Ownership Verified: 1995 Ford F350 XLT - Powerstroke Diesel

Spectre

The Deported
Joined
Feb 1, 2007
Messages
36,832
Location
Dallas, Texas
Car(s)
00 4Runner | 02 919 | 87 XJ6 | 86 CB700SC
As mentioned here, I sold the Crown Vic I bought for my mom's use (having passed on and therefore the car having lost its mission) and bought a Ford pickup truck to replace it.

IMG_3652.JPG


It's a 1995 Ford F350 - 4 wheel drive, 3.55 limited slip axles, 4 speed automatic (oh well), 4 door crew cab, long bed, XLT trim level - and under the hood it has an International/Navistar 7.3L turbo diesel V8 sold by Ford as the PowerStroke V8. It makes a mere 210hp at 3000rpm, but 425lb/ft of torque at 2000rpm. They are reportedly very easy to tune for both more power and more fuel economy at the same time and I will be exploring this over the course of the next year...

IMG_3658.JPG


For now, it's stock. It has some rust holes in the roof from living by the ocean, but roof replacement is rather routine for these trucks. Things tend to fall on them.

IMG_3663.JPG


It is in remarkably good shape for having 308,000 miles on the clock. The previous owners used it for road trips and hauling horses occasionally. There's a gooseneck hitch ball in the bed and a functional trailer brake controller under the dash.

IMG_3668.JPG


Yes, it is legal to drive on that beach, just can't go out past the no vehicles signs. Sadly, there was no BP oil anywhere that I could see, as I was thinking of skimming some off to fuel the trip home. No dead pelicans to use as a hood ornament either, more's the pity.

Some interior pictures:

IMG_2196.JPG


IMG_2197.jpg


IMG_2198a.jpg


IMG_2192.JPG


IMG_2194.JPG


This Clarion aftermarket stereo was particularly miserable and will be Flung Out Right Door as soon as a replacement is obtained.
IMG_2193.JPG


And the obligatory proof pic. I had to blank out some written comments that further reflection led me to conclude were a bad idea.

IMG_2205.JPG


Pretty much everything major works in this truck - A/C, heat, slushbox, transfer case, axles. The steering column has to be replaced right away as the owners used the steering wheel as a grab handle to climb into the truck and therefore wore out the upper bearings. Did I mention it is kind of large?

IMG_3674.JPG


Also, the window tint is clearly dead and needing to be stripped, plus the power windows themselves roll down but will not roll up on command. Some other minor stuff needs to be attended to as well - burnt out dome light bulbs, etc. Still, not bad for a $2000 CL buy.

This sticker is going on the truck at some point:
truck.gif
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Fuck yeah!


Love the carkiller on the front, sadly cannot haz.....
 
Last edited:

As our Euro members point out, diesels don't make crap for HP vice displacement. It has to do with the mathematical formula for deriving horsepower from torque favoring engines that can hit 5252rpm or higher. See: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question381.htm

Go look up what a similar Euro medium truck engine of the era makes and report back. :p
 
As our Euro members point out, diesels don't make crap for HP vice displacement. It has to do with the mathematical formula for deriving horsepower from torque favoring engines that can hit 5252rpm or higher. See: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question381.htm

The formula doesn't have a magic number which needs to be passed in order for engines to be allowed to have high power figures. Power is torque multiplied by revs, simple as that.

Go look up what a similar Euro medium truck engine of the era makes and report back. :p

A 1996 Vario made 130kW from 4.2 litres at a whooping 2200rpm, with 675Nm from 1200 to 1600rpm.
 
Last edited:
The formula doesn't have a magic number which needs to be passed in order for engines to be allowed to have high power figures. Power is torque multiplied by revs, simple as that.



A 1996 Vario made 177hp from 4.2 litres at a whooping 2200rpm, with 675Nm from 1200 to 1600rpm.

Specifically, go look at what the 'advanced' Mercedes BR926 7.25L diesel put out in the same year - it was offered as a direct competitor to this engine in medium trucks, along with Caterpillar's and Cummins' offering.

As mentioned before, when you buy a medium truck (which is where these engines are lifted from,) you have a choice not only of different engines but different engines from different manufacturers. You can get a Ford with a Cummins engine, a GM with a Caterpillar engine, or an International with a Mercedes, etc.,etc.
 
Last edited:
Specifically, go look at what the 'advanced' Mercedes BR926 7.25L diesel put out in the same year - it was offered as a direct competitor to this engine in medium trucks, along with Caterpillar's and Cummins' offering.

Care to supply a link? Googling for "Mercedes BR926" yields six useless results for me.


PS: You're not referring to the later OM 926, right? That'd be 7.21l and 240kW :dunno: introduced in 1998 I believe.
 
Last edited:
Nice truck. E4OD's are great transmissions. Dual fuel tank option?
 
Park that next to a newer 2004ish model, I'd be surprised if they're even close to be the same size.
 
Very nice. My parents had a 94 long box crew cab, but it had the old 7.3 turbo in it. Still was running just fine when they sold it at about 190k miles. Didn't last past 220k, but a drunk bought it and beat the tar out of it.
 
that thing is huge, i love it :p impossible to drive in europe of course, but one can dream of sailing, right?
i can't believe the interior looks as good as it does considering over 300k miles. also i wouldn't care about the power of the engine, i believe it has quite enough torque to go along nicely. how big is its thirst (7.3liters is quite a bit of room to fill after all)?
 
