Does anyone know of a good grind for a cam for these engines. Want something just like Justin’s at R&D. Been trying to get my hands on a cam from him for a while now but haven’t gotten that lucky yet. I have a shop near me that said they’d grind my cam to whatever.

 

Russ Repair offers a cam.

https://russrepair.com/torque-camshaft-for-idi


Charlie

 

I didn't know you could get the Typ4 cam from Russ Repair. I've only read good things about that cam.

 

type4 is russrepair's user name on many diesel forums.
russrepair is his business name.

 

Don`t know if any of you know it, but Russ past away several months ago.
His family is still operating the business as far as I know.
I ordered a few thing last month.
we lost a very knowledgeable IDI person, will be missed.

Charlie

 

That's tragic. I remember they lost their beautiful daughter just a few years back from cancer. Young girl too. I think like late 20's or early 30's. Tough times for the family.

 

i was not aware Russ passed away.
he was a wealth of knowledge.
was it not Russ who managed to get over 1,000 hp out of a 6.9 block years ago?

 

Here is the Thread on Oil Burners about Russ passing away.

https://www.oilburners.net/threads/a...le-loss.93742/


Charlie

 

I know Justin at R&D got one pumped up there quite a bit.
Been a long time since I read about it.
Didn`t he go by the Forum name "Racin and drummin" ?

Wouldn`t that be something? A 1000 HP 6.9 under the hood of my 86,
When the light changed to green, I would be 1/2 mile down the road
before the big boys that are blowing smoke on me, are through the intersection.

Charlie

 

yes Justin forum name here was something like that.
and now that i think of it it may have been Justin that did the 1,000 hp engine.
it was a solid block engine (no coolant) and was a 1/4 mile racer. ran good..... until it decided not to any more

 

That was Hypermax diesel that built the 1200hp IDI back in the early 1990's; there are some pictures floating around online of it as it had twin turbos, an inline 8 pump and the block was concrete filled to prevent it from flexing.
R&D (Justin) manufactures parts for the IDI engine. He was on here and some other forums for a time, but I think he's moved onto Facebook for an IDI group.
Supposedly the thing about the stock IDI cam is that International made it "just good enough" to run the engine. According to some, the cam is the engine's weak link, not the indirect injection itself; therefore, when it comes to adding a turbo, the stock camshaft doesn't allow the engine aspirate in correlation to forced induction.

 

Yet the cam was not changed from the information that I have when Ford installed a turbo from the factory.

 

No, it wasn't and there's some reasons for that.
For starters, the reason that the IDI is underpowered is that it's a product of the times it was created. In 1981 when Ford signed with IH, times were still lean and International Harvester and Ford bean counters believed that customers wouldn't spend an extra $1500-2000 for an added turbo on top of an already $2000 extra diesel option. Another thing was speed limits then were only 55mph thru its production life- which it can easily handle. Then, there was no real diesel competition from GM or Chrysler, so they could afford to be lax and build what they wanted until the debut of the 6BT. Also, there was supposedly an unwritten policy around Ford HQ that the IDI or even the first generation 7.3 Power Strokes (1994-97) would not outperform the 460 under any circumstances as the 460 was the flagship engine. There's also a Power Stroke- IDI conspiracy theory, that the factory turbo IDI outperformed the upcoming 1st Power Stroke on the dyno and in turn was down-tuned so it wouldn't outshine the new engine. All in all, International built a good platform that is effective as a diesel, but it was just never really pushed until we IDI enthusiasts came along. Thankfully, there's been people like Russ, Mel, Justin and others that have given us knowledge and kept IDI parts available 30 years after Navistar quit making them!

 

the biggest thing about the "detuned" IH engines is International never made these to be powerhouses. yes they were "detuned" to make them last.
a 7.3 Powerstroke is "juiced" by Ford for power. the International T444E was 210 HP. the Ford Powerstroke 7.3 started at 250 HP and ended up close to 300 HP by the time they went to the 6.0.
that is why International engines easily went over 500,000 miles, while a Powerstroke was a lot of times done at 300,000.
same with the 6.0. Ford juiced them to 350 HP, while the International VT365 was only 175 to 230 HP
the International VT365 is a very dependable engine that will run almost forever.
the Ford 6.0 is a problem child because it is tuned almost to the blow up limit of the engine.