F250 Powerstroke

What does GRM think about a mid 90's F250 Powerstroke with a 5 speed manual transmission?

7.3 good IDI = is good but get a turbo intercooled is what you want.

200-250k miles and the injectors, if not run on good fuel, will start to go.

A great truck.

edited for clarity

good truck, but the Auto will pull more

I've had several. Very rugged trucks. 95 96 97 best years I think. Lots of these trucks had problems with the autos overheating. Never owned a 5 speed, but I would.

I've got a buddy with a '93, which is pre-Powerstroke, but the rest of the truck is probably the same. The front suspension/steering (bushings, ball joints, etc.) may need to be reworked, but other than that they're pretty indestructible.

The powerstrokes were direct injection. The IDI engines were earlier and nonturbod.

The 5 speeds will pull plenty, but will snap axles if you dump the clutch. I knew I was faster to if I had just launched a little easier

IDI stands for indirect injection.

http://www.carwale.com/mycarwale/answers/Question-1050.html <-- Comparisson.

IDI's are good but generally have low power due to multiple factors vs. direct injection. IDI's though are stone reliable.

Stone reliable, but slow. The auto trans trucks have a tendency to eat the torque converters in a spectacular and thoroughly expensive way. Get thee over to Ford Truck Enthusiasts dot com for a reasonable education (and ignore the gas vs. diesel trashing and chest thumping).

wow.. I messed up my first post..

Let me restate

IDI trucks have no turbo. Stone reliable but slow(as others have said). You can swap on turbo kits, if you want.

Powerstroke trucks are direct injected and turbo'd and sweet.

either way they're good trucks.

Just cause it smoke.. don't mean it broke.

My buddy's truck has an aftermarket turbo. It's still slow, but tolerable. I'd rather have a Powerstroke, but I wouldn't pass up a good older truck that was appropriately priced (which is exactly what my buddy did).

Heck if priced right, I'd take an old 6.9 international powered ford....

but they are reallllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy slow.

I had a 95 stroke. I highly recommend the early strokes. Torque to spare, great resale, hard to kill. I tried killing the [edit] E4OD tranny so I had an excuse to put in a Spicer 6 speed I had sitting around but I couldn't. The E4OD is however considered a bit weak. I used ours to tow a 31' trailer when we full-timed in our RV. Three years, 47 states, 5 Canadian provinces, and 73,000 miles of towing (110k total) and that truck never missed a beat.

Plan on replacing glow plug relays every 50k or so, but they're cheap and super easy. Maintenance is a breeze. Do yourself a favor and stick to oil change intervals; not only because of the turbo, but because the HEUI injection uses super-high-pressure engine oil to activate the injectors. I did Rotella every 3000 or Synthetic every 5000, but many Stroke guys are fine going 5000/10,000.

They're not quite a Cummins, but as far as driving one, I'd much rather have the Ford truck, and for mild performance reliability, they'll both go to 300+k with no problems.

I'd stick with a 94.5+ Powerstroke. Starting in 99 you got the intercooler and some other upgrades if you can afford it, but the new body style means pulling the entire cab off the frame if you need to pull heads. Plus, the later intercooler can be stuffed in the earlier truck. Other benefits are easy (cheap) tuning. The computer is a bitch to get to, but chips are cheap and the language is simple. You can get used chips on theBay for next to nothing.

Intake, intercooler, 4" downpipe to a straight through 5" exhaust, muffler optional. Those are your first mods. Get the EGTs down, then chip the snot out of it. Stock HP is in the low 200s. 350 hp/ 750 tq is pretty easy to get.

As was stated before, True powerstrokes are the direct injection version starting in late 94. So... Pre 95 is 7.3 IDI. 95-97 non-intercooled powerstroke 7.3. 99-03 intercooled powerstroke 7.3. 04-08 is the 6.0 powerstroke.

I would personally do the 95-97 version and add an intercooler.

I'd never replace the glow plug relay again. My first tow truck was an f-450 with the non-turbo 7.3. It always needed a sot of ether to start. One day I got ambitious and changed the relay so it would start in the morning. Two weeks later it and a new Maxima were stolen from our yard. Adding insult to injury they blew a light in Queens so I got a red light camera ticket a month after it was stolen. The only thing that used to wear out regularly on that truck was the clutch linkage under the dash, but i think it had an alignment problem after the cab was tweeked in an accident.

Wally, that's exactly why I didn't teach my children sign language when they were babies (like many folks do nowadays). See, I've found that there is a VERY high correlation between sign language use and deafness.

Same with Camry's parked in close proximity to new GP relays, right?

lol

:)

All in fun!

Clem