Howdy everyone, I nabbed an engine the other day. I got ot for a decent deal I think. I don't know much about it. Here's the basics:

Appears to be a 97 model with pick on pass side

Previous owner said someone may have used starting fluid on it and possibly bent a rod. They needed the truck up so they just swapped in a known good engine.

The engine is mostly complete minus a water pump and a turbo.

It's been sitting for quite awhile.

I'm not afraid of rebuilding this engine if need be. I'd like to have everyone's input and experiences.

My end goal is to have a recrafted engine that i can swap into my truck. It'll be getting a T4 setup unless someone has a better option. I'm not looking for a billion horsepower or torque, truck is a monster and manual too. The truck has its own build thread though.

Anywho, here's some pics of the engine when I got it.




My starting plan was to clean it up and let everything soak in wd40 so I could remove things off the engine little by little.

I remove the harness first. Then worked on getting the fuel pump and rear lines off. Their is a bit stuck in the top if the block still. Fuel bowl came off pretty easily. Hpop lines were a bit harder but still came off.




I sprayed a good bit of wd40 onto the valve train and began wiping things down. It's about here that I realized the drivers side is missing the pushrods and rockers. So I assume this is the side that maybe bent a pushrod..idk. Also found that the number 1 cylinder has a different injector from the rest, and that it appears someone tried to take the top off.




I removed the pan and pickup tube so I could get the engine sitting down. The pans junk. I haven't tried spinning the crank yet. Wanted to clean out all visible gunk and get a good amount of wd40 and such on everything first.

At a bare minimum i plan to get the following:

Morose pan and gasket
Upgraded pushrods and valve springs
New Hpop (whats the preffered flavor currently?)
Valve covers (Possibly fancy ones)
Good fuel block and lines (already have efuel)
T4 setup (any proffered kits)
Plenums
possibly exhaust manifold studs/gaskets
water pump
Loop

The missing rockers is a bit of an unexpected kick in the dick. Oem ones are available but not sexy or cheap. CSD has fancy ones with new lifters/rods/springs/rockers but that also costs a good chunk of change. Anyone know any other options?

 

My current setup is efuel running a stock SD pump. I have Rosewood hybrid injectors 208/30 maybe...been awhile. PHP hydra tunes. Intercooled with 3" billet plenums and running a T4I Holset turbo (Roundhouse kick in the jimmies)

My current engine has 210k ish miles and a pretty substantial oil leak from the pedestal orings. The engine really needs a refresh. I'm hoping this new block will be a suitable donor/build.

 

What do you not like about the Holset that makes you want a T4? Too much lag? Are you going to put a scope in the cylinders soon? If they were using starter fluid I would want to make sure there isn’t any damage before you get too far into it.

I have a t500 hpop and it works well for me. Cncfab also makes some good options.

are you looking at the Riffraff fancy valve covers? Those things are nice

 

Are you not wanting to pull it completely apart? All you're out is some gaskets and time if you do and it looks ok. Really the only to be sure what you have.

I like my adrenaline hpop but they've gotten pretty expensive.

 

I do like the RiffRaff ones, even saw these bad boys on another site



I'm not afraid of tearing it down. I'd like to not have to, but if it need be, so be it.

Used to he a handful of hpops out there: Adrenaline. Terminator, Bosch of course, didn't cnc fab have one too?

The Holset does have quite a bit of lag. It's also a pain to work on. I'd like to go with a new more efficient setup, T4 seems to do that. I need up pipes and a pedestal anyway.

My next goal is to pull the glow plugs shoot some wd in the cylinders and see if it spins

 

Has anyone used or heard of "RCD or River City Diesel"

I remember awhile back seeing they offer a fabricated oil pan, but when I emailed for pictures of it installed or just different pics I got very vague responses.

https://rcdperf.com/products/1994-20...uminum-oil-pan

I looked at various HPOP options, holy jeebus the Adrenaline is pricey! 899 for cast or 1299 if you want a billet one!

Terminator seems most reasonable price at 499 so far.

 

Bought piles from RCD when I had my 6.4 Innovate and Gearhead tunes.

Add a headjob to your list to do. My Adrenaline works fine still. That mill is unknown, I would at least hone and rering. Balance the bottom end. New bearings. New bushings for rods and ARP rod bolts. @427 fordman showed in his build thread how out of whack the stock bottom end is balance wise.

Are uppipes and such not available for your Holset?

 

I have taken the Holset as far as it can go from what I've seen. I have a billet wheel and bellowed up-pipes on it already. It doesn't appear that anyone makes housing for it anymore. It also doesn't seem to fit the truck very well. Theres no room around the up pipes and I think that's transmitting some NVH into the cab, not that I expect the truck to sound like a Lincoln.

