Origin of power stroke engine

[batavia02]

Heard a comment at work, today, that the powerstroke diesel, is a gas engine reworked as a diesel. Have not heard or read this before so I thought to ask here .

[Bird_Freak]

How about a show of hands from folks who realize this was a power stroke question from the op.:S

[recycler]

Powerstroke was just Ford's name for Navistar's commercial engine fuel systems are different much more reliable in medium duty trucks. I figure the diesel frome gas myth comes from drag racers converting olds diesels to alky engines. 455 heads, special head gaskets and cam. Lousy diesel great alky engine

[steve-n-vicki]

I remember the 350 diesels breaking cranks too

[Jerrybo66]

spoon059 wrote:
I still want to see that 100 mpg carb I've been hearing so much about...

Good luck with that. At a Teamsters meeting back in PA. in the 60's a guy claimed Ford installed it on his truck by mistake then traced the truck and stole the carb. :R I think the legend is no longer local.:)

[Bamaman11]

Ford and Navistar had a very strained relationship in their engine partnership. Although the engines were coming out of Navistar's Huntsville, Alabama factory, Ford engineers spec'd out the motors and had final say so on components, etc. Navistar engineers would have preferred to have some different parts that would work better.

When the poorly designed 6.0's caused so many problems, Navistar and Ford were to share the cost of warranty repairs. Navistar was very short of capital, and they couldn't pay their half of repairs. Ford quit paying Navistar for new motors, and Navistar quit delivering diesel engines. About the same time, Navistar raised the wholesale prices of diesel engines about $3K each. Ford had to up the gas truck production for a short time until the companies could work out their differences. Ford was close to having to shut down the SuperDuty production since 2/3 of trucks sold were diesels.

While the warranty issue was finally settled, Ford realized that they were giving up $4K-$5K per unit profit contracting the engine production to Navistar. It essentially doomed Navistar's production of diesels used in Ford light duty trucks. Ford went on engineer and build their own 6.7 engine in current use.

Diesel engine manufacturers continue to have difficulties engineering diesel engines to U.S. Government Tier III and Tier IV specs. Caterpillar has gone out of the medium duty and heavy duty truck engine business. Navistar bet the company on their engineering an non-DEF heavy truck engine that failed, and they're in very poor financial condition after having to fill in with Cummins big diesels.

And despite the problems with the Navistar built 6.0 and 6.4 engines, Ford has delivered and still makes more "light duty" 3/4 ton and 1 ton diesel powered trucks than General Motors and Dodge/Ram trucks combined.

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

FishOnOne wrote:

Turtle n Peeps wrote:
Well, you did get one correct!!! Good for you!! And just for your knowledge, the 6.4 also had 10 head bolts / head. :B

Actually Navistar used 10 head bolts/head and the 6.4 PSD has very little head gasket failures so it can be made to work.

Ya, after Nav band-aided up the size of the head bolts! A 10 bolt design for a diesel engine is a retarded design. Ford proved this with "their" new 6.7 engine. They got the head bolt design correct on that engine..................the fuel system and the turbo's.............aaaaaaaaaaaa not so much!!!! :B

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

RCMAN46 wrote:

Turtle n Peeps wrote:


Name ONE diesel engine that shares half as many parts as the 5.7 Olds diesel does with a gasoline engine and I will believe you!!

The GMC V6 back in the 60's had both a gas and diesel which used many of the same castings. Unlike the Oldsmobile I believe the block and crank were identical.

That very well could be true. I'm unfamiliar with GM diesels of the 60's.

Like I said above. It's semantics. It's the same block with just more metal here and there. Is it the exact same casting? No, because it's a diesel. I'm not saying that Olds pulled the same block off of the line and made it a diesel. But it is the very same architecture. Like I said, it still has a distributor hole in it!!!

It's much like the Chevy V6's of the 80's. The V6's are just a small block Chevy.................with two cylinders lopped off of the back. That way Chevy did not have to design a completely new engine and they had a proven design that worked out of the box.

