I daily drive a 96 F350 dually that I bought about a year and half ago. She has been a great truck so far minus a few hiccups. The goal for the truck was to slightly modernize the performance of her while still keeping it close to my nostalgic view of it. I had three main parts to the project. 1. Interior clean-up and fixes. 2. Suspension changes... 05+ F450 axle swap and 4x4 conversion. 3. 7.3 performance parts.

Well with the truck starting to develop a fuel/oil leak I decided to start there. At only 108,000 miles, she is in decent shape for being 30 years old. My oil/fuel leak was small at first, but after a 500 mile road trip the leak started to get bad. I ended up needing to put in over 6 quarts of oil in between oil changes. It mimicked a rear main seal at first, but upon further inspection she was coming from up top. So my plan was to add a little performance without going overboard. So off to Irate Diesel it was. Matt was super helpful and we came up with a pretty good game plan. I ordered Full Force Stage 1.5 Injectors 180cc/30% over, new UVCG, Glow plugs, Adrenaline Billet HPOP, E-Fuel, new bellowed up-pipes, Hydra tuned my Jellic, and new oil lines along with an Edge to monitor everything. I also added a HPX oil line as well and some dress-up parts from Riff Raff. I know these engines can take a lot, but I want her to last. My bought the truck because I grew watching my dad in it shifting gears and driving me everywhere. Now I want to do the same for my kids. Coming from an aviation background, I even send the oil out to Black Stone to make sure everything is running smoothly and not making metal inside.

So far, after a lot of cussing, trips to Harbor Freight for different swivel sockets, wobble extensions, and rags all of the main parts are out of the truck(turbo, fuel bowl, and HPOP). It was honestly fairly straight forward with only the turbo removal and HPOP bolt being tricky to remove. I had to put a socket on the crank to keep it from turning over when removing the HPOP bolt and everyone here knows the trickery involved in getting to the various bolts on the turbo and pedestal with the different witch-craft of extensions needed. I tracked down my leaks while in the process as well which made me feel better. Ive started cleaning out the valley and getting everything ready to start putting it back together. I just need to remove the AC Compressor bracket and pull the old fuel pump so I have access for the new fuel lines. I think I will redo my battery harness as well with the kit from CP Addicts while everything is apart since mine is really mangled up. I am sending out the dress up parts from Riff Raff to be powder coated (mini oil reservoir spacer(to upgrade to the screen like on the super duty), oil reservoir, lid, and cap, and intake plenums). I will have the Irate Up-Pipes ceramic coated along with the new KC Turbo Stage 1 Gen 3 once it comes out...hopefully soon.

It feels good to get some progress in on the project. There is definitely a long way to go, but so far, so good. Ill post up some photos here shortly to show the progress so far.

73pilot

 

 

Drops after shut off

Puddle after 5 days of sitting

 

Good work, we love pics!

 

Looks like a great blank canvas, and I imagine you'll be pleased with the KC turbo products. I look forward to seeing more progress.

Also, if you decide to sell that exhaust brake let me know.

 

Those up pipes look different. The collector and pipes are one piece? Or am I looking at that picture wrong?

 

Just a suggestion.
leave that dust cover off the trans.
Unless you got an automatic, then who cares.
But if you got a manual, it just helps your clutch recircuilate any fluids in there all over your clutch.

 

Sorry for the delay in getting more updates, life happened and I couldn't work on it for a bit. Currently the truck is still waiting on some parts to come in, but some progress has been made. I was waiting for the Stage 1 Gen 3 KC Turbo but decided on getting the Gen 2 instead. The Gen 3 is a conversion and I already have a pedestal and up-pipes, so that's a no go. Truth be told I was a little disappointed in that, but I feel like it will be leaps and bounds above what I was driving previously. I did elect for the .84 on the turbo as well to aid in spool and just daily drivability.

To answer your question Harvey, yes they are one piece up-pipes from Irate Diesel. I will wrap them to also help with the thermal side of things.

Current inventory of parts here and awaiting install are: Billet HPOP, Irate E-Fuel, Irate Up-Pipes (need to be wrapped), Dieselsite Turbo Cover, Full Force Stage 1.5 Injectos(180/30), Glowplugs, UVCH, Jelly Built Hydra, & Denso Starter.

Parts waiting to come in: KC Turbo Stage 1 Gen 2, S&B Body Mounts(figured while I was here...need to jack the cab to drop in the up-pipes), CP Addict Battery Cables, OBS Solutions Hydra Mount.

Parts off getting painted/coated: RiffRaff Oil Reservoir and Lid, RiffRaff Mini Spacer and Cover, Intake Plenums, Valve Covers, and Alternator Bracket. They are all getting painted/coated pearl white. The hot side of the turbo will get ceramic coated as well...just black.

