Grumman the Backcountry Box Van____1997 Ford E450 7.3l Power Stroke diesel

[Petrolburner]

Lots of gray smoke on start up and it's slow to start when it's cold out. 205,000 miles, original injectors.

 

[gmtech]

you gonna buy ford injectors or aftermarket. im going to have to do mine before too long and im still in the air about what kind to get

 

[225]

Lots of gray smoke on start up and it's slow to start when it's cold out. 205,000 miles, original injectors.

Mine is the same way. 355k on mine.

 

[Petrolburner]

Absolutely do not buy Ford split shot injectors. They weren't great technology 20 years ago and they certainly aren't now. I'll get aftermarket single shot or hybrid injectors and a tune to match. I also feel like I should rebuild my turbo or at least pull it apart and clean it to check condition. Seems like the best bang for buck for my purposes is to put a new wheel I the factory housing if it's all good. I have not done enough research to make a decision yet.

 

[Petrolburner]

I'll just drop this excellent post in from Sakurama's Not so Subtle Shuttle thread.

Thank you very much, it's been a long journey making incremental improvements and attempting to carefully plan out the order of supporting modifications to reach our goals. I'll try to cover some of the basics on what should be done, what I've done, and what you can do with yours. I imagine you won't want to take yours as far as I've gone with mine, but you can certainly pick up a LOT of power compared to where you are now, while also getting better millage (when you don't have your foot in it!) and addressing some reliability concerns. I'm going to try not to write a novel, but hopefully enough information to get you thinking or googling.

Okay, let's start out with reliability.

There are definitely a couple of little things that can leave you stranded, but they aren't too hard to address. Suspect number one is the Camshaft Position Sensor (CPS), these somehow have the ability to die at any given random time, and you're hosed if it does. But they are relatively cheap and easy to replace with a 10mm wrench. I replaced mine with a new motorcraft part, keep the old one and a spare new one in the truck at all times. In our 8 years I've had to replace it twice, with no rhyme or reason as to why. In both cases, the truck was running fine, shut off at home and a gas station, and would then not start up again.

The ICP (Injector Control Pressure Sensor) can leak or fail and effect good operation, but won't likely leave you stranded. The IPR (Injector Pressure Regulator) is also worth being aware of, though these are expensive and tougher to replace, and fortunately do not fail often. I replaced both of these and keep the working take-off's in my truck as well.

Alternators. Rebuilt alternators for these are of horrible quality. If you have an original, it may last for a long long long time, but if you have a parts store reman in there, they tend to last a couple of years max. I've been through four, and have receipts from three others by previous owner. Rather than warrantying another one to Napa, I now have the “Gold” from Autozone which is supposed to be a 100% new unit. It's been two years now and appears to be working great. I then had the Napa unit rebuilt by a local shop that some buddies swear by and keep it as a spare. They are easy to swap.

Speaking of electrical, you MUST have great batteries if you want it to start in the cold. I swear by AGM's in these and are currently running Duralast Platnium's from Autozone (yeah… they are on my way home from work….), but these same batteries are available at many retailers.

Speaking of starting… you should not need to plug your truck in to start, even when very cold. It's advisable to replace your glow plugs, but ONLY use Motorcraft glow plugs, cheap brands can result in some serious fun, like pulling off the heads. Glow plugs are cheap, and pretty easy to replace. The glow plug relay can also go out and cause a no-start. Worth having a spare, or better yet head down to the International truck shop and get a heavy duty glow plug relay and most likely never have another problem with it. In an emergency, you can jump the relay for 30 seconds to get started.

While you have the valve covers off to replace the glow plugs, this is a mandatory fix, and fortunately the cheapest mod to your motor. It's called the $.50 mod, and costs exactly two quarters. The Under Valve Cover Harness (UVCH) hooks up your injectors and glow plugs to the outside world, and the harness can come randomly unplugged under the valve cover, causing you to loose half your injectors at any random time. Trust me, it's not fun when that happens. Ford made a little add-on clip, but the $.50 mod works better. You take a quarter, trim a little off one edge and slip it into the harness connector, it is then impossible for the connector to come undone.
Okay, I could go on, but wanted to at least mention those things, now let's talk about more fun performance stuff.

