Holy crap. It's no wonder that piece of pipe gets swapped out. Pic is worth a thousand words. Thanks for posting.

And thanks again for all the wisdom sharing in this thread. Regardless of whether I proceed with the search, I've learned a TON here in the past couple of days.

 

I was reading back thru all the comments on this thread and I have a question on the following:

Are there dyno numbers somewhere around here that show the above mods actually result in those improvements at the rear wheels?

 

Well its a little of here-say with members saying thats what they got. I personally havent seen anyone post their dyno results. But honestly if your gonna lie about how much hp your truck has your not gonna lie about 234hp in a diesel. Also no ones gonna shoot under their hp numbers. Also mechanical educated guess would yield those results. Figure 215 horses at the crack shaft, with 10-15% of your hp being robbed by an auto tranny. So 215-30/20= 185-195hp remains. Then lets say you gain 40 hp from the chip. So depending on ring gear size, drive shaft length, tires, wheels, tranny, elevation, 2wd/4wd. 220-230hp at the rear wheels chipped is a pretty accurate number based off of an educated mechanical guess. Plus everyone else's input favors those numbers. All this assuming your injectors and turbo are working at peak performance.

 

I made 199& 200 at the tires on two pulls last december. That was with exh,intake,t500,efuel ,50hp tune,deleted ebpv,bellowed up pipes.
It made 29psi and IMO ran about as well as a stock stick truck was going to.

 

Good input. Everything youi say makes sense. My truck is/will be 4WD, and I think the resulting drivetrain losses will be more like 25-30%. So assuming 235hp stock engine, I should expect ~160hp at the rear wheels. To get 235hp at the rear wheels, the engine will need to ouput 335hp. That's 100hp gain -- not a trivial matter, IMO!

Thank you very much for posting your numbers. It really helps me to wrap my head around all of this. It my above assumptions are correct, your engine is making 285hp. Not too shabby for stock injectors. Doing to larger sticks (and updated tunes) seems like it would be the next logical step in power adders, but wouid almost certainly require an IC and maybe a new turbo to keep the EGT's in control.
For my own curiosity sake, everything you've listed (with the exception of the tunes) mostly addresses air/exhaust flow. Did you experience any significant fuel mileage toggles as you were going about your mod's?

 

It got great economy in that form until I replaced my hpop. That made a good difference in power and 5psi boost...actually stroking the injectors..mileage tanked lol
Now I make in the neighborhood of 550hp. On a very conservative tune I can do 18.5-21mpg now unloaded and 14 pulling the camper.
I can turn it up and wreck all economy and put most Cummins to shame in the smoke dept. I don't do that and when the snail works it cleans up pretty good.

 

20mpg empty and 14mpg towing is truly remarkable. Very impressive.

Asking for some expert number checking -- assuming I am able to find a bone stock CCLB with 3.55's, I believe I would be looking at the following, at a minimum, to enable the truck to meet my expectations. Note that I would plan on running 285's/33" tires.

3" downpipe: $100
4" exhaust: $300
6637 filter/intake mod: $50
Likely new up-pipes: $400
Rosewood Stage 1 injectors: $1300
Tunes: $500
Gauges (EGT & Boost): $500
Tranny cooler: $500

Total of ~$4000 in mods. Does this sound about right, including prices?

Also, with this mod list, would my EGT's likely stay below critical? Or am I also looking at an IC and Turbo to keep them down?

 

Looks pretty spot on to me. I'd be thinking intercooler if it's primarily a tow rig. Also, if you want to run 33's and pull grades, ditch the 3.55's and go 4.10's. As far as I know, most 350's will have 4.10's already. I know some guys like the 3.55's and tow with them, but I personally wouldn't want to. However, fuel economy is not something I take into account when towing. You can not baby these trucks when towing. They like to rev. That's where the power band is. So I just let it rip and fuel is what it is. My .02.

 

Great info, Todd. I rather assumed that most rigs would have 3.55's vs 4.10's from the factory. Mostly so that Ford could meet emissions standards by forcing vehicles to get better mileage. But I forget that wasn't really an issue back in the mid-90's.

After I clicked "submit" in the above reply, the thought occurred to me: what IS the critical number for EGT's, pre-turbo? 1300?

 

1200 is max for long pulls. Short times over 1200 is ok, but aluminum that the pistons are made of start to melt at 1250.

 

Plan on either an intercooler or upgraded turbo, or both to move enough air. If you need an upgaded turbo youll need Head studs. The factory head studs let go at 40psi, they can let go earlier with enough prolonged heat and 35psi. Obviously because the heat will start to allow the metal studs to stretch. But theres hope, when you do your injectors supposedly you can easily do the head studs at the same time. Theres a company here that can do the headstuds for an extra $200 when u do your injectors. Once again like everyone else here has said, IF your using this truck for mostly towing your gonna need all this stuff. If you plan on just daily driving it and not towing it your gonna be fine.

Heres your lesson on EGTs.



