the have so much blowby. I don't know how bad yours is but I'm sure you would have felt a cracked piston on your last run. In all honesty I wouldn't hesitate to do a compression test on the spare motor and if it's good set it up as a ready to drop in motor. My motor has a bit of blowby, though it is still pretty fresh. I've never been informed of it but I can see it seeping out from under the truck on a sunny day. My ring gaps were between .015-.016 top ring and .066-.067 bottom rings.
#598
Piston ring gap - Diesel Forum - TheDieselStop.com Post #10 explains the ring gap in these motors which is why the have so much blowby. I don't know how bad yours is but I'm sure you would have felt a cracked piston on your last run. In all honesty I wouldn't hesitate to do a compression test on the spare motor and if it's good set it up as a ready to drop in motor. My motor has a bit of blowby, though it is still pretty fresh. I've never been informed of it but I can see it seeping out from under the truck on a sunny day. My ring gaps were between .015-.016 top ring and .066-.067 bottom rings.
Great info and a link to the answer. I had read about the large gap on the second ring and always assumed like the rest, due to expansion. Great Find and thank you.
#600