Our number one mission here is to try our best to get as much cool air into the motor as possible and exhaust it with minimal restriction. I don't have any idea what intake options are available for the van, but you could also DIY something pretty easy. I know you have fab capabilities. I run an intake from AFE, it's a good design with a plastic tube intake, a metal intake box and a huge cone filter. I've added heat reflective tape to the outside of the box and insulation to the inside of the box to reduce heat soaking and drilled some hole in the plastic to the right of the radiator to let cool outside air feed the box easier, this makes a BIG difference. I run a 4” downpipe to a 4” straight pipe exhaust to a 5” tip right in front of my passenger rear wheel. A free flowing exhaust is mandatory on these to free up some horsepower and reduce EGT's. Considering the injector clack, loud tires ect, I don't find the exhaust to be loud, no spousal objection whatsoever and the V8 and turbo are nice sounding stuff anyways. Again, you'll have to research exhaust options for a van, but I'm sure there are options out there and your pretty handy so DIY or modding a truck system is an option.
Heat wrapping the exhaust is a pretty good idea while you're at it.

Next up is the turbocharger… mentioned above, you have a lot of options, going with a full T4 kit is an option (they BEST, but expensive!), and KC Turbo's makes some AWESOME aftermarket units as does Dieselsite, the Garret GTP38r ball bearing turbo used to be very popular, but not so much anymore as long term they've been shown not to be that much of an upgrade and are not user serviceable. I'm going to recommend you a pretty inexpensive DIY option. Pulling the turbo and rebuilding it yourself is actually pretty easy, and I think likely REALLY easy on a van. Get the turbo off and rebuild the center section using a rebuild kit with an upgraded 360 degree thrust bearing, kits are available for less than $50 on amazon. Replace the turbine wheel with a billet wheel from Dieselsite. The next step is to eliminate the EBPV (Exhaust Back Pressure Valve), this is a valve in the exhaust which restricts exhaust flow, it's supposed to help warm up the engine when it's cold, in reality all it does is increase EGTs and reduce exhaust flow, its actuated hydraulically off the turbo pedestal, and usually leak oil. You can purchase a non-ebpv pedestal and a turbo flange without the valve, or you can just remove the actuator and TIG up the hole and remove the valve and TIG up the hole, so basically free, or about $200 depending on what you want to do. Typically I'd recommend you eliminate the wastegate and go to a 1.0 a/r exhaust housing, but you have a van turbo so that's already done! After doing this to your turbo, you'll be SHOCKED about how much better it performs and EGT's will be way way way down.

I've been piecing together a T4 kit, but oddly enough I'm REALLY happy with how this setup runs, it sees 38psi on a daily basis and when at the drag strip or the truck pulls I peg my 50psi gauge. Spool is pretty much instantaneous over 1500rpm. I know my BW S369SXE will perform better, but I'm honestly happy enough with this charger that I'm not really worrying about when I'll get it on. And I can run in the stock turbo class where I can kick some butt.

While you have that turbo out, you should check up on your up-pipes and make sure they are not leaking. Exhaust leaks in the up-pipes are very common as the donut gaskets wear out. The leaks will have a very detrimental effect on performance and EGT's. You can get aftermarket pipes or pipes from international, or what I did was TIG them to eliminate the gaskets. The other things to address at this time are the intercooler plumbing boots and clamps. Even If they looks good, the stock boots are horrible and can leak more boost than you think, they degrade from oil exposure. Check out your sizes and you can get really high quality HPS brand boots on amazon for quite cheap.
Tuners…. Again there is a lot out there on the market, but pretty much everybody who's fairly intelligent about these things has moved on to the PHP Hydra as its very flexible with loading up different tunes and you can email files for upgrades ect. Again, lots of different tuners out there, but I and a whole lot of other people swear by Dave Armstrong at Swamps Diesel Performance. He is extraordinarily knowledgeable and also builds what are considered to be the best engines and fuel injector's money can buy. He also has excellent customer service, is very responsive via email and is always happy to tweak a tune or provide insight and assistance. I use an Edge Insight (along with other gauges) to keep an eye on the motor and have used the datalogging features to send him datalog spreadsheets, using the logs from street driving, dyno and drag strip he's happily customized all of my tunes at no additional cost. Otherwise, the stock tunes that come with the Hydra are VERY good, Swamps includes tunes with a Hydra purchase.