Olds tried this with their gas engine and tried to make a diesel out of it. They tried to make it work by making the "gas engine" a diesel by making it a high nickel block and putting more metal in the bottom end and putting in a big block forged steel crank. As you know, it just didn't work because it was a "gas design engine" from the start and no matter how many band aids they put on it or how much extra metal they scabbed on it, it would not work..............or at least work well.

"My" 5.7 has given me less problems than my LBZ truck. My 5.7 has never given me one problem but my LBZ has had one glow plug go out. That being the case, in true RV.net style I will say "it's a great engine" because I own one and it's never given me a problem. :B

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

ChooChooMan74 wrote:

RCMAN46 wrote:
My bad!

The Oldsmobile 350 Diesel did in fact have 10 head bolts per head.

When I looked up Oldsmobile heads I miscounted the head bolt holes and will blame it on getting to old to accurately see what I am looking at.

A man who admits mistakes. Need more like you.

X2, Thank you. 🙂

[thomasmnile]

The answer is simple, Ford originated nothing but the name until they designed and built an engine introduced in the 2011 MY.

[FishOnOne]

Turtle n Peeps wrote:
Well, you did get one correct!!! Good for you!! And just for your knowledge, the 6.4 also had 10 head bolts / head. :B

Actually Navistar used 10 head bolts/head and the 6.4 PSD has very little head gasket failures so it can be made to work.

[RCMAN46]

Turtle n Peeps wrote:


Name ONE diesel engine that shares half as many parts as the 5.7 Olds diesel does with a gasoline engine and I will believe you!!

The GMC V6 back in the 60's had both a gas and diesel which used many of the same castings. Unlike the Oldsmobile I believe the block and crank were identical.

[ChooChooMan74]

RCMAN46 wrote:
My bad!

The Oldsmobile 350 Diesel did in fact have 10 head bolts per head.

When I looked up Oldsmobile heads I miscounted the head bolt holes and will blame it on getting to old to accurately see what I am looking at.

A man who admits mistakes. Need more like you.

[RCMAN46]

My bad!

The Oldsmobile 350 Diesel did in fact have 10 head bolts per head.

When I looked up Oldsmobile heads I miscounted the head bolt holes and will blame it on getting to old to accurately see what I am looking at.

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

You claim to own 5 oldsmobile 350 diesels.

I don't claim anything, I do own 5 of these engines and a bunch more parts.

Have you ever had one torn down?

Yep, sure have.

If you had you would have found the heads have 13 head bolts. Where did your claim of 10 come from?

Really??? You need to immediately call Summit racing and tell them that ARP is ripping their customers off!!! Olds 350 5.7 diesel stud kit.

The heads were not gas heads as they have a pre combustion chamber and two holes in the pre combustion chamber for the injector and glow plug. This required a completely new head.

No kidding? Really? They also don't have spark plugs so that must really make them clean design diesel heads hu? LOL, NS they have pre combustion chambers!!! It's a diesel!! They just pour a bit more cast iron in the chambers of the gas head, plug the SP holes and add injector holes and wa la, instant diesel head.

The main problem that Oldsmobile had was the head bolts. Had they corrected this problem and used high strength studs early on the engine may have had a better future.

Aaaaaaaaa no. If you know anything about the 5.7 diesel you would know that the ARP bolts fair better than their studs in this engine. BTW GM had 3 versions of TTY bolts for this engine. They got it good but never got it perfect even with their 3rd gen design.

But you will find Ford did try the 10 bolt head with their 6 l diesel with head gasket problems.

Well, you did get one correct!!! Good for you!! And just for your knowledge, the 6.4 also had 10 head bolts / head. :B


The bottom line for the 5.7 diesel is: I can bolt A BUNCH of parts from a gas Olds onto my diesel and vice a versa. Hell, they even left the distributor hole in the block from the gasoline engine and plugged in a vacuum pump in place of it for the diesel.

Name ONE diesel engine that shares half as many parts as the 5.7 Olds diesel does with a gasoline engine and I will believe you!!