Exactly! If you can do the work yourself I would bet that you would come out ahead purchasing an IDI in good shape and then doing the upgrades vs purchasing a newer diesel. It would be important that you could do most the work yourself, since the mechanical nature of the IDI makes it more labor intensive to make changes that can be gone with tuning on a more modern/electrical controlled engine.

For real power you are looking at upgrading the turbo, installing an intercooler, cam, IP/Injectors, head studs and maybe the support girdle for the mains that was created. From Racin's experiment we know that you would want atleast want to start with a factory turbo engine for stronger rods, or upgrade those to the new PSD rods IDI Performance is developing. I really wonder what kind of abuse the stock IDI turbo rods would handle.

But wait......It's not a direct injection motor, so there's no way you can make a lot of power with it.........

 

Well I have both, an 84 F250 RC LB 4x4 6.9 IDI and a 97 OBS 7.3 PSD F250 SC LB 4x2. I guess I could say I'm a little more biased towards the IDI, but I've had that truck a lot longer than the PSD. Last fall the 6.9 gave up the ghost, a blown head gasket. Up until then it had an untraceable hard starting issue, and excessive oil consumption. It had a hard life of snow plowing, hauling and towing heavy loads it always served me well, and ran pretty good doing it. The complete teardown revealed not only the blown head gasket, but nearly every valve was sucked into the heads and the cam bearings were wiped. I decided to go through with a complete and thorough rebuild. The project has been moving very slowly, I'm not too far from lighting this baby up for the first time. I am really curious how it measures up to the 97 for power, fuel economy, etc. Of course the 6.9 couldn't go back together without some upgrades, besides a full rebuild (full machine shop treatment, hot tanking, bored, honed, pistons, rings, bearings, freeze plugs, etc) a Banks Sidewinder, R&D cam, bigger exhaust, E-pump, rebuilt IP, new injectors, etc. I predict it will either run with the PSD, if not slightly edge it out. The PSD is basically stock (for now) other than the upgraded downpipe and muffler delete. They both have their good and bad points, I like em both. I would have to say the big win for the IDI is simplicity and low cost. There is most definitely something cool about running one of these 20-30 year old trucks, they do get the looks.

 

Awesome post. In a weird way, I want my 6.9 to go out so that I can rebuild it. Kinda like my woman wants to accidentally wake the baby up when she wants to play hehe.

How much will the rebuild cost you if you do the work yourself? I know that some things need to get done by the pros, like a machine shop, but the rest? I would like to know exactly how your rebuild goes. The truck in my avatar had a blown head gasket so i paid for a complete rebuild back in 2012. Paid about $3700 I believe. about 6 months ago I paid for my 86 uhaul 7.3 rebuild, $3,400, then a little over a month ago, i had the 94' uhaul 7.3 rebuild $4700. I didn't trust the $3400 guys so i went with another guy and paid a little extra for much better service (communication, speed).

Anyways, those were for my uhauls so I wasnt to worried about anything specific. I still would rather go into the engine myself for the 6.9 since its my personal vehicle. Knowing EXACTLY what was done to the engine would be pretty damn sweet. Who knows what parts these mechanics didn't replace just to save some $.

I hope you open a thread and post pictures and info on your progress.

 

I have both, well until my IDIT was totalled. I get about 1-2mpg better with my auto PSD having just a kN intake, 4" exhaust, tuner and the exact same bed. my PSD is a RCLB but 4x4 dually, and my IDIT was a CCLB 2wd dually. Same exact bed on them the IDIT weighed 8700lbs the PSD weighs 8600lbs. The IDIT with all the mods in my sig moved just as well as my PSD with a towing tune from my CTS programmer. I like the IDIT for simplicity, but purchased another IDI non turbo and plan to keep it that way for even further simplicity. Once the mechanical lift pump and fuel filter are eliminated it's ones of the cleanest diesel engine bays you can work in.

I've actually come to like daily driving my PSD over my old IDIT though. It's an auto and the PSD feels like it makes more power down low. It seems to have a better power band.

 

Get the bench seats out of the lariat models A+ comfort. Best bench seat out there!

 

I have to agree with you on that, I really like my 97 PSD. The power is great, but it has more creature comforts and a better ride (comparing a leaf sprung solid axle to a twin I beam, I know not fair) As much as I love a bulletproof C6, the E4OD is much nicer for highway cruising. One thing I know about the IDI, I could pound the snot out of it empty or loaded it didn't care. It's just an old simple tough heavy duty truck, there is a lot to be said for that too.

 

As someone with a stick who does quite a bit of driving down low, I've found that getting an IDI to perform well down low requires some tuning. As the amount of fuel injected is lower, the timing is much more finicky on our IPs down low, and I've had to do a lot of messing to get a good 'curve'; something that'll give me good power down low without losing anything in the boost band.

On top of that, I think if we had a VGT on an IDI, the low end power problems would be totally gone. Give it a few PSI of boost at idle and you'd have tons of take-off power.
The normal turbos just don't really do anything at all below 1600-1800 RPM, so you are at NA power levels there.

 

I believe the stock NA rods are good to about 300-350hp. So depending on the desired power its not always necessary for the turbo engine. But yes the turbo engine rods or PSD rods are definitely stronger than NA rods...