I have planned to rebuild the block if required. I am going to reach out to a local machine shop this week to see what they offer. I haven't seen much for a rotating assembly in the aftermarket so I'm guessing the crank can be balanced by a machine shop if need be. If I take it apart, I plan on getting the crank polished at least. I am planning on new pushrods, springs and probably also replace the valve guides and seals while the heads are off.

As for the HPOPs, I really don't know if I'll look much at the adrenaline pumps unless folks can explain why they're $300+ more then literally every other option.

I need to get a better idea of the condition of the bottom end before making any big decisions. But the valvetrain is going to need replaced, and not just because im missing half of it lol

Speaking of RCD, has anyone tried one of their 7.3 cams? I tried searching cammed 7.3 and found a bunch of negative comments, but not from anyone that seems to have actually had one. Just knew a cousin/brother/neighbor who had one and it didn't run well type stories.

 

Today I pulled the glow plugs out. All but one came out easily. Other one had some gunk built up around the nut so I had to clean that and then it came out.

After I had the glowplugs out i figired id shoot a bit of wd in the holes and see if the crank spins. No dice unfortunately.

Went and pulled all the injectors. They came out pretty easily. Covered in old black oil.



Went and started to remove the exhaust manifold bolts. Carefully since I figured they'd all just snap. Got the drivers side manifold off cleanly. The passenger side has two bolts left that haven't snapped but I can't keep a socket on them. Even tried wracking a 12mm on there, that worked for a couple other bolts but not on these two. I'll try some heat tomorrow or so.

Pulled the hpop oil reservoir off. Looks pretty clean in there. Probably pull the hpop itself off tomorrow.

I'm gonna keep taking it apart. Once I pull the heads we should be able to see how the cylinders look. And if the blocks good for a rebuild.

 

Continuing in the teardown I went ahead and pulled both heads off. Looks pretty rough.





Shot some wd around the edges of the pistons. Scraped the old head gasket off a bit too. Gonna lift the block up tomorrow and see if I can get the crank to turn. As it sits now it's solid, almost rolled the block over trying to turn the crank today.

On a more positive side. I had a nice phone call with a vendor, Ultra Diesel Performance. They have some nice items on their site, I posted a pic above of somee of their parts. They have a super long lead time, 6-8 months he said right now. But it looks sharp and has some nice features I like. Anyone ever dealt with them or had any of their parts?

 

A little crusty on the cylinder bores, hopefully you can get away with an oversize bore or if you fell like a millionaire sleve them all back to factory size. Mine passed .030 and looked almost as bad as your block.

 

Hopefully it's salvageable. I'm gonna try and get the front and covers off tomorrow. That rear aluminum plate is really stuck on there. Just the two pins holding it on.

Once the blocks torn down like you have yours ill put it on a proper stand and see if I can get the crank to spin at all.

I looked at the heads a bit closer as I was taking them off. Definitely some area of concern, mainly the bog oil plugs and a couple of the top oil rail plugs. Very corroded

 

I used a river city diesel stage 1 cam in a used I installed that fairly quickly let a rod later but definitely helped bottom in power. In the motor’s defense It had 250/100 and s369sxe. I swapped it and everything else in another spare motor. Soon as I get little extra coin saved for a new set of riffraff intake plenums I’ll have truck back together for now it’s on back burner.

 

Awesome, good to hear some feedback on the RCD cam..

I continued to tear the engine down today. Got the adapter/spacer plate off the rear and pulled the hpop and timing cover off.

Noticed the cps sensor was missing and bolt broke off in timing cover . I was using a thread restorer on the bellhousing holes and it broke in one of them, ill uave to extract that, studs exposed so shouldn't be too hard. The holes were pretty gross.

I got the engine somewhat mounted on a stand. Could only get 3 of the 4 bolts to fit on the stand. I have the engine upside down now and a crate and some rubber blocks under it just in case lol. The crank still doesn't spin.



I called the two local ish machine shops today. Both were a bust. Ones super busy and backed up, the other shop only wants to do "race engines". Super lame

Im gonna try and get some evapo-rust and see if i can free up the pistons. For now I'm gonna try and get everything cleaned up and hardware sorted in bags. Probably gonna use the hpop as a core so I can get one on order. I want to have one to replace the one on my engine. Still trucking on the original i think currently.

 

Subscribed… don’t know much about the 7.3, looking forward to the rest of the build.

Ive had luck in the past with a mix of diesel and atf in cyl bores to get frozen engine moving again, took a few days, and tapped on the top of the pistons with block of wood and mallet. Worked though.