Oh my, my, my!!! A virgin Powerstroke with 67k miles, and a willing owner..........This is fixin' to get good. pcar, you my friend are about to experience some serious PMS (Powerstroke mod syndrome) and perma grin.

For my first 2 cents I would like to add this.

If you already pull a race car, I would really like to suggest gauges. Pyro and Tranny at a minimum if it's auto. Boost is a fun gauge and it allows you to see what kind of power your mods are giving you. So do those first. That way you have a baseline before doing mods. Yeah, nobody wants to hear that. But they are good insurance. As for mods, here are a few suggestions.

As Tim said Intake and exhaust.
Tymar intake $120 no other intake can touch this one in price or performance
Exhaust down pipe is a must at the minimum. $80 from Tymar.

Fuel pressure regulator shim to 60 to 75 psi. $0 if you have a BB
also a good idea to always clean your FPR screen. (Pull the fuel filter and look in the little hole at the top of the canister.) use the stick of a Q-tip to clean it gently. Usually you will get alot of black crud off of it if it hasn't been cleaned in a while. This is good for better throttle respose.

10k mod. $1.20 from radio shack.
Super cheap mod and easy to do. Good for 7hp and 30tq. (I proved that on a dyno) And I suggest putting it on a switch.

Next, a chip or programmer. Programmers are cheap and easy to get, which is why most newbys choose them. But you will soon find out why we love our switch on the fly custom chips. I highly suggest DP-Tuner or Tony Wildman. Both aces in the field.

Last but never least. There is NO bigger horsepower gain than bigger injectors. There are no amout of stories and testimonys that can actually prepare you for this kind of power increase. Injectors and programing alone will completly blow you away. But you need the right mods to support them. i.e. intake, exhaust etc. Hope that helps, and trust me, all these guys will be here when you need them. And when they aren't, I'm a nightshifter, so I will be. We got ya covered man, just open your wallet and we'll do the rest...

 

Okay guys, let's back up a little bit so I can understand your lingo. I have no idea what "pyro and tranny" gauges are. Help me here.

I am prepared to move forward with the exhaust and air intake. A question though: if the factory downpipe is squashed I am assuming it is because of clearance issues. If that is the case, how does the new downpipe fit in the same space?

You mentioned a "fuel pressure regulator shim" and a "BB"? I have no idea what either of these are.

What is a "10K mod" and waht is meant by "putting it on a switch"?

I have some idea what "injector" upgrades are becuase my race car has fuel. injection. How big a job is it to change the injectors?

As I said before, I am new to this "diesel" world even though I have owned this truck for 4 years. It has been a great truck for me and I only paid $14,000 for it 4 years ago when it had 48,000 miles. So if I can get a little more power out of it, life with this truck only gets better!!!!!

 

pcar, brother you will soon realize there are NO silly questions around here. so here come your answers

Pyro gauge: Pyrometer, it measures exhaust gas temperatures. This is EXTREMELY important to diesels. When simply pulling, or driving a modified diesel exhaust temperatures will often see temps above 1250. This is bad because if you sustain this temp i.e. hold it on the floor for longer than 30 to 45 seconds it will start to melt pistons. Their melting point for us is the 1250 range. No it won't melt the turbo like most people will tell you. The blades in the turbine housing are Tungsten....not gonna melt. So this gauge will let you know when you are pushing it too hard. And this applies to a completely stock truck too.

Tranny: Transmission fluid temperature gauge. This monitors the fluid temp in your automatic transmission. As the pyro, this gauge is also EXTREMELY important to us. Fords automatic trannys past the c6 (old school ford tranny) are basicly junk in stock form. And they will in no way stand up to modified motors. Even basic mods have been known to eat trannys. I hate to say that, but it's a fact. So monitoring the fluid temp is very important. Heat is our #1 killer of trannys, so a good gauge is a good way to keep an eye on it. It's not needed for the manual tranny because the clutch is the common failure.

The Down Pipe. Yes, it's flat for a reason....clearance. In order to install a 3" round pipe in it's place, one of two things need to happen.
1. You get lucky as hell.
2. You need to "massage" the fire wall back a little bit.

Two is most likely your option. It doesn't have to be as hard as it sounds. First you need to get the stock pipe out. This will suck a little bit. Tools needed are a sawsall and a milwalkee torch blade. (very specificly that brand and style of blade because those down pipes are hard to cut.)

Removal: Remove the nuts that bolt the DP (down pipe) to the cataletic converter. Loosen (NOT REMOVE) loosen the DP clamp on the turbo flange. With those two things done, from undernieth the truck, wiggle, push, pull the DP until it breaks loose from the turbo. Rust and soot seazes the pipe on the turbo outlet and it needs to be broken loose, or you will never get it off after you cut it.

Okay, now the DP is loose. Leave the turbo clamp on, you can even tighten it back up at this point so the DP doesn't fling around when you try to cut it. With your sawsall you need to cut the "cobra head" off the dp as far down as you can. Pretty much you will need to hold the saw at a 45* angle above the passenger side valve cover and that's as far down as you can get. Cut the pipe. Don't worry about shavings in the turbo. This is the exit side, and they will just blow out, trust me. Or you can even go so far as to vac them out. Either way it will be fine. Usually one cut will get the pipe out the bottom side of the truck. The "cobra head" is what keeps you from just pulling it out. Now take the clamp off and remove the cobra head.

