A friend of mine told me it wasn't a good idea to put a turbo on a 7.3 IDI, something about the piston walls couldn't handle the boost? Is this true? If not, what's a safe boost range?

I have 7.3 IDI in my F350. I'm not looking for a racing truck; just really something to help me pulling up a hill with my mowing trailer. It'll got from 65mph, down to 50mph before I level out haha

 

Completely false. put a turbo on the 7.3l IDI in her last year (94). Any 7.3l/6.9l IDI you see that's older with a turbo is an aftermarket add-on (which was available in the day).

Your friend is probably confused, the 7.3l IDI is known to have a problem with cavitation if the coolant isn't maintained. But there are plenty of folks with a 7.3l IDIT running OE head bolts without any issues.

 

interesting side note: I bought this truck (2) years ago with 220,000. The guy said he barely drove it over 20 years. It had a Banks turbo on it and he said it was from the factory. I got about 20k miles out of it and it started knocking. About 15k miles after that, the engine locked up. He said it was probably a combination of lack of use and the turbo. He has told me I could put one on a 6.9, but not a 7.3. Most of the research ive done says otherwise.

 

You've for sure received some misinformation. It's slightly safer to put a turbo on a 7.3L due to having larger head bolts than the 6.9L. If running a turbo on 6.9L is best to install head studs. You could just run low boost on the 6.9L with their head bolts, but you're going to buy a kit, go all through that time and work to install it, then not be able to use all it has to offer for performance? No way, I'd do that. Head studs are not cheap though....plus the amount of turning them in, you really want to pull the engine to install them. It's far easier to turbo a 7.3L (on a running engine in a truck).


the installation of the 2nd generation banks turbo sidewinder kit (w/instructions & detailed pics)

These kits are still being sold new today. I bought my kits used, but they're worth every penny new too. They totally transform your truck.

Mitsubishi TE06H/banks turbo blanket + 24"x12" core FMIC installation w/ats hat & 9th gen truck

 

I have owned a 94 with the factory turbo for little over a year now. Truck is sitting around 148K miles.

Now as to what the specs were between the factory IDI NA and the IDIT here are the numbers. NA 185 hp and 338 lb-ft torque at 3000 rpm. Turbo version 190 hp and 388 lb-ft torque at 3000 rpm. In factory cloths the gains were pretty modest.

While mine is no power house compared to what you can go buy today it has served me well and is a big step up from the 300 6 I was driving before with 300k on the clock. The local steep grade (7 percent) in this area mine will maintain 65 on cruse in 5th. Do not recall towing anything up that hill, have hauled 1000 pound loads a few time. I see very little smoke out the back unless I get to lugging it so I believe the truck is still at factory sittings. I have no idea what the boost is doing not really interested in finding out either!

 

Personally I think the difference between turbo and N/A is huge--I have 'em both but turbo for the win when you want to drive at more modern highway or interstate speeds. The turbo adds this thing called "acceleration". A non-turbo will be great off the line but as speed increases and turbo lag is accounted for the non-turbo is left in the dust. At low speeds my N/A with 4.10 gears and 5 speed is very quick for its age and weight but it doesn't take a monster hill on the highway to force dropping out of OD into 4th just to maintain 55mph.

 

Yeah, oh man. I can so easily remember how both of my trucks went N/A. I worked the F-250 N/A for a while. I turbocharged the F-450 before working it. I think the only time I drove that one N/A was on the ride home from buying it. After being used to the turbo engine, I was laughing driving her home, remembering how slow they were on the hills. That one with a large extended frame and bed is heavy, unloaded, so you could really feel her slowing down on the inclines.

I thought the N/A's were just fine on the flat. Even loaded. In fact, if I lived out on flat land out west or something, like OK, Kansas, Texas, I wouldn't even bother. It's the hills that kills 'em. Especially loaded up. Man, I would load the bed up of the F250 with chips or wood, I would have to put it, hold it to the floor, she'd have to kick down into 2nd and scream, taking the hills.......at 40mph

Installed the banks and it just kicks out of OD into 3rd and I don't even need (very, very rarely) to floor it to go up the hills 50+.
Totally different. I dunno how accurate those marketing #'s are at Banks website for the kit.........But I don't doubt, if they're not right on, they ain't being fudged by much if they are, that's for sure. It's like as if you placed another half an IDI engine in there is what it feels like. Maybe their not impressive #'s, especially by today's standards, but the % increase on to what's there is a lot.

