Engine Build: Creating A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing

Engine Build: Creating A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing

When it comes to tearing down an engine and building it back up, whether for performance or reliability, it is critical to have a clear goal in mind. The goal can be as simple as a rebuild that will last 200,000 miles, or a larger undertaking like building a 1,000 horsepower engine to last 200,000 miles.

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With the accessories removed as well as the turbocharger, intake manifold and y-pipes, the engine was set on the ground for inspection and tear down.

The key is to have a clear goal in mind to help you select the parts you need to achieve that goal. The tradeoffs could be cost, performance, or reliability.

Our Goal

To lay out a clear goal, you need to identify how the truck is going to be used. In the case of this engine, it is going into a truck that will be driven daily. It will see a wide range of uses from driving to the local convenience store to hauling a trailer loaded with 10,000 pounds across the country. The truck will also operate under a wide range of altitudes and temperatures. It will also occasionally hit the drag strip and a dyno event. With all of that laid out, we can set clear goals for the engine:

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After identifying the issue was coming from the right side of the engine, the valve cover and oil manifold was removed to gain access to the valvetrain.

Power:

  • Mid 500 horsepower on fuel only
  • High 600 to low 700 horsepower with nitrous (part 2 of this build)
  • Good low end power for towing

Reliable:

  • No major maintenance on the engine for 2 years. (This may seem odd to state, but when choosing parts, reliability can come into play.)
  • This engine should last for at least 200,000 miles

Fuel Economy:

  • 16.5 mpg combined (same as before the engine was built)
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With the intake manifold removed, the soot on the intake runners was a clear indication which cylinder was having issues.

Dyno

When the truck wasn’t being worked on, it was usually hooked to a dyno making pulls and testing parts.

Reason For Teardown

The engine we are rebuilding is from a 2004 Ford Super Duty that has been used as a test mule for many years. By test mule we mean the engine was used to test a wide range of components being developed by multiple companies over the years and after all was said and done, the engine went through a number of different configurations. The engine has seen close to 75 different sets of injectors, a wide range of turbocharger configurations (single and compounds), has made over 100 visits to the dyno, and at one point the truck was used for sled pulling. In addition to the abuse listed above, the engine has logged over 150,000 miles, which by itself isn’t much for a diesel, but when factoring in all the engine had been through, that is a fair amount of miles.

CAB_Up

The cab has actually been lifted off the frame so many times that wire connectors were installed under the cab to quickly disconnect all of the wiring.

While driving cross-country one day, after a short stop, the engine barely started, and when it did, there was a distinctive popping sound coming from the intake. That type of popping sound was a sign that the exhaust valves weren’t opening in one of the cylinders. The most obvious causes of that problem are from a bent push rod, broken rocker and/or damaged lifter.

Instead of diving into the engine and trying to repair the issue, Editor Chad felt it was probably time for a complete overhaul. After years of abuse, the odds that this was the only issue that would come up in the near future were pretty slim.

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(Top) After the valve cover was removed, we found the tip of the rocker arm laying next to the valve springs. (Bottom Left This is the factory plastic pivot. Notice the top portion makes a half circle. (Bottom Right) The exhaust rocker arm's pivot was broken. Allowing the rocker to lift up with the push rod instead of rock.

Teardown

In order to pull the engine out of the front of the truck, the turbocharger, up pipes, and intake manifold were all removed. Upon removing the intake manifold it was obvious that cylinder number one was having the issue. The heads had been upgraded years earlier, all the EGR equipment removed, and the intake manifold cleaned. As a result, all of the intake runners were clean except for cylinder one. Cylinder one had soot lining the runners, a clear sign of the exhaust being pushed past the intake valves.

With part of the plastic pivot broken, there was nothing to keep the rocker arm in place.

With the engine removed, the oil pan was pulled off and the rear cover removed. Then the engine was set on blocks. The right side valve cover and oil manifolds were removed to further inspect what was causing the issue. The 6.0-liter Power Stroke uses a single rocker arm to actuate two valves, via a bridge that sits on top of the valves. The ’04 and later model engines feature rockers that actuate on a plastic pivot. It appears that the pivots broke on the number one exhaust rocker arm. In addition, the rocker arm tip broke. The combination of the two caused the exhaust valves not to open. The popping sound was caused from the pressure that was built up in the cylinder after it fired being relieved through the intake valves as they opened.