So heres how EGTs work. High egts are a result of improper fuel mixture. How the mixture is off is a result of different situations. You need x amount of cool air to cool off x amount of fuel. Leaking up pipes hinder the amount of cold air being sucked in, because u lose exhaust pressure that should be turning the exhaust side of the turbo wheel. There for the intake side of the turbo wheel doesnt spin and suck in air as fast as it should. If you have leaks in your intercooler boots or plenums then some of the air your turbo is sucking in and pressuring is being lost. So all the hard work your engines doing jamming in fuel to turn the turbo, to get the turbo to spool is going to waste because your not getting all the cool air its sucking in. Other things that can hinder your Boost efficiency, is your ebpv valve sticking. Sometimes your ambient air temp sensor can register wrong temp numbers and think its cold, therefore shutting your valve prematurely even at hot temps. Theres also the intake air sensor, and exhaust back pressure valve sensor screwing up. The EBPV valve sticking doesnt allow for your exhaust to flow correctly and the turbo doesnt spool up as fast. Clogged intake filters and exhaust Cats restrict flow and intake. The thing to remember is the more boost you have theoretically the cooler your engine should run. Youll just need to figure out how much boost psi you need for each stage setup you have. Normally Stock setup should be 15-22 psi of boost to be able to cool off your trucks fuel being injected. I cant tell you what stage 1 or 2 injectors need, but obviously it needs more then 22psi of boost. The lower your boost numbers are the higher your egts are gonna be, "theoretically"... Your intercooler also helps densify and cool off the super heated air from your turbo. The air thats sucked into your turbo is heated as its pressurized. Then then its condensed into cooler thicker air. Therefore cooling it off before it goes in, your loosing psi from an intercooler, but its only because as its density is increased the psi lowers. Your still getting the same amount of volume, just at less psi, and cooler temps. Now from there your can also have a bad tune sending improper fuel amounts at the wrong time. Altitude also plays a large roll in this as well, some of the places I go can be 12k feet. At that elevation your truck loses 25% of its power due to thinner air, but regains some of it from the turbo. The entire egt battle becomes a catch 22, because u need fuel to create exhaust pressure/volume to turn the turbo, but that fuel is whats heating your turbo to suck in cool air. So you need more heat to make your engine cooler, from the turbo turning faster. If your turbo isnt up to the task of spining fast enough to make enough boost to cool off all the fuel being dumped in, you get high egts. Towing becomes a catch 22 as well, because when your bogging down from the weight of whatever is in tow. Your sending more fuel into the engine and running a hotter mixture earlier, but your turbos kicking in earlier because the weight isnt allowing your truck to go anywhere, and allowing your engine to reach higher RPMs at lower speeds. So in turn your engine even though is working harder is cooling off faster due to the higher psi being made at the lower speed. Intercoolers work better off of more volume for longer periods. The longer you can send higher volumes, and higher psi of air the more cold air itll jam into the engine.

You want your pyro gauge as close to the inside of your engine as possible. That way you know exactly what the temps are inside of there. If your gonna hurt something with EGTs its gonna be melting/cracking a piston or bending a rod. Ive taken a temp gun to my exhaust manifold while idling and it was 300 and my up pipes where 165 degrees. The up pipes were 135 degrees cooler then the exhaust manifol. When u start rising in EGTs your DP after the turbo can be almost 300 degrees cooler then your exhaust manifold. So if your 1200 in your dp your already 1500 in your exhaust manifold, and your gonna melt something. Putting the pyro anywhere by the manifold is a false sense of security. further information is that your engine components are made of aluminum. Aluminum melts at 1220 degrees Fahrenheit. You dont want to go above 1220 degrees for longer then 30 seconds at a time. The reason you can go for 30 seconds at this temp is that your pistons are being cooled from below by the engines cooling system/oil. As the top is being flashed heated from the top, by the burnt fuel. Wich becomes gas (Exhaust Gas aka EGTs). Theres a 30 second span of time that your cooling system can overwhelm the heat from the bottom, because of the thickness of the piston, and the amount of time the piston has previously spent being cooled from the cooling system. Think of dunking a piston in cold water for a couple mins, then the moment it surfaces hitting the top with a rose bud (heating torch). Then dunk just the bottom 7/8th of the piston in the water very quickly with the torch hitting the top, then back out immediately and repeating the process. Itll take the rose bud (heating torch) alot longer then u think to heat up the piston because its soaked up so much of the cold temps. Sorry for the rambling, hope that helps.... And makes sense.

 

Who put those in?

They only came with 5.13s and 4.63s

 

Hey brad...to your knowledge did any true dual lies come with 3.55s?
I had never heard of and don't know why anybody would want but the subject was brought up and I an curious...

 

I have never come across any optioned as such, but I have heard 3.55 was an option in a DRW. And agreed on why anyone would want one

 

Thanks, Brad, you're right. I had misremembered, I have the 4.63s. Had to recheck my door sticker. Not sure why 4.56 got stuck in my mind.

EDIT: I must've been having a hell of a day, too, because my truck is a '96, not a '97.