F350 7.3 IDI Hot Shot Truck

There are several hotshot trucks in my neighborhood. Its pretty common down here in the south. That's an old truck though. Never seen anything running hotshot of that age. Mostly 08' and newer ranging from 3500/350's to Freightliner M2's. Best I can say is try www.truckpaper.com. They are online and have a weekly(?) paper. Possibly Craigslist or local American Classifieds paper. Good luck.

 

The old IDI 6.9 and 7.3 are only good for 80 to 100K miles before they need a fuel injection pump overhaul. The engines themselves aren't terribly long lived, either. Unless you're doing real short distance, very high value stuff, I wouldn't dream of running one of those things.

Older Dodges with a cummins? Sure. But not old Fords.

 

I have only seen a couple trucks on the road that age that were hot shotting....I was able to speak to him and he told me that he hated it....it was just all he had at the moment

 

94.5 Ford and newer or a 89(preferably) 92 or newer Cummins. I want to say it was 92 they put the intercooler in with the 12 Valve, it may have been 91 though. Great motors, simple and cheap to get parts for.

The 94.5 Ford is the Powerstroke, 7.3 all the way to 2003. Any of those are great reliable trucks.

As for the IDI, I have heard they are not power houses but the turbo IDI is from what I have heard, very stout motors. Yes injector pumps every 100K or so but they are stout everywhere else.

 

With no doubt!! Cummins, cummins, cummins. Dodge trucks are better built for hotshotting and are way more dependable..

 

The 89 Cummins got better fuel economy than the 91-93 because the turbo had horrible lag and poor boost characteristics.

However, that can all be fixed by upgrading to a wastegated turbo housing, and using a little bit different injectors. The automatic trans was tough enough, but it had a terrible torque converter in the non-lockup versions, because it had too high of a stall speed.

Low stall speed + wastegated turbo + higher flow injectors and a painstaking re-timing of injection to 1.4-1.5 mm@ TDC (and you have to locate true TDC, the stupid engine locks are often way out of time) and the 93 and older engines run like scalded dogs and will do about 230HP without even blinking or significant smoke.

The early powerstroke engines are "ok", but not wonderful. Loud as can be, and not great fuel economy.

The manuals behind the ford powerstrokes were troublesome... the automatics behind the Cummins in the Dodges were troublesome (but can be made into amazingly stout beasts).

The earlier Fords had HORRIBLE bodies, that cracked and broke apart just from driving down the road. Even the old square Dodges were better.

 

The early dodge with a Cummins did not have an intercooled motor though, not until 92 I want to say. I knew about the exhaust housing on the turbo being laggy. I want to say it is a 19cm housing from the factory and the upgrade would be to put the 17cm housing on.

The 94.5-97 powerstroke was the same engine. They are louder then the 99-03 7.3 because they are a single shot injector and have a 15 degree HPOP instead of the split shot injectors and a 17* HPOP of the 99-03 models. They are pretty much the same motor except the 94.5-97 was non intercooled and had a smaller turbo along with the different injectors and HPOP. The only other difference that I know of is the fact that the 99-03 use an electronic fuel pump and the 94.5-97 are mechanical. The E4od in the early PSD are good transmissions, not really a whole lot different then the 4R100 that is in the later 7.3 models. The ZF5 manual that came in them was a good trans, the ZF6 in the 99-03 was better but the ZF5 was actually a pretty stout trans compared to the manuals in the Dodge/Cummins from 89 and on until the put in the 24 valve. Is it the input or output shaft that would not hold up behind one of those?

As for what the OP wanted to know, if your looking for an older truck to hotshot with look into an older 2WD cummins unless you really need 4x4. Just look for older diesels in your price range and I would really go with a cummins if you can find one. STAY AWAY FROM CHEVY/GMC though!!! the 6.2/6.5 are garbage!!!

 

No, your best update is to go to the wastegated 12. The 14 non-wastegated runs quite well, though. The non-intercooled engines obviously can't push the same horsepower as the intercooled, but they'll still run very good.

Neither. They had bearing problems and lubrication issues - and cost a fortune for parts. There's nothing really really wrong with the NV4500 or NV5600, other than NV is no more, so everything is now aftermarket, in terms of parts. There's an issue with a 5th gear nut, but it's not a killer problem. You can "fix" it preventatively and they'll go a LOT of miles. Some really like the G56 for the somewhat closer gear ratios in the upper gears.

Yup. The 6.5 is unadulterated garbage once you're past 150K miles. Notoriously unreliable in a whole host of ways - yet I saw people keep buying them over and over. SMH

 

Might make a nice toy hauler, don't think I'd want my livelihood depending on it.