With the above intake, exhaust, turbo and tunes you'll be EASILY making 100+ more horsepower than stock, totally streetable and towable and likely see a good increase in fuel economy as well.

After this… stuff starts getting a little more interesting as you'll need a regulated return fuel system and some upgraded fuel injectors. Both are great upgrades in terms of both power and reliability, but you start cracking into more issues depending on what you want to do.

For reference, I'm running a full Dieselsite fuel system, Fass fuel pump, Adrenaline high pressure oil pump, Swamps 250/200 hybrid single shot injectors and have installed ARP headstuds and upgraded valve springs and push rods to handle all that boost along with some other little tweaks. Not sure if you'd have much interest in taking it that far, but this is a pretty standard recipe for a fast, streetable, towable setup. My personal best fuel millage was 27mpg, of course that's downhill and eastbound from boulder CO on our way to Chicago, with the wind at our back and no load at 65mph. Our worst was 4mpg, basically rallying from Boulder to Carbondale and back in a single afternoon. I don't really recommend driving that fast on i70 through the mountains, but it's nice to know you can…..

Okay, well darn, I did write a novel. Have fun with the van! Ask anything if you need some more info!

 

[Petrolburner]

Another great post regarding injectors.

Since the thread has gotten a bit quite, I thought I'd take a minute to address specifically the topic of fuel injectors. It took me a long amount of research, reading and learning to get my head wrapped around this topic, maybe I can ease your learning curve a touch. Fundamentally, there are a LOT of different options and opinions out there, so it can be difficult to weed through it all, and it's a very big ticket item, both in terms of money and the benefits and pitfalls.

First off, some very basics. The system used in the 7.3 is called an HEUI, which stands for Hydraulic Electric Unit Injector. The best analogy I've found for understanding this is to think of the fuel injector as a turkey baster. The baster fills with fuel from the fuel rails (cast into the heads), then the main computer tells the Injector Driver Module (IDM) to fire the solenoid on the injector which then allows hydraulic pressure to essentially squeeze the bulb of the turkey baster and fire the fuel into the cylinder. The hydraulic pressure is provided by a separate High Pressure Oil Pump (HPOP). The oil pressure provided (through again, rails cast into the cylinder head and high pressure lines from the pump to the rails) by the HPOP is regulated by the Injector Pressure Regulator (IPR) and monitored by the Injector Pressure Sensor (IPS).

The IDM provides the high current voltage to fire the injector solenoids, while the main computer controls the parameters that the injectors are fired with. These include Timing (when they are fired), Pulse Width (how long they are fired) and HPOP Pressure (how much oil pressure is used to “squeeze” the injector). The only feedback this system provides back to the computer is the HPOP Duty Cycle, which is a percentage of how much capacity is utilized from the HPOP to maintain the computers specified Pulse Width, Duty Cycle and Oil Pressure.

Obviously, the higher and longer you fire the injectors, the more work the HPOP has to do, so the Duty Cycle becomes one of the principle numbers for understanding the overall health of your injector system and efficiency. If I remember correctly, you'll get a temporary check engine light if your Duty Cycle exceeds about 65%, though I believe some tuners manage to turn this off.

Fuel injectors in the 7.3 tend to last about 200,000 miles before they begin exhibiting symptoms that effect the performance, efficiency and function of the system. This is principally due to wear of the poppet valves within the oil side of the fuel injector. The injector fires by closing these poppet valves, which causes the oil pressure to build (at up to and over 3000psi in some cases) and fire the fuel into the cylinder. Subjected to millions of high pressure oil cycles, the poppet valves gradually wear and have trouble fully closing, this is most evident by requiring an ever increasing Duty Cycle to maintain required pressure from the HPOP. This also becomes evident by harder starting, particularly when cold, grey smoke with unburnt fuel on cold starts, reduction in power (particularly when cold&#8230 and in extreme cases the motor can start cold, but will then die after it warms up.

