I recently purchased a '91 F250 4x4 Diesel with an automatic and overdrive. It's my first Diesel and I was curious what if any, performance upgrades were available for these trucks?

Thanks!
Michael

 

Is it a turbo?

 

A turbo is the biggest bang for the dollar amount, although you are looking at around 2500 till you get it installed.

You can replace the small exhaust with a 3" and get some power gain.
A little work on the air intake system will get you a little also.

How many miles on it?

 

If You Have A Local Pump Shop You Can Have Your Pump Turned Up(make Sure They Keep It In Emisions)but You Will Want To Go To A Bigger Exhaust.a Turbo Would Be The Best If You Can Aford It Though.

 

If it is a turbo, you can mod the outlet, down pipe and exhaust (ATS has the parts). If not start by putting a larger exhaust. Then mod the intake " more air in - lots of exhaust out". Get a set of guages, most important is the pyro. Then you can turn up the pump. Get it timmed by a shop that has the equirment. Do not forget you ph and sca's.

 

I have an '88 F450 7.3. Is this the same motor? Only asking because I thought it was too outdated for a turbo.

 

Same motor. The 7.3 remained unchanged until 1994.5
You can put a turbo in it.

 

If you want performance on a shoestring budget, check out this website, I probably wouldn't do these on my everyday driver but if I had a weekend toy I'd go for it! http://www.members.shaw.ca/k2pilot/

 

I was told by another user on here that the motor is different in a '93 then a '91. Internals like crank, con rods n pistons are a lil more beefier because of the factory turbo they put on starting in '93.

 

I hadn't heard that, but even if it's so it's obviously not mandatory since you can add a turbo to even the 6.9s of the 80s.

 

The turbo motors had bigger wrist pins in the pistons.
1" wrist pins on the NA motors.
1 and 5/16" on the turbo motors.
In fact since the wrist pin is bigger on the turbo motors but the con rod and piston is the same, the stock setup has stronger rods and pistons in my opinion. Same size chunk of metal with a bigger hole in it is weaker at some point.
The rest is the same.

I am running a turbo and a about 17 PSI of boost on a 6.9 engine.
No problems from the wrist pins.

There are a lot of NA 6.9 and 7.3 motors that have had turbo's mounted on them without problems.
The biggest thing in my opinion is to mount a pyrometer in the exhaust manifold to monitor EGT's with a turbo, that even goes for factory turbo's.

Farmnfly,
The scoop idea is a great addition to any engine, I have one on mine that is an every day driver and has a turbo to boot. It even made a difference with the turbo, so the gains without a turbo would be greater.



As far as the propane, I have experimented with it on my turbo motor.
As soon as I can figure where to mount the tank I will be installing it on mine.
Since I have the turbo and all the power I need I will be doing it for increased fuel mileage. Since it does get rid of the black smoke that means the fuel is being burnt more completely. Fuel being turned into power that goes to the wheels instead of out the exhaust pipe is a good thing.