Building the Ultimate, Street-Driven 7.3L Ford Power Stroke
While we have to admit that seeing enthusiasts push the 7.3L Power Stroke’s stock bottom end to 600 rwhp and beyond in recent years has been fun to watch, there is simply no way to tell how long one will stay together. Some handle the abuse for years, and others fail catastrophically within a few thousand miles. For this reason, we’re bringing you a bulletproof buildup of the tried-and-true 444ci-based V-8 this month. The goal is to build a daily driveable, 100,000-mile-capable, 600- to 650-rwhp ’02 Super Duty.
| Unlimited Diesel Performance took a block sourced from an ’00 F-450 and treated the main bearing surfaces to an align-hone and decked and bored (0.030-inch overbore) the block on the same square fixture. The final cylinder honing was performed with a torque plate fastened to the block via the same H-11 head studs that will be used in the actual assembly (and torqued to the 135 ft-lb spec).
"Some handle the abuse for years, and others fail catastrophically within a few thousand miles. For this reason, we’re bringing you a bulletproof buildup of the tried-and-"
Creating a high-horsepower yet durable 7.3L starts with a sound bottom end. For that, Unlimited Diesel Performance of Bremen, Ohio, got the call. The folks there took care of all the machine work done to the block, as well as porting and polishing the heads, and also supplied a set of 400/200 injectors. The one twist in this build is that the truck gets shifted via a ZF-6 six-speed manual transmission. So needless to say, careful turbocharger selection and custom-tailored PCM tuning was key in making the finished product as streetable as possible. Read on to see the route we took in building the ultimate, street-driven 7.3L Power Stroke.