Once you go turbo, you can't go back. This is why when another kit came up for sale, it didn't take much thinking to just put one on the F450 too. I couldn't imagine how slow she'd be going uphills with a load of logs on N/A. 25mph maybe? Glad I didn't even bother finding out. That one, even with the N/A IP nearly keeps up to the speed limit on most hills too. This one if often floored on the hills w/ the maxed N/A IP, just down into 3rd w/ the 5.13's though. Very rare she'll slow enough to hit 2nd. Has to be a steep hill, loaded, and already slow to begin with. It just feels "faster than it needs to be" while loaded, most of the time too. Even with the N/A IP. That's why I never bothered upgrading it. I will now, that it needs a reman pump.........A decade+ latter.

 

my 88 7.3 got it's turbo put on within 4 months of buying it. it has a little over 496,000 miles on it and it has never been opened up.
your friend has been smoking too much weed.
if your engine had a banks turbo on it, it was not factory. in 94 Ford offered an ATS turbo with ford name plate on the IDI.
as for reason for the engine blowing up: 20 years without barely driving it, my bet is the oil had a lot of condensation in it and THAT ruined the bearings before you bought it which caused it to start knocking and finally die once you started running it.

 

I didn't think the Banks turbo came from the factory. PLUS (I don't know if this is an indication), but on my tailgate, there's a plastic that says "Diesel" and I've seen one before that says "Turbo Diesel"...... I'm assuming that meant that mine didn't come with a turbo from the factory.

I don't drive my truck hard. I'll use it to pull a couple of commercial mowers, mulch, brush but nothing over 10k pounds. Usually drive no more than 60 mph hahaha.... so i was really shocked when it started knocking.

 

Are you sure it's not just injector knock or flex plate failure? Both can sound horrific...........Oh you said it locked up after it knocked. Nevermind. The truck isn't worth another used engine?

 

yeah, it locked up. I got about 20k miles out of it before one night it started slapping, "fork over plate" scratching, etc. It was done.

the truck's in great shape. A friend of mine buys and parts out these old trucks. I got a 7.3 idi, non turbo from him earlier this year and so far, it's running great

 

Oh nice. Yeah, if you want, you can transfer the turbo to it without any concern at all. I wouldn't think twice. As for what's safe, right around 10 psi is very safe on stock 7.3L IDI's. Some claim you can push a few more psi and Tom ran far more for many years without issue. I just keep mine around 10.

I want to say those are the very.....well at least fairly uncommon first half of the '94 year factory turbo IDI trucks. The ones with that "turbo diesel" emblem.

Yours could be a factory '93 turbo truck that someone swapped a banks onto or a whole different engine into (the one that seized).
You can tell by the vin code. You didn't say what year your truck was, but if it is a '93. I seem to recall the '93 factory turbo truck, might have had an emblem on the gate. I don't think it got that side "turbo diesel" one. I think that was the '94.

If so, those engines are actually a little bit different. They beefed up some internals (needlessly). They're balanced differently. So if your hanging onto it for parts and it is a factory '93 turbo engine, you wouldn't want to swap flexplates for example, if your N/A "M" code engine, ever needs one................ Or what if someone didn't know this in the past and put a N/A flexplate on it, she ran unbalanced for as long as she could until.........

 

agreed. if you keep boost around 10 psi it will run forever properly maintained. i ran my 88 for years with open exhaust( no mufflers) and would regularly see 15-16 psi boost towing heavy loads up long hills.
another very important thing is the exhaust temp gauge. NEVER EVER go above 1100 decrees. pistons start to melt around 1200 degrees.
i had fuel set to keep exhaust temps down. if i cranked the fuel up to blow smoke, it would have easily melted the piston tops off.

 

Oh man, that would be so nice to have on my truck! Looks like a huge job tho. How much does a mod like that costs in parts? And how many hours did you put in for your 450?

 

It's been a while since I've installed a banks turbo kit now, but I seem to recall it taking, something like a long weekend or so. If you work away right at it, and had a kit on hand with all the parts or a new one, I would think if you hustled, you could probably manage it, in a weekend alone. For sure, with a buddy helping. It's not that hard. If you don't have a torch to heat up exhaust bolts, oh boy, that could really add to the time though. I seem to recall about 2-3 days to install them and few spare mins to install missing parts latter.

The intercooler is actually 1/10 the job of installing the turbo. That's super easy compared to that. Even if you're someone like me, who didn't have a welder at the time and just mark them and have someone do that for you. I'd probably still do it that way. I can weld sheet metal now haha but I wouldn't trust sealing something up to be air tight. Besides, when you cut it, and mark lines, so all they have to do is hold them together and weld them, it's very quick and doesn't cost much. The hardest part of that job is cutting some notches in the rad support to run the pipe. The second hardest, fabricating some brackets to mount the cooler and lastly, marking the pipes. It's very straight forward when you start in.