F350 7.3 IDI Hot Shot Truck

The truth about diesels is two fold, the first is the American public doesn't just like them. They remember the GM fiasco where a bunch of 5.7 and small v6s were marketed and had all kinds of problems.

The second is the emissions, until two years ago, it was hard to get them passed the EPA regs for small high speed diesels. Pickups and vans had to deal with lax regs.

Now the second part is important because there has been a shift in particle emissions from diesels to cleaning them up - that great 2010 epa diesel engine. The problem is there is no real connection to respiratory problems people have or the claim that there is a link to Autism and diesel particles, The former issues has a study done in the 60's and updates in the 90's where they looked at inner city kids who had a lot of problems and looked at the diesel buses that roamed the street, this was mainly in NYC where the air is bad anyway. The latter issue was a study done and never confirmed so the EPA has used both of these issues to force on us the clean diesel.

While that all sounds great, clean pure air, there is another issue where Diesel, wood and coal particles help with - global warming. There is proof that in the past ash from eruptions in one part of the world cooled the entire world off. So any climate experts think that these particles will help with global warming by blocking out the sun ... by the way that doesn't mean we will see it.

Oh by th way, Ford has the fiesta diesel that I am told has the top mileage in the EU zone but Ford refused to bring the engine here. It would meet all the EPA requirements and get 60 plus per gallon on our highway cycles but ford's excuse is they can't justify the costs to setup the plant in Mexico and make the engines there.

 

I have, but they were putting out 400, 500, 600 horsepower.

You seem to not have caught on that in my former life, I worked in the shop THAT FIXED THE TRUCKS. I don't need to be "told". This is concrete personal experience.

Fact.

Be grateful. They're a LOT of dirty work to fix.

It wasn't a motor problem. And yes, the old VP44's did fail. There was a 4 percent failure in the first 3 years.

Nope. I have seen 5.9's with over 800,000 miles on them, in hotshot and RV hauling pickups. I have never seen, nor known anyone who drove a 7.3 more than 450K miles. I'm not saying nobody has, they just don't have anywhere near the life.

No, not "usually". There were MANY failed o-rings that were failed material. As far as not installing them correctly... yes, those were legion. It seemed that early on very few people did it right.

The 7.3 and Cat engines are not the same engine. Cat used better filters. And somewhat different injectors. There's been several variations of the injector.

LOL! When pigs fly over the moon.

Because in pickups, there was none better. Period. End of story.

Since the 80's, the joke in our shop was that GM did all their testing using the customer to buy the fuel. The first year of the 6.5 electronic engine had a fuel system failure rate that exceeded 100% in 100K miles. Why? GM knew it would happen. They wanted to have the truck for sale. So they sold it, expecting to do major warranty work on the vast majority within the warranty period.

The first two years of the Duramax had (by comparison to the other two) huge problems, ranging from fuel system issues to transmission problems. It took them YEARS to solve them. In 1994, GM did a "refresh" of the CK / RV pickups. You know, a "facelift" of the truck. They spent MORE money to do that facelift, than Chrysler spent to build the entire new BR series truck (the new body style for 94) from the ground up.

There was a reason GM went broke. It was richly deserved and worked for.

 

I would add that you have to deal with DEF with many of the engines due to the infinite wisdom of the almighty Federal Government. That adds to the cost of operating a diesel engine. I am glad that I didn't have to retrofit my truck to use DEF.

 

This was in response on diesel engines in American cars

 

An abridged history of the diesel engine... and how we got to where we are...

In the 30's, diesels started to become commonly used in tractors. Miners found that the very small amount of CO put out by a diesel and the fact that the fuel didn't have explosive vapor, to make diesels viable power plants, so underground equipment began to use diesel motors.

The crudeness of the injection system and combustion chambers in the 30's, 40's, 50's and even 60's was so bad that most diesels belched huge quantities of soot. However, in open space, this soot was minimally hazardous. It's weight and density caused it to fall to the ground, where weather tended to cause it to disintegrate into it's constituent carbons, none of which was signficantly hazardous. In mines, however, the soot was contained in closed spaces where miners breathed it in huge quantities - contributing to black lung, among other deadly issues. Mines and regulators set standards for smoke for diesels used in mines - the earliest emission controls for diesels.

Combustion improvements and high pressure injection made great strides in the 60's and 70's. Better control over timing, cylinder to cylinder fuel variations, and better distribution in the combustion chamber, dramatically improving the emissions characteristics. In parallel, soot emissions from power plants began to be regulated - one of the oft-employed devices was a 'scrubber', which trapped soot (and could oxidize it). Standards of measuring soot discharge were created - and these included particle size specifications. Early emissions efforts often "broke up" heavy soot and turned it into much smaller particles.

