I believe the reason your post was mistaken as sarcasm is that these engines don't have a throttle plate/body/bore. Not in the sense that I understand those terms to be. They are direct injected turbocharged drive by wire. The actual physical control that we effect when moving the pedal is nill. It provides an input to the PCM and little else. We say faster and from there it's the pcm's show.

 

I read several things that I'll address without individually quoting, too much work.

I usually run the "65hp fuel sipper" tune on the hydra. I set it back to stock and started the truck a few times, pressing the pedal to start works about the same, but with a slightly slower start and less tendency to quickly rev if I don't let off the pedal quickly enough.

An IDI starting quicker with some pedal is normal and most people know about it, you're mechanically changing what the injection pump does when you press the pedal. IIRC, the manual tells you to press the pedal to start them.

To avoid the fast rev but still get the benefits of pedaling while cranking; I press it briefly then release, if you wait for it to start to then lift the pedal the time it takes to react will result in a rev. I'm basically predicting the time it'll take to start and lift right before it fires rather than waiting for it to fire before lifting. What I'm physically doing is- I turn key to start, press and release the pedal, and it starts as I'm releasing the pedal or immediately after I release it. Without pedal it'll crank for several seconds giving a few rumbles of trying to start, then start.

Pressing the pedal doesn't add more air to the engine, there's no throttle plate. It tells the computer to add more fuel, and more fuel helps a diesel start more quickly. People have forever said that pedaling while cranking changes nothing with the Powerstroke. They state that there's a "start" program in the computer and that the pedal won't change it. We've clearly proved that to be wrong.

My injectors appear to be original, except #8 which a previous owner had replaced, and I'm at 443k miles. A truck with good injectors probably benefits a lot less from pedaling because they typically start quickly enough without the help. When my batteries are low the crank times increase dramatically, and without pedaling there have been a few close calls and a few times where I had to charge or jump it. Adding some pedal has pretty much eliminated the fear of cranking the batteries down.