With everything out of the truck i.e. dp.... Look where you just pulled the dp from. If you look from the bottom, you will see a pinch weld seam where the floor pan meets the fire wall. This needs to be folded down, and here's how to do it.

Take the top part of the new pipe i.e. the turbo side and "mock it up". You will see where it needs to go.

 

(started a new post, they will time out if you write too much.)

Look down the firewall and you will see where the new pipe wants to hit. Mark about an inch on either side of the new dp on that seam. Take the pipe out and get the sawsall. Flip it over (to cut away from you) and cut that seam where you marked it. Cut the seam only.

Now the fun part....bending it. You have 3 options.
1. The hardest option. Beat it with a BFH. (Big F-ing Hammer)
2. Get a little ricer car scissor jack and use it to push it back.
3. The easiest way and quickest.....port-a-power with a duck bill attachment. (Google that one) and a block of wood on the bellhousing.

Which ever way you do it, flatten the seam and continue to push the firewall back about an inch or so. This should give you pleanty of room for your new dp. With the port-a-power it was about a 2 hour job for me and a buddy new to the diesel world too.

FPR shim: Fuel Pressure Regulator shim. On the drivers side of the fuel bowl housing you will see a 19mm brass nut. Remove it to find a spring on the point of the nut. Insert a BB (normal daisy BB gun BB) followed by the spring and nut. The BB increases the tension of the spring a specific amout to bump your fuel pressure from around 45-50 to 60-75 psi depending on the BB. Some people use small bolts to do the same thing. But a BB usually gets the job done very well and are cheap. You can check the before and after psi on the schrader valve on the side of the FPR under the little cap. (just like a tire valve) You can check it with a normal tire psi gauge. It's a little messy, but works.

10k mod: This is an electrical modification that uses a 10,000 (10k) ohm, 1/2 watt resistor from Radio Shack. You loop this resistor between the Blue wire with the green tracer and Gray wire with the red tracer on the ICP (injection control pressure) sensor on the drivers side head. No cutting or soldiering needed. Just push the legs of the resistor past the purple weather pack seal surrounding the wires on top of the sensor. Now this sensor plug has three wires, the two I mentioned and a brown wire with white tracer. LEAVE THE *****TY BROWN WIRE ALONE! That's how I get people to remember it. Install it with the engine running. You will hear it idle up when the connection is made and it's working. This is the only way to see if it's working without a switch, other than the higher idle. If you want to use a switch, just wire it in that loop.

Injectors: WAAAAAAY different animal than your race car. Gasoline injectors are little prehistoric twigs compared to what we have. Our injectors are HEUI.
Hydrolicly driven, electricly activated. We have a high pressure oil pump in addition to our normal oil pump that supplys the injectors with about 3000 psi of oil pressure. This pressure allows the injectors to fire by solinoid and inject diesel into the cyclinders at around 25,000 psi. Yes, really. They have about 41 internal components and are rebuildable and modifiyable. The act of changing them out is no worse than doing valve springs with the heads still on. i.e. lots of little tricks to get it done correctly without damaging anything. I myself, having never done it...10 1/2 hours in the middle of the night. I'm a pretty good wrench, so that should tell you it's a pretty time consuming job. But if you follow instruction well, it's easy.

That ought to cover it for those questions, I hope that helps. I'm a night shifter, so I'm going to bed. I'll check back tonight.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot to say....Those are just my opinion on everything and in no way diesel law. But I do have a few judges on the payroll.

 

RubberDuck, wow, so much info! You are the best!!!!! I am going to check all this out this weekend; locate everything in the truck and then see where I will go.

THNX again!!!!

 

Great Post Cody! Rep points for you!

On edit I guess I have to spread some more love before I send any your way again. Its the thought that counts!

 

Regarding the downpipe and exhaust......after looking at it and reading about installing one, I found a muffler shop in town that specializes in doing diesel exhausts and they have a bender for 4" pipe. So, for $450 I got a complete turbo back stainless steel system, with the downpipe going from 3" to 4" as soon as there was room to do it, which was about halfway down the DP. By the time you buy a complete exhaust system, I didn't think it was worth it to still mess with it myself.

Something you might check out in your area.

 

Great idea and thanks for the input. I will check it out.

 

tymar has the 3" downpipe that bevels out to 4". you could put smoke stacks on it!!! i love mine... gives it a nice rumble!!!

 

Holy Crap!!!!

All this mod talk is getting me excited.... Oh, the possibilities.

Time for a cold shower!

 

This post is what this site is all about... helping spread the syndrome, hehe. Rep points sent Duck

-Eric

 

Thanks for the kind words Tim. I tried to send you some points too, but got the same result. As long as we know we rock!!

Thanks to you as well SrqScion, and you right, this is what makes FTE better than any other forum.

DG65, I feel ya. With as much as I learn on here, my shorts stay sticky...EWWW

 

RubberDuck, I have only owned my truck for a week or two and I don't want to hijack this thread but I will say I am in the same boat as powerstroked162 and will post later as I prioritize my hundreds of questions.

I have to say, I wish I lived closer to many of you folks.

Great site!

 

Okay guys, so last night I looked under the hood in anticipation of installing the Tymar intake. Am I right to asume that all that existing black plastic air intake stuff including the black pastic cannister gets removed?

Also it looks as though the Tymar intake will pick up the heated air from the engine instead of the factory intake which gets its air from just inside the hood. Am I over thinking this?