Eventually, it was figured out that coarse, heavy soot is mostly innocuous to the human body. It's the fine stuff that gets into our lungs and does serious damage. But emissions efforts had previously involved converting the dark black stuff (heavy soot) to fines (not so heavy and not so visible), since early on, fine particles weren't measured.

So, in it's infinite wisdom, after the EPA worked very hard at getting coarse soot converted to fine... It suddenly changed course and began attacking fine particulates - which is mostly what your catalyst is now for - trapping and oxidizing into non-soot, the emissions of our modern diesel. Of course, not content with that, the EPA reduced (repeatedly) the sulfur content of diesel fuel. Sadly, a good part of the beneficial energy content of diesel fuel was in the heavy, dense, sulfur containing paraffins (and others), that are now not in it.

So, fuel economy was lost in each step downward in sulfur content. But engine manufacturer's don't really mind. The less soot in the engine from the fuel, the less wear and longer your oil change intervals can be. All those fine particulates diesel engines are now engineered to produce... are actually more dangerous than the black gunk they spewed before. So now we're attempting to "fix" the "solution" to the previous problem.

No cost / benefit analysis has ever been done since the 70's and 80's, in terms of emissions. While it costs us a lot, there is no data which tells us if there's any actual benefit to anyone.

Welcome to bureaucracy

 

Being a vet, bureaucracy is a thrill I relish less than getting a colonoscopy and a prostate exam on the same day. Lol It is funny how the changes that are made to "save the planet" are eventually found to be worse than what it replaced. Government, if it ain't broke just wait until we get our hands on it.

 

I can relate.

On a vaguely lighter note, one of my brothers was drafted to go to Vietnam. He learned to hate bureaucracy with a vengeance there... so much so, that after leaving, he eventually built a career in the Corps of Engineers, where he became a number-cruncher and project analyst. He spent the last few years going around the country trying to teach other districts how to figure out your basic project analysis - how to determine what something costs, and how to determine if you're over or under budget and on time, ahead or behind schedule, DURING the execution of that project. He retired a couple years ago.

During this time he developed awesome database, reporting, and analytical skills. I tried to convince him to become a consultant and earn huge money teaching startups and small business people effective management. His response could be summed up with "Why would anyone actually need it? I don't do anything important..." So he drives farm trucks instead.

 

Isb still the best engine in a light duty truck.

 

Powerwagon, I have seen many 7.3 PSD motors with well over 500K on them some up there in the 700-800K range. Now I wont deny it, I thing the Cummins is a great motor I just don't like the Dodge truck itself. When we go back to the VE pump or P pump 12 valves, GOD yes those things are AWESOME and can go forever on very few things needing to be done besides maintenance and getting 500K out of one of those motors is just normal, actually if you only get that out of one I see it as abnormal.

My experience with the 7.3 has not been limited at all, done most things you can do to one and I will say this, the injectors O-rings from the early PSD are totally different from the ones that are used now and the ones used on the Super Duty. I did the injectors on that 96 with 317K on it. Pulled them out and looked at the rings and you could see they were the originals and in comparison to the new ones its a huge difference in the look of the material and what looked to be the size of the orings. Hey this is just my opinion and I am a huge 7.3 fan but I am also a fan of the Cummins, atleast the older mechanical ones not so much the CR.

 

The VE pump was strained to the last degree of ability it had to produce the 185 hp one version of the VE equipped B engine had. It rarely lasts beyond 200K to 400K miles. My first one died at 240K, to structural mechanical failure (parts broke inside from mechanical strain). But, those engines performed well and often got great fuel economy.

The next 12V engine had the inline Bosch pump on it which was overkill, and didn't have quite as good economy, because there was no real variable timing. Other than throttle shaft leaks (engine oil) and the occasional lift pump or pressure regulating valve failure, the thing is bulletproof. The VP44 was a boondoggle built by Bosch which was citrus flavored from the start - always has been and always will be - it's the Bosch version of boondoggle that was on the GM 6.5 turbo - just vastly more reliable. I am SO not impressed with German engineering after all these years. Especially the part where they blithely insist there was no problem, is no problem, and never will be a problem, while "we're getting parts flown out of the factory in Germany and will be overnighted to you at our expense because all the warehouses globally are out of stock". But there's no problem, of course (and the global warehouse stock problem was purely coincidental, not due to the fact that 100% of the production of the new product was being repaired under warranty at less than 200 hours).