Hello, my name is Blake. I just purchased a 1993 R350 dually with the 12 valve and a getrad. The truck only has 120k miles on it, and was fairly clean except for bad paint. I have been driving a Jeep Wrangler the past 4 years, and I primarily got this truck because my jeep no longer is set up very well for road use. Now, with the truck I can tow it to the trails, and not have to worry about driving the jeep around town. I am not new to forums in general as I am on lots of 4x4 ones, but I'm new to diesels and engines over 100hp.

Now, onto the truck. I have a few questions. This is my first diesel, but I am fairly confident in my mechanic skills from the years I've spent building trucks, swapping engines, swappign axles, etc. But I dont know much about this truck. It was purchased at a lot and I mostly would like to know if it has any aftermarket turbo or exhaust or anything like that. It has both boost and pyro guages, so Im thinking it may not be stock, since most people around here only install those after they do some tuning. It has a Holset turbo that has been painted bright orange. I don't know if it has been rebuilt or what.

What aer some things I can look at, or describe to y'all so I know what I have. I have a digital camera as well for pictures. Any help is appreciated.

 

Welcome- Good choice of trucks, I love mine. Holset is the brand of turbo on the truck from the factory, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily stock. Look