I just finished talking to a man who owns a F350 CC with a C6 460 and he is selling one and he was honest about the mileage and said it sucked gas bad and do not get it if you drive a lot or use on highway. He said he just came to FL from Idaho with it and said it gets 6 to 8 miles per gallon as stated on this site. That is a C6 though.


In any event we got into the subject of these trucks and he told me the IDI T model was the best one he felt Ford ever made and the newer ones were more complex, expensive and mileage was not as good.


My ? is how rare is a IDI T to find low mileage. I know they only made them for like a year and a half and it was a upgrade option ? I am curious because mine needs a lot to be what I want so I am just trying to figure weather to dump the bread into it. How many miles can an IDI T go without a total rebuild ? mine has 238 on it.


Thanks for the input.

 

are you using the search feature before making new threads? this site has a whole lot more to offer you,than just a few replies in multiple threads that you've been creating.you can sit back,relax,put some coffee on and just enjoy learning all about these questions you have in much more depth than any quick reply.give it try.you'll see quickly the answer to this question and a whole lot more.

i personally wouldn't have anything to do with a turbo block.the parts are to scarce and hard to find.they're externally balanced different and everything.way more hassle than their worth.
they've been turbocharging 6.9's and non turbo 7.3l blocks,issue free now since before many of us had drivers licenses.

 

OK but some times it takes a lot of time and you cannot find the info you want. And by the way I was reading Ford rates these things at 300 thousand but many have stated they get way beyond that. I am curious how far off they are.

 

yeah that's what iv read as well/that the life expectancy is 300k miles.
true many have bested that........but at how much blow by,and how low on compression and how many cracks in the heads? plus don't forget,there's been plenty here who haven't made it to 300k either before their engines required a reman/replacement.

 

And you learn so much by taking the time and reading through the information.With a little effort most of the stuff you have asked about is a simple google search away.

 

I heard reports on PS going 7 or 800 thousand without a rebuild ? this was told to me by 2 different sources. Is that BS ?

 

You guy's have hooked me up good and I pretty well have the info now. R n D is the guy to make these go if you have the time.

 

it's not BS.powerstrokes are great engines.legendary (save for the 6.oh no disaster) far,far more advanced than our old idi trucks (yes for the better imho.)
https://social.ford.com/our-articles...ad-trip-truck/

your always going to have people afraid of the unknown and what's more unknown (perhaps more by choice than anything these days with all you need at your fingertips to learn) than electrically controlled drivetrains right?
idi engines are great.i love mine right to death.but make no mistake,they are what they are.we don't have much for bragging rights over psd's even if we want too. that said,im not in any hurry to upgrade anytime soon.
i don't care for........nah i hate the super duty style.so i dunno what im going to do once iv worked my trucks to death and need to replace them.probably won't even be fords unfortunately.i can't drive something i hate the appearance of.chevy trucks i guess.who knows.i hate to even have to think about it.i'll keep my idi trucks repaired for as long as i can.maybe drive south for a clean Arizona or Cali 95-97 psd? by then,will there be any worthwhile without a half million miles? will be slim pickings.perhaps just move right up into the medium duty trucks and skip pickups? sterling's? (edit,well looks like those were short lived and just re-badged cab n chassis dodges anyway) who knows.far too young still to think i'll be able to stay in idi trucks until retirement.shoot,i'll go through several more trucks yet.i keep hoping ford will go back to their roots in styling but i know im wishful thinking.....though i suppose it doesn't matter anyway,as they priced us working men out of the diesel trucks now anyway (all big 3 did in fact.) dang this is depressing thinking about lmao!

if your trucks' still worth fixing.fix her brother.best advice i can give ya.idi til we die!

 

Thanks for helping me out HDXLT, I really appreciate you. The search engine does not work as well as you so I understand why people get tired of posting the same stuff but direct contact makes getting the info easier.


No it does not surprise me because big rig motors go over a million without a rebuild, I could have snapped up a few real good deals on PStrokes but have declined and here is why, it's not the unknown mechanically it's the unknown politically.