Hoping to start getting everything put back together soon. Just waiting to get everything here. Trying to do everything in a logical order so that I don't have to repeat and undo things as I go. This week I will replace the starter, do the injector and glowplug swap along with the UVCH, and install the HPOP. I do have a HPX line, but Dieselsite says not to use it with their pump. So I might just leave it off. Plan on calling them today to really discuss it more in depth. Once this is done, it will just be waiting for the painted and coated parts to come back in and put them on.

Plan is to remove the down pipe, do the body mounts, and put the up-pipe in all in one go. Since I need to jack the cab/lower the tranny to get the up-pipe in(they do slide in with an auto, just not a ZF5), I figured new body mounts would make a world of difference.

After that, it is putting in the new turbo and bolting everything back together. I've been dreading the E-fuel because I'm not a huge fan of wiring, but I think I will give this one the old college try. I did see a video of a gentleman even tying it into the stock fuse box which looked real trick! Makes it look OEM! Might try that.

Here are some photos of a few updates. Nothing serious...just cleaning it up a little. Thanks for following along.

 

I think I am going to try and keep it. It is off at the painter getting coated now. She wasn't in the best of condition, but I don't know if Pacbrake still even makes them. Mine worked really well...when it worked. I think I had a small vacuum leak which was causing it to be intermittent. But If I do, I will keep you posted. Thanks.

 

A lot cleaner than the way I found it.

AC bracket removed to run the fuel lines

Up-Pipes removed. I was able to take them off the manifolds but couldn’t get them out without cutting them. I used a SawZaw and a good blade to cut each side of the up-pipe. The passenger side fell right out of the bottoms. The driver side was still stuck. Had to use a dremel with a cut off wheel to slice through the flange. Then it came out.

Valve covers and Alternator bracket removed


Alternator bracket. I stripped it down and now it is getting dolled up.

 

Be sure and convert to the superduty valve cover gasket setup; the larger intake boot on the KC might contact your current driver rear connector and put pressure on it.

 

As I was reading I was afraid that they didn’t tell you that the gen3 st1 comes with the up pipes and such. For all that you get, it is a good deal but may be troublesome if you already have OBS bellowed up pipes. I hope the st2 works well for you

 

That is a good point. I actually kept the same OBS UVCH. I will keep an eye out for that. Thanks for the tip.

Yesterday was able to replace the old starter with the Denso. Man, that thing is massive! I still need to wire it in, but I’m waiting for the harness from CP Addict to come in.

I was also able to get my IPR installed and torqued to spec on the new HPOP. I know Dieselsite has a nice tool for it, but I found that just using a Craftsman 1/2 drive, 1 1/8 deep socket worked well with some minor work to it. Just took my dremel and hollowed out the base a little bit. Took maybe 5/10 minutes and then it slipped over and all the way down perfectly. Then I had a miniature freak out because I wanted to make sure I had the right gasket and HPOP (anti drain back vs not). I know it was a 1996 switch year, but I wanted to verify. So I looked at my old reservoir and it was date coded. Then I looked under the motor next to the oil filter and verified the serial. I had the right parts…thank goodness.

I wasn’t able to torque the HPOP to the ring gear in the timing cover without turning the motor over. So I’ll have to get a cheater bar on the crank bolt to hold it in place to get the actual torque spec (95ftlb). I was able to get 50ftlb without her spinning, but I’ll finish that up today and hopefully get the oil lines loosely ran.

After that the goal is to get the intake plenums off and the mating surface cleaned up. If I still have time, I’ll swap the injectors, glow plugs, and UVCH as well. Going to play it extra careful on the injectors and make sure everything is cleaned out, no cracks in the cups, and use my evacuation pump to suck anything out of the cylinders. I know you can drain the rail with the little plugs, but honestly I’d rather not break them loose. If they aren’t leaking, don’t give them a reason to.

I keep putting off the fuel side of it, but I need to get that done as well. I don’t really know why, but it just makes me nervous. Maybe it’s because I have to wire it in. I don’t know. But we will get it done.


New Denso

All nice and shiny!

New IPR with the socket I used to torque it.

Cleaned up behind the old starter. She was a mess with all the crud seeping down through the weep hole from the leaks in the valley.


All cleaned up and ready for the HPOP

New HPOP mounted up.

 

Wait until you hear the Denso spin that 7.3 over

 

Keeping the old plenums? I thought about upgrading mine considering I now have pretty red intercooler pipes going to them. But the thought of forearm fighting the intercooler pipes is giving me second thoughts. I'm hoping that the plenums aren't compromised by the pressure the intercooler pipes are placing on the plenums. They didn't exactly fit 100% perfect.

I have also thought about upgrading my hpop to a t500. I'm not thinking that it's limiting my power though. I do have 260k miles on the original hpop at least I think it is original.

Good point on the kc turbo boot pushing on the valve gasket connect. My boot kisses it and it would simplify troubleshooting if I replaced/upgraded the gasket to the super duty style.