Personally, I ran my truck to about 260,000 miles before I replaced my injectors, but many of these symptoms were readily evident when I acquired the truck at about 210,000 miles. It was tough to start cold, pretty gutless until my oil temp got over 90 degrees, and put out a pretty significant amount of grey diesel-smelling smoke. As you can imagine, spouses, neighbors and anybody parked near you at the ski resort is not generally thrilled with this sort of thing. I wasn't thrilled with the power reduction and the CEL going off as I regularly pegged that Duty Cycle.

So… in a nutshell, if you own a 7.3 and are near or over that 200,000 mile mark, it's worth beginning to get your head and finances wrapped around the whole injector thing.

The downside here is that you can probably plan on blowing a whole Saturday swapping the injectors out (though it's not a bad job, it's a lot steps and time laying on top of the motor), and then obviously the financial ramifications. Though you could spend less, the wise thing to do is probably prepare yourself for spending between $2,000 and $3,000 even if you're not necessarily looking to build some kind of horsepower monster.

Now the upside to this is that after you replace your injectors your motor is going to basically run like new, furthermore, you have a golden opportunity to make your motor run far far better than it ever did when it was new. As International/Navistar basically stopped developing this stuff in about 1998, then Ford went ahead and made it worse, the aftermarket industry has soldiered on and now provides us with fuel injectors vastly superior to what your motor came with.

Let's take a brief moment to discuss what Ford did to us. I think it makes sense to everybody that for maximum power and efficiency we should pick the right moment and inject our fuel in one burst. Ford on the other hand was worried about peoples complaints about “injector clatter”, so they came up with the idea of a “split-shot” injector, used in almost all 7.3's (some rare early exceptions) what they did was setup the injector to provide a brief pre-shot right before the main shot of fuel. What they hoped this was would do is quite the clatter, but it didn't really do much. What this did do was put an excess load on the HPOP, cool the cylinder, sometimes compromise fuel pressure and unnecessarily increase the time length of the injection event. Essentially… a split shot injector sacrifices performance and reliability for an almost imperceptible difference in engine noise reduction. I would absolutely NOT recommend under any circumstances that a reasonable adult replace the fuel injectors in a 7.3 with new or remanufactured units from Ford or International/Navistar.

The aftermarket industry has left the OEM's in the dust. Aftermarket fuel injectors are almost entirely “single shot” type, even in stock sizing this will result in an instant increase in fuel millage and power and a reduction in HPOP duty cycle.

As a side note, HPOPs rarely fail, HPOP problems are almost always actually worn injector problems, and a new set of single shot injectors will typically find even an old HPOP (and even an older e99 or OBS HPOP) all the sudden working better than new.

Furthermore, the aftermarket industry has devised what's referred to as a “Hybrid” injector. By hybridizing parts available from Ford and International/Navistar's industrial offerings these aftermarket injectors have different plunger ratios and are able to drive a higher pressure injection event while utilizing even LESS HPOP Duty Cycle. These are not as applicable to the ultra-high power drag racing and truck pulling crowds, but for moderate power applications it's a major benefit. Higher pressure injection event, shorter pulse width, lower Duty Cycle. Of course, the only REAL downside is that they cost more.

So with all that, understanding moderate goals of replacing old injectors with something more reliable, that won't require a lot of supporting modifications, a properly sized set of Hybrid, Single-Shot injectors is pretty much a no-brainer and will realize a significant a enhancement in performance across the board, including fuel millage, power and reduced demand from the HPOP.

To understand injector sizing, these are usually indicated by an AAA/BB arrangement where AAA is the injectors' fuel delivery capacity and BB describes the nozzle size. Nozzle size is typically described as “Stock” or as “146”, where I believe 146 is the part number of the stock nozzle. Larger than stock nozzles are described as a percentage of orifice size increase over stock, typically 30%, 80%, 100%, 200% or even 400% for extreme cases. Stock injectors used in most PSD's from 1999-2003 are “AD” code, this is a split shot injector in size 140/146, so it's an injector with 140cc of fuel delivery capability and a stock nozzle. As another example, I'm currently running 250/200 Hybrids, so this is a Hybrid, Single-Shot injector with 250cc's of fuel delivery capability and a nozzle that's been modified with a fuel orifice 200% larger than the stock 146 nozzle.