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(Top) After the rocker arm tip fell off, the noise of rocker starting to chip was heard. Those tiny pieces eventually worked their way into the oil system. (Bottom) Every rocker pushes on a bridge that is connected to two valves. (Bottom Left) Notice the tip is still on these rocker arms. (Bottom Right) No tip on the right rocker arm.

(Left) Additional plastic debris was found in the head. (Right) The rocker did damage the bridge and we opted to replace it, just in case.

As tear down continued, additional issues started showing up signifying that it was a good choice to rebuild the engine instead of fixing it. Pieces of plastic and metal were found on top of the right head. When the head was pulled off, cylinder three and five had debris on top of the pistons, and a number of the coolant passages were blocked.

Both sides showed some issues with coolant passages being blocked but the right side was much worse than the left.

The left side showed no issues as the disassemble went exactly like one would expect tearing down a 150,000 mile engine. The remainder of the engine was the same as well. Only the right side showed any issues initially.

Besides the right side head issues, the rest of the engine teardown was straight forward.

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The block had to be bored out 0.030-inches over.

Machining

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H&H Machine chamfered each bore after the block was honed.

For machining, the block, cradle, heads, crank, rods and pistons were taken over to H&H Machine in Haltom City, TX. H&H Machine, generally builds sprint car engines and other performance engines, but they do work on the occasional diesel.

Upon initial inspection, it was determined that the heads needed to be decked, the block would be in good shape after boring the cylinders 0.030-inches over, but the crank needed to be replaced. There was a deep groove where the oil pump gears were (most likely from debris being pumped through the oil system) and H&H wasn’t comfortable re-using the stock crank.

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The replacement crank was polished, the rods were all honed and the cylinder head received a valve job.

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For the use this engine will see, there really isn’t a need for custom pistons or reshaped bowls.

Time to start ordering parts

With a good idea of what needed to be done to the engine, Westfall started planning and ordering parts. Here is where having a clear goal is key. Westfall didn’t need to buy a new crank because he had multiple 6.0-liter core engines. He took one of the other cranks to H&H Machine. For rods, there are two thoughts. Spend the money and get a good set of rods that will hold substantially more power than the engine would probably ever make or reuse the factory rods.

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The cradle in the 6.0 Power Stroke is very robust and keeps the bearings from moving.

“I don’t plan on spraying the engine very often and I really don’t beat on my vehicles. For me, I didn’t see a need to upgrade to a set of premium rods when there are hundreds of stock bottom end trucks running in this power range. With the engine cradle and horsepower limitations the 6.0’s have, the stock rods are sufficient,” explained Westfall.

With the cylinders being bored 0.030 inches over, the factory pistons had to be replaced. The options are oversized stock forged replacements, and/or a custom piston.

For trucks making up to 1000 hp and still being used as a daily driver or work vehicle, cast pistons are the best choice. — Craig Lancaster, MAHLE Motorsports

“For trucks making up to 1,000 hp, and still being used as a daily driver or work vehicle, cast pistons are the best choice. They have a steel top ring insert and a crown cooling galley that gives them the additional longevity that most are looking for out of a street/work/strip/pull truck while gaining extra strength through design. Forged diesel pistons offer flexibility in design and some additional strength, but not having a cooling galley or steel top ring groove, forged pistons have a limited life cycle, making them a durability compromise for the dual duty enthusiast,” explained Craig Lancaster at MAHLE Motorsports.

That made choosing a piston pretty easy. A set of 0.030 over MAHLE cast pistons were ordered. While the engine may be sprayed with nitrous every now and then, there is really no need at this performance level to worry about lowering the compression ratio or doing anything fancy with bowl design. The only other aspect to decide on is whether the pistons need valve reliefs.

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(Top) The 6.0-liter Power Stroke uses a full floating wrist pin. There are snap rings that hold it in place. (Bottom) The ring package we opted for was a standard ring package from MAHLE for 0.030 inch over pistons.

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For this build, A reground camshaft from Colt Cams was used. This is a direct bolt in and requires no modification.

The rocker ratio and camshaft determine if valve reliefs are needed or not. “The camshaft in a 6.0-liter engine is designed to help the engine reach its performance characteristics. These characteristics include not only horsepower and torque requirements, but emissions. Due to the emission aspect of the design, the operation of the valves is pretty limited, resulting is much less energy available for the turbocharger than a non-emission engine. This is one of the reasons why the 6.0-liters use a variable geometry turbocharger,” explained Westfall. Colt Cams reground the factory camshaft to give it a more favorable profile. The profile isn’t just a performance profile. It will help free up some extra energy for the turbo on the big end, but it will also help low end spool up, which improves fuel mileage, and towing.