America is being gutted fast and it seems all electronic component manufacturing is moving to Asia along with everything else. On a PS if you cannot get the components needed electrically to keep it going put a bullet through the block, it will never ever run again ? I know they are way better talking to people.


Trust me the US is in deep doo doo and when it hits the fan over time coming up you could see the PS stopped because of electrical parts and the IDI's still rolling about. I would have already bought'en one and this is the reason I have not. I love guy's like R n D's Justin, he will be on the fore front of keeping things rolling in a Road Warrior style world.


And one last thing, the guy I talked today about buying the 460 CC F350 said the 94 turbo was a great engine but said he would not own a IDI without a turbo, no power and bad gas mileage towing.

 

To be fair, there's plenty of PS engines around in JYs and such that you'll be able to keep it running for quite a while.
That being said, an IDI will withstand a massive EMP and keep running, a PS won't.
But that's a pretty unlikely scenario; at least, having enough of an EMP while /not/ being vaporized at the same time...

Get a 7.3 IDI, any. Turbo or not.
You can always add the turbo later, and the factory turbo models aren't any better bottom-end, really.
Plus, it's not like the factory turbo is in any way good; even a Banks kit will produce much more power than the stock setup.
Just plan on taking your vehicle and adding a good turbo setup to it... either a cheap, used Banks/ATS/Hypermax kit, or a *good* setup from R&D.

 

I agree with that. Truck turbos show up on Craigslist and car-parts.com all the time for a few hundred bucks. I used to see a new post about a used truck turbo once a week when I was shopping for the elusive van turbo kit, aka "Nessie".

 

Ok , it is a shame they were not factory turbo from the go.

 

life expectancy of any engine is only as good as the owner takes care of it.
my 88 has a little over 494,000 miles on it. my 02 has a little over 189,000 miles on it.
i have also seen a 88 blow apart at 45,000 miles because the owner never changed the oil. and i have seen 7.3 powerstrokes blow head gaskets, throw rods through the block, crack blocks, etc, etc, with under 100,000 miles on them.
at the old company we had over 20 99 to 02 7.3 powerstroke pickups all with over 400,000 miles on them, they all were very well maintained and the drives did not beat them.

 

You know, that's the tired old argument that is thrown around intended to insult those of us that know that computer controlled engines are expensive and unreliable.

And that argument couldn't be more wrong. Speaking for myself as for example, I know an internal combustion engine is the same if it's a 1915 Horseless carriage, or a 2015 Automobile; fuel, compression, spark. I can work on them all.

However, the new generations that grew up on and are trained on computer controlled vehicles are completely lost on anything that's more than 20 years old. Because any idiot can work on a vehicle that tells you what the problem is. But you ask that same idiot to fix a vehicle that requires diagnosis and mental process they will start drooling on themselves.

Even if you just go to the 1980s, still computer controlled, but OBDI lacks the specificity of today's computer diagnosis. The modern "mechanic" is lost.

I belong to a lot of different automobile forums, and those of us that understand the internal combustion engine have to explain to those that are scanner-dependent what to look for and how to repair pre OBDII vehicles.

So that tired old argument is 180 degrees off, it's not fear or ignorance of the unknown that makes us dislike computer control, it's the very knowledge of the computer control that makes us dislike it. Our intelligence guided by experience.

You really think that power joke is the cat's ***? How about the cost and procedure to just replace an injector? Or the primary fuel pump?
What's going to happen when the wires are old and brittle and start failing? An IDI has the technology to last over 100 years as long as rust and wrecks do not kill the truck. Think a power joke will be around 100 years from now? My 69 F250 390 is almost 50 years old, it'll last another 50. Think an '09 5.4 will be around in 50 years?

A pre-computer controlled semi can last over a million miles, shops say today with the computer control and emissions are done @ 700K. (And it takes 10s of thousand of dollars to get that 700K out of them.)
Think somehow that same technology magically reverses itself in your pickup and makes it last longer? LOL!

We see though the insult, the argument of the unknown is no longer valid.

 

no it isn't.it's an opinion.0% insult intended.