there is a royal crap ton of obs trucks up here, f-150-f-350.

 

Up here in Ontario, still lots of bullnoses actually, and LOTS of bricks and OBS's.

Infact, the city and many county trucks still in service are brick noses in really nice shape.


Alot of companies have their vehicles rust proofed up here, with Krown, and that stuff will keep a Chevy blazer in tip top shape!

 

All of the ports ( schrader valve, return line, low pressure sensor) in the FF head are post filter correct? I had to get creative and rearange them to fit my fuel pressure sensor in. Was going to stick it where the return line was, but it hits the other sender, so i pull the schrader and it hits the housing lol, in the end it goes (front to back) FF light, schrader, gauge sender.

 

Deleted...

 

From my experience Montana doesnt put anything on the roads, just plow em. Mines been an Idaho pickup.

 

Well got my gauges in... again lol. Interestingly enough, it went alot smoother the first time around. Fuel pressure gauge bounces around, i can only assume that is due to the mechanical lift pump. Now for the bad news, the relatively new (under a year and 5k miles old) lift pump at idle is around 3.5psi, stays at 3.5 while cruising, and any RPM but when you matt the happy pedal it drops down to 2psi, and as rpms climb finally ends up between 1 and 1.5psi.

 

Seems like I read that there were a lot of problems with replacement, non-OEM lift pumps on our trucks. Not sure if yours was from Ford or not... sounds like it might be time to go ahead a put in an e-pump to support your future upgrades. Never thought I'd want a fuel pressure gage but now I'm curious where mine runs. Did you say you installed a temp gage in your ZF? What temps are you running there? Appologies for the earlier hi-jack btw, got carried away...

 

Ive read that as well about the junk replacements. This is a Carter from NAPA. I was also thinking its e-fuel time, didnt want to do it yet but why not. Not sure which route im going to go there. Probably a SD pump with a referenced bypass regulator. Going to need a filiter head or two.

ZF has a temp gauge, so far ive only driven about 100 miles (to the ranch and back) and it slowly warms up to around 165-170. When i mean slow, if youre drivin easy out on dirt roads, it took 40ish miles to hit 150. New merc V synthetic, not sure what that does for it.

Hijacks happen, just didnt want it fillin up the first 3 pages of the build thread so people dont get discouraged reading it. (assuming anyone reads it)

 

Well I guess you found out why it felt underpowered. Lol. Makes sense now...

 

Actually, it has great power for only hitting 10lbs.. but hopefully this is why i cant get over 10lbs.

 

Well Justing is going to pull my new to me fuel pump, regulator, filter heads and lines this weekend. So hopefully if all goes well they will show up sometime next week and i can get em fabbed in. From what ive found researching im going to shoot for 6psi base fuel pressure and 13-15psi max

Apparently its time for an air filter as well, since i got the turbo sealed up it sucked the little vacuum meter down to about 15 hg or inches or whatever the hell it is.

 

Got a little bit of an update. Was able to finally get some stuff done on the truck this week. The usual setbacks aside, it finally has e-fans and an e-pump and sounds alot better running a constant 6psi of fuel vs a fluctuating 1-4.

For the e-fans i bought a cheapo fan controller at O'Reillys for $60, but im 90% sure its too light duty to come close to running these fans so im giong to use the fan power wires to activate relays in my new fuse box and that way im able to keep everything 10ga. The controller is 12ga wire with 25a fuses. Im running 40a relays with 40a maxi fuses and 10ga wire. It also has an adjustable kick in temperature. However the range is only 90-210, so i set it to 210. It also has a wire to tap into the A/C which is nice.

Ill get some pics of everything 2maro at some point to put up for you guys. Basically NMB2s lift pump setup and windstar fans. I snagged a fuse box out of a 90s exploder to run all the new wiring through. Grabbed that fuse box because it is rather narrow and long which i figured would make it easier to stuff in.

 

Made it home and everything still works. I am somewhat surprised as wiring is not one of my strengths. Much quieter going down the road without the fan roaring all the time. The e-fans kick in and out right where they should. The engine actually runs cooler down the road than before (e-fans off) i can only assume that this is due to the engine not having to work as hard with the mech fan off. Pulling marsing grade the temp got a little warmer than with the mechanical, however i dont think this was the fans problem, as before i got to the top the temps. were dropping. 5miles 6% 5 miles 6.5% Im a little low on coolant as well, not much, but that could be part of it.

Fuel system worked flawlessly. I have my regulator return plumbed into the primary filterhead pre-pump. The only issue i have found with this setup is if there is air in the loop there is nowhere for it to go. So i had to manually bleed the loop (not hard) and then it was just fine. The engine return system is more than capable of getting rid of air, however maybe not 6' of 3/8" line, and 2 filters worth of air.

With some wiring confidence under my belt, i think ill use some of my excess supplies to do the headlight upgrade.

Also, looking at putting LEDs in the dash / gauge cluster. Lost another bulb last night and my cluster is now 90% useless at night. So anyone with info / experience with them feel free to pitch in where you got them, what you paid for em, and how you like em.

 

What were your e-fans off of? Also can you take some pics of both the fans and fuel system? I would be interested in seeing them.

Also with the fuse panel, are you adding the one you got as a second one or are you using it to replace the one that comes stock?

 

E fans are from a 96 windstar. The fuse box is in addition to the original. That way anything i add has room and i can keep track of it separate of the original wiring. Also makes it alot easier to work on. Fits just right, next to the OEM box with a little tweaking / twisting of the cruise control bracket.

Took pics on my cousins phone and emailed em to myself then he deleted them, but the pics never made it from A to B. Didnt notice this until after i left. Also i have no camera, but i should be able to snap some at the end of the week.