Young from Diesel Dynamics uses a liberal amount of Lubriplate No. 105 Motor Assembly Grease when he assemblies engines.

The factory camshaft has profile of 0.225”/0.229” (intake/exhaust) at 0.050” lift. The Stage 1 regrind from Colt Cams bumps the profile to 0.251/0.245 inches. This equates to about a 0.035-inch of additional lift which doesn’t tell the whole story. The factory intake is open for 167 degrees and the Stage 1 opens the intake valves for 178 degrees. This is where the majority of the intake increase is coming from. To provide the extra exhaust energy, the exhaust goes from 176 degrees to 195 degrees (almost 20 degrees of additional duration). All of this additional valve lift and the cam is still a direct drop in replacement/upgrade (meaning no valve reliefs needed).

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Once the pistons, rods, and crankshaft were at H&H Machine. They balanced the entire assembly. To do this, they first weigh the parts. Then hung weights on the crank to simulate the piston and rod assembly. Once that is done, they bolted the damper on and rotated everything on the balancer. To balance the crank, holes were either drilled to remove weight, or welding was done to add weight.

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There is a special tool needed to align the camshaft and crank teeth together.

The most troubling aspect of the 6.0-liter Power Stroke was next to be decided upon, the heads. Many years ago, The factory heads were replaced with a set of ported and polished heads from Elite Diesel Engineering. These heads didn’t provide a huge performance gain on the dyno, but did reduce boost pressure and EGTs. In an application like this, this might be overkill but since the heads were still good, there was no reason to replace them.

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For extra precaution, Westfall opted for new ARP studs.

Holding the heads down is a set of ARP2000 studs from ARP. The engine previously had studs and while the studs are re-useable, it is just a little extra insurance to have a new set. “When in an engine this far, sometimes it is a cost worth incurring just for the extra insurance. If were planned on running spray a lot of really pushing the engine, I probably would have opted for the Custom Aged 625 studs for the extra insurance,” explained Westfall.

Since the engine failure came from a plastic piece within the rocker arm assembly, there was no way the same style of rockers were going back in. Luckily, the guys at Diesel Dynamics happened to have a few sets of used ‘03 6.0-liter rockers lying around. The early ’03 engines used a metal pivot instead of the plastic pivot found in the later generations.

The 2003 model year 6.0-liter Power Stroke engines used a metal pivot for the rocker arms.

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To keep track of exactly what bolts were torqued, Young always marks the heads after he has finished.

Long Block

With all of the machining done and the parts gathered over the course of a few months, the engine was taken over to Diesel Dynamics in Joshua, Texas, for assemble. They build a few hundred engines every year and are extremely well versed with the Power Stroke engine assembly.

IMG_8749_1

When Young installed the rear main seal, he uses a little bit of dish soap to help the seal slid into place without binding up.

“We rebuild a lot of these because people don’t do proper maintenance and keep their programmers on high when towing like 15,000 pounds,” said Crede Young, Owner of Diesel Dynamics. “When we rebuild the 6.0-liter engines, we always use new oil coolers, EGR coolers or EGR deletes, update the HPOP pumps, and replace the rod bolts. At one point in time, we started seeing a lot of rebuilt engines from a competitor coming in that had broken rod bolts. No matter what performance level you are seeking, always replace the rod bolts,” continued Young.

Jerry Young (a.k.a. Papa) was kind enough to let us follow him through the process of assembling the engine. Almost immediately, he noticed that the oil pump had scores from debris running through the oiling system. Upon further inspection, the front cover showed similar scores. After finding good used replacements, Young finished assembling the short block. One thing Young did mention was that the front cover should not be tightened until the oil pump was installed and there was even space around the pump.

After years of replacing injectors many of the threads for the valve covers and oil manifolds were stripped out and needed to be fixed. Young drilled all of the threads out in the rocker boxes and installed Helicoils. This would ensure years of trouble free use.

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Pictured here is a 2003 to 2004 high pressure oil pump (HPOP). The later models looked a little different but still mounted the the rear of the engine. If you are rebuilding a later model engine, Young recommends updating to the latest fittings.

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Young pours oil on the lifters before he installs them to ensure they slide into the lifter bores easy and to prevent scaring on initial start up.