In general most of this is pretty obvious, more CC's of fuel means more ultimate power capability, larger nozzles help deliver more fuel quicker, so more fuel is delivered over a shorter pulse width. The principle problem we have to balance with this is that injector size increases, it requires more demand (duty cycle) from the HPOP to successfully empty the injector. It's just impossible to empty a huge 400/200 injector with a stock HPOP, it can even be troublesome with a moderately sized 160/30 injector. This is where the magic of going with a Hybrid injector comes in, since the hybrids have a different plunger ratio and require less HPOP duty cycle, a moderately sized 200/30 Hybrid Single-Shot is easily handled by the stock HPOP, and even the slightly weaker HPOP provided in early 99 motors. (as an aside, I'm running an upgraded Adrenaline HPOP)

Sizing injectors with input over the internet can be a little difficult, if you go hop into the Powerstroke Army forums you're going to get some pretty wacky answers, along the lines of “I love my 400/200 injectors! You just have to do some supporting mods!”, Never mind that some of those supporting mods might include huge turbo's, block fill, dual fuel pumps and valve spring upgrades.

Assuming in this thread that we aren't interested in turning this into a massive engine project, but instead just want good running motor with a realistic power upgrade my top level recommendation would be a set of 200/30 Hybrid Single-Shot injectors from Swamps Diesel Performance. This injector will start, run and head on down the road just like a stock setup (well, better actually). In a modest tow tune you'll be making more than 300hp, with less HPOP duty cycle than stock, and excellent atomization with no smoke and very low EGT's. In a hot street tune (that you could run all the time if you want) you'll make close to 400hp, and again, it will run like a stock truck, but with a whole lot more pedal. Full out tune could yield close to 450hp, but it might be kinda smokey off the line (less so at low altitude). Even at this power level your still looking at stock levels of reliability and only mods I've mentioned before (intake, exhaust, minor turbo) are really recommend. To quote Dave from Swamps “totally fine on a stock motor as long as you only beat the snot out of it occasionally”. To clarify… by occasionally I think he means only like once or twice a day, assuming it's a daily driver. He does recommend that you monitor fuel pressure if you doing extended full-throttle runs in the max setting (like drag racing), as you're getting close to the max fuel pump capacity and running out of fuel pressure can damage the nozzles (cooled and lubed by fuel). But assuming you're NOT going drag racing, this is not really a concern. Running these injectors in a hot street or tow tune you could mash the throttle to the floor and shoot up and over Vail Pass at 90mph without a concern in the world (other than the highway patrol and that Prius in the left lane).

Now the downside… These puppies cost $2,225.00 and have a $1,000 core charge, and REQUIRE custom tuning. Though you already have a Hydra, so Swamps will send you 6 custom tunes for free via email and won't hit you for a core charge if you return your cores within 30 days.

At this point, it's worth clarifying that cost is the only REAL reason to not go with the hybrid injector. You're going to all the trouble of swapping them out, so other than missing the money, you might as well take the upgrade. If you don't need the extra power, you can always just click the hydra down a notch, all the way to stock power if you want.

If your dead set on saving some money, another popular option is the 175/146 injector. This is a single-shot, but not a hybrid. You get a lot more fuel capacity and the stock size nozzle helps keep the HPOP duty cycle reasonable, but I still wouldn't call them cheap at $1,875.00. You still must have custom tunes (all single shot injectors will require custom tunes), but they are again included for free. These injectors are still capable of bumping up a 7.3 to over 300hp and can be ran on a totally stock motor. These are really popular with guys who almost exclusively use their trucks for heavy hauling, and I have several friends who are very happy with them.
Lots of companies out there make fuel injectors for these trucks, personally when I'm looking at spending this kind of money, Swamps Diesel is the only company I'll even remotely consider. They make the best fuel injectors in the business, have a sterling reputation and excellent customer service. They do a great job with the custom tuning and are more than happy to correspond via email and customize tunes as necessary. I highly suggest browsing through the website and reading some of the stuff. Dave also has a really nice injector troubleshooting document and installation instructions. You'll notice that the regulated return fuel system is recommended by Swamps with most injectors, you can definitely run the injectors I recommended without doing this upgrade, though it's a really good upgrade for a lot of reasons and is thus included as sort of a blanket recommendation.