Seems to be some Detroit Diesel thing with a three point star on it.

http://www.rvtechlibrary.com/engine/MBE_926_specs.pdf


It is a bit large. Especially between the wheels, should be good in the snow! Or the sand.

330hp from 7.2 litres sounds very similar to the OM 926 I found at 240kW from 7.2 litres.

That's because his reference is the 2004/2005 Mercedes brochure. I don't think he checked the copyright date.
If you want to look at a contemporary 2004 engine of similar class, the Dodge Ram 3500 mounted the Cummins '600' ISB-CR diesel engine displacing only 5.9L and producing 325 horsepower (242 kW; 330 PS) at 2,900 rpm and 600 pound-feet (813 N?m) at 1,600 rpm. The next year (2005), it became the '610' (same engine, slight tune changes) and produced 610 pound-feet (827 N?m) at the same point. There are, of course, even more powerful versions available for the medium trucks that they came from.

To turn around a particularly annoying point, how do you Germans get so little power out of such a large engine? :p

It gets about 10MPG at 65MPH :p

FG's official fire engine :D

Heh, almost that bad. At 60-65 it gets 20 or so mpg on the level. At 70, it gets 7.

Yeah, the stock fuel map sucks. Explains why you can get major power and economy increases by chipping it.

that thing is huge, i love it :p impossible to drive in europe of course, but one can dream of sailing, right?
i can't believe the interior looks as good as it does considering over 300k miles. also i wouldn't care about the power of the engine, i believe it has quite enough torque to go along nicely. how big is its thirst (7.3liters is quite a bit of room to fill after all)?

See above. :D

Nice truck. E4OD's are great transmissions. Dual fuel tank option?

Dual 19 gallon tanks. Was kind of hoping for the larger optional tanks, but these will do. :p

Care to supply a link? Googling for "Mercedes BR926" yields six useless results for me.


PS: You're not referring to the later OM 926, right? That'd be 7.21l and 240kW :dunno: introduced in 1998 I believe.

No, not the later OM926. This would be the predecessor to the OM926 and it wasn't very good. I'm sure Mercedes would love to forget they ever made it.

I'll also cheerfully admit that this isn't actually the best engine of the "big three" options available in this era (mid to late 90s) - the Dodge truck of this era actually has this position with its superb Cummins 5.9L I6 turbodiesel. The problem is that 'the best engine' is mounted in the worst truck - the 94-03 Ram didn't ever have a crew cab option, the transmissions were the worst available options of those bolted to the back of this class of diesel, and while the interior design was actually the best of this era it was made of substandard materials and disintegrated quickly. Basically the engine was sound, but the entire rest of the truck would rot away around it.

On the other end of the scale is the GM offering, mounting a Detroit Diesel 6.5L V8 turbodiesel. This was the worst engine of all three, having a nasty habit of throwing things like belts, drive pulleys, connecting rods... Had the most solid transmission options and while the interior design was pretty awful it held up fairly well. Squeaking and rattling all the way, but it held up. Frame quality was similar - it'd last but it wasn't well designed. These are typically the cheapest of the big three to buy, and you'd find out why shortly after purchase. To give one example of the stupid involved with the engine, they thought it was a good idea to stick the injection controller, that water/temperature/vibration sensitive device, into the vee of the engine. Right between the heads. Not brilliant; many owners install or fabricate relocation harnesses to remove this Pump Mounted Driver from the engine bay to someplace a bit more protected. A friend of mine who used to own one observes that 6.5 did fine as long as you used it like a soccer mom driving her diesel-powered Suburban to drop off the kids, but when you tried to work it like an actual truck engine it would explode.

In the middle, you have the Ford, mounting the International T444E-derived PowerStroke. More power than the 6.5 Detroit, less than the 5.9 Cummins, but having a good (though not as good as the GM's) solid set of transmissions bolted to it, good build quality, fairly simple and sturdy design, crew cab options for those who need the space. It's pretty much a balance between the two extremes, a solid mid-pack performer whose party piece is that you don't have to worry about the engine exploding or the transmission grenading.
 
Last edited:
Nice rig!

When that roof gets replaced, it's probably gonna give you the opportunity to re-spray it. You gonna change the color or are ya gonna keep the red?
 
Nice rig!

When that roof gets replaced, it's probably gonna give you the opportunity to re-spray it. You gonna change the color or are ya gonna keep the red?

It's going to get bedlinered. :D

Edit: This is the general idea:
IMG00185.jpg

IMG00186.jpg


Or like this Jeep XJ:
IMG_3895.jpg


Or this same-generation Bronco:
tn_full_AlsLinerposers_003.jpg

tn_full_AlsLinerposers_004.jpg
 
Last edited:
Nice truck. One of my friends had one of these over the summer and I compared quite well to the cummins another one of my friends has. The only problem with these engines is they do burn oil which means they smell worse than a cummins.

She's in great shape though, enjoy.
 
Top