On the top end, Young, also, replaced the lifters. “It isn’t the cheapest item to replace, but needle bearings don’t last forever. We replace them on every engine we rebuild and strongly recommend people replace the lifters even if the same camshaft is going back in,” said Young. With how the 6.0-liter is designed, if one went bad, the engine would need to be torn down to a short block in order to replace them.

Chain

Young uses a chain bolted to the head and connected to the table to keep the engine from rotating on him while he torques down the head studs.

When it comes to installing the oil cooler, Young opted for a new one instead of re-using the low mileage one that was in there. “We replace the oil cooler on every engine we rebuild. You have to be really careful with oil coolers. There are cheap brands out there that are known for having failures. We always buy the premium brands when it comes to oil coolers. Also, make sure you replace the high pressure oil screen,” mentioned Young.

The last major item to be installed in the engine was the damper. The stock damper works fine, but when increasing the power level of an engine, the harmonics within that engine change. The stock damper uses an elastomer for damping the harmonics. These only work within a narrow frequency range. A viscous type damper damps throughout the entire RPM range. With the objective of this build being a trouble free, low maintenance engine, a Fluidampr was installed. The extra damping may make the difference down the road.

IMG_3560_1

A Fluidampr damps the harmonics throughout the rpm range no matter what power level. This is extremely important as the power level goes up. To find out more about viscous dampers click here.

All of the gaskets used in assembling the engine were MAHLE Clevite. The head gaskets are five layer MLS gaskets. One thing Young did mention when buying studs, always buy aftermarket head gaskets because the Ford gaskets come with new bolts and it is a waste of money.

Making power

Up until now, all of the parts selected really don’t make major power. The two biggest items that determine how much power the engine will make and the driving characteristics are the fuel injectors and the turbocharger.

With rare exception, there starts to be a diminished return as the injectors start reaching 190cc.-Chad Westfall, Diesel Army

When it comes to fuel injectors, there are quite a few to choose from. The stock injectors are 110cc injectors. The first modification that companies make will bump the injectors up to 155cc. These injectors still retain the factory stroke. Anything larger than 155cc, the dynamics of the injector starts to change. Most companies increase the stroke length to increase the injector displacement. Because each manufacturer modifies its injectors in its own way, the sizes range from 155cc to over 400cc.

“With rare exception, there starts to be a diminished return as the injectors start reaching 190cc. If you look back at previous dyno sheets over the years, you will notice that 225cc injectors don’t yield much more power than 205cc which is only slightly more than 190cc. There are some exceptions like hybrids but that is a different animal and outside of the scope of this type of rebuild,” explained Westfall.

Injectors_1

Our 190cc injectors from Maryland Performance Diesel had plastic inserts to keep the injector internals clean.

The size of the injector plays a big role in making power, but it, also, plays a role in smoke production and EGTs. This engine is going in a truck that resides in Texas. Texas is a state that reaches triple digit heat during the summer. In addition, with towing all over the country the truck will encounter a variety of different elevations. “The Maryland Performance Diesel 190cc injectors are very drivable. Especially with proper tuning from guys like Eric at Innovative Diesel, EGTs can be controlled and smoke production can be kept to a minimal amount when stuck in traffic,” mentioned Westfall.

Injectors

When installing a set of injectors, make sure you lubricate the o-rings before you insert them into the holes. Also, use a long enough Torx bit to tighten the bolt square. We have seen many people have issues over the years because they rounded the bolt using too short of a bit.

Oil_Manifold

This is a 2004 and newer high pressure oil manifold. It is much larger than the 2003 manifold which is just a single log (the lower portion of this manifold.)

Over the past ten years, 190cc injectors seem to max out on fuel only somewhere in the 570 to 590 horsepower range with the proper sized turbocharger. In addition, there are quite a few trucks that have landed in the 700 horsepower range with nitrous. A big determining factor to how much fuel only horsepower the truck will make is the turbocharger size.

up-pipes

For durability, a set of aftermarket y-pipes were installed. Most aftermarket y-pipes feature better bellows which can handle higher EGTs for a longer duration.

“When it comes to selecting a turbocharger, you need to be very cautious. Too many people either deal with someone that doesn’t understand your situation or they select the largest charger chasing the big power number, not realizing they are giving up their low end. I went to BD Diesel Performance and had a few long conversations with them about what I was trying to achieve and what I was looking for,” explained Westfall.