Okay, wow. That was a lot of typing! Did I miss anything lol?

Crap… I did. Its also worth figuring it if you have a motor with Forged rods or with PMR rods. Google is your friend on this topic, you should be able to find info based on year, VIN or removing an inspection port on the block and using a borescope to inspect the rods. If your forged, go party! If you have PMR rods you'll want your tuning to cap your power, probably around 380hp, and maybe limit your cyclinder pressure at lower RPM's. Again, this is where I'll STRESS that you have good custom tunes. Good tuning means the slightly weaker rods are a non-issue at appropriate power levels. More than a couple of people have been disappointed by poor tuning and the sudden appearance of a PMR rod into daylight.

 

[gtbensley]

Posted a while ago....and just reading this. Wow there is some good information in the above post. Thank you

 

[5spd97]

I'm going to bring this back up to the top so that I dont have to dig so far back to find it. Petrolburner, your build and rig is the closest to mine that I can find. I bought a 2003 7.3 E350 box truck, DRW with 2wd just over a year ago and I'm slowly modding it to my needs, so we are kind of running parallel builds.

I see that back in March you were having cold start issues. Have you worked that out yet and why do you suspect injectors rather than the glow plug system? At any rate Ive enjoyed your build and I hope that you are still making progress.

 

[Petrolburner]

I'm going to bring this back up to the top so that I dont have to dig so far back to find it. Petrolburner, your build and rig is the closest to mine that I can find. I bought a 2003 7.3 E350 box truck, DRW with 2wd just over a year ago and I'm slowly modding it to my needs, so we are kind of running parallel builds.

I see that back in March you were having cold start issues. Have you worked that out yet and why do you suspect injectors rather than the glow plug system? At any rate Ive enjoyed your build and I hope that you are still making progress.

No real cold start issues, as it always started. Mostly I was concerned for the future being unplugged and temps down around 0.

I haven't really done anything to this build, and I'm likely to take a new job that would have me living in a camper for 6 months. So I bought a really, really nice Holiday Rambler Atlantis 24' motorhome with one slide out. I'm leaning towards selling this project. I don't have the free time or spare cash for the build, so it makes sense to just pass it on. I'll make due with an enclosed trailer instead and lose out on some dirt road exploration. It's really well insulated, aluminum skin instead of fiberglass, hardwood cabinets, yadayada, all high quality stuff as compared to your run of the mill shitbox.


Untitled by Petrolburner, on Flickr

Untitled by Petrolburner, on Flickr


Untitled by Petrolburner, on Flickr

Untitled by Petrolburner, on Flickr

Untitled by Petrolburner, on Flickr

 

[outdoornate65]

Dude, you've got more toys than the North Pole!!

Sorry to see the change in direction....you were off to a great start on the box truck.

Nate

 

[Petrolburner]

Dude, you've got more toys than the North Pole!!

Sorry to see the change in direction....you were off to a great start on the box truck.

Nate

I like toys...



Untitled by Petrolburner, on Flickr

 

[Bikersmurf]

Nothing wrong with toys... I’d take the garage and keep my 40... need space to finish up the restomod.

 

[outdoornate65]

I like toys...



Untitled by Petrolburner, on Flickr

Very nice Brother.

 

[FastLane17]

super late to this thread, But I'm new! I have a e350 ive been building, with a 5.4, and I love the bumper that PetrolBurner has on his econoline!! anyone have measurements for that?

 

[Petrolburner]

super late to this thread, But I'm new! I have a e350 ive been building, with a 5.4, and I love the bumper that PetrolBurner has on his econoline!! anyone have measurements for that?

I bought that from WeldTec Designs. It was a sort of prototype bumper so they don't have the exact model on the website right now. https://weldtecdesigns.com/product-category/bumpers/ Jeremy can build you whatever you want though. I really liked that bumper and pre runner style bumpers in general. I plan to add one to my new camper van.