The turbocharger ended up being an S300 BorgWarner turbocharger with a 64mm compressor wheel, 65mm turbine, and split volute 0.70 A/R wastegated turbine housing. Now for you turbocharger guys out there, you may realize an issue with this combination. In a 6.0-liter Power Stroke, a 64mm won’t support 570 to 590 horsepower and the 65mm turbine wheel is pretty small for that range.

This is where having a clear goal in mind is important. “I need to be able to tow with this truck. If I opted for a 66mm or something larger then I would gain the power but lose my bottom end. I would rather have a little less power on top and a truck that is fun to drive, then a truck that is all top end,” explained Westfall.

Turbo_1

A BorgWarner 64mm turbocharger. A 64mm compressor wheel is actually pretty large for a daily driven 6.0-liter Power Stroke. Cummins and Duramax engines are able to spool much larger turbochargers but the 6.0-liter doesn’t have the same exhaust energy available.

Diverter_Valve

The turbocharger setup features a BD Diesel Performance Diverter Valve as well as an internal wastegate.

The 6.0-liters are notorious for having extremely high drive pressure and the wastegate will help to reduce that. In addition, the wastegate will help to keep from over-spinning the turbocharger. To help with additional low end spool up, a BD Diesel Performance diverter valve was installed. The diverter valve is pretty important on a 6.0-liter. By diverting the exhaust into half of the turbine housing, the charger comes on much quicker. “Depending on the tune I’m running, the engine will make 8 psi of boost while cruising down the highway at 1,800 rpm,” said Westfall.

The entire turbocharger kit is mounted on a BD Diesel Performance turbo kit and is fed with an upgraded set of y-pipes that feature high strength bellows. The factory bellows can fail with high EGTs and this is a perfect time to upgrade the y-pipes.

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Normally with 190cc injectors and a 64mm BorgWarner turbo, we expected the “canned” tunes from SCT to throw some codes and run extremely hot (mostly due to shifting into overdrive way to early for a larger turbo) but it actually did very well. Of course the custom tuning from Innovative Diesel Performance was really the icing on the cake. The truck behaves much better, the transmission shifts when you expect it to, and the EGTs are much more controllable. We opted for three tunes (towing, street, and race). While the towing tune doesn’t have the power, we have towed almost 10,000 pounds combined (trailer and cargo), and done very well. As long as the EGT’s were monitored the truck tows rather well. There is still somewhat of a dead spot between 50 and 55 when decelerating but that is to be expected.

Once the engine was installed into the truck, a SCT Livewire TS was installed. The Livewire TS is the latest generation of the Livewire. It has a 4-inch color touch screen that can display a ton of information that is available via the OBD-II port. Initially, the performance tune was downloaded to the truck and the Livewire was mounted to the windshield. The truck actually performed pretty good with the “canned” tune. Outside of some excessive low rpm smoke the only issue was the transmission tuning. The “canned” tune shifts into overdrive around 50 mph and the engine speed drops to 1,300 rpm. Even with 2 to 5 psi of boost, the EGT’s would rise quickly and the truck would lug.

 

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To take care of this issue, Eric Eldreth at Innovative Diesel Performance was called for custom tuning. Eldreth needed to know the VIN number of the truck and the serial number of the Livewire. Outside of that, he needed to know what modifications were made and what types of tunes were needed. Eldreth nailed it on the first try. While the truck may not make quite as much boost at low rpm, the EGTs are lower, the engine is smoother, and the smoke is very low (unless you floor it).

After about 2,000 miles of driving and working out the bugs with the truck, it was taken back to Diesel Dynamics to be strapped down to the dyno. Before each pull, the truck was allowed to come up to operating temperature (185 to 190 degrees oil temp and 190 degrees coolant temp) and the truck was manually shifted with Diesel Dynamics WDS (World Diagnostic System) to keep the truck from downshifting or upshifting.

Dyno_RunsThe truck was brought to 2,200 rpm with no load and then the load was applied. The RPM was then dropped down to 1,750 rpm and then would make a pull. We tried a few times to bring the RPM down to 1,500 but the EGTs would reach 1,600 degrees before we would break 2,000 rpm. There is no reason to push the truck that hard to achieve max torque on the dyno. All said and done, we managed to lay down 528 hp and 1,364 lb-ft of torque. While this is slightly lower than our goal of mid 500s, the tradeoff we made with the turbocharger was well worth it for a truck that can tow and is very drivable.

That being said, we were blown away with the nitrous dyno results. Stay tuned!

Lead_Rotator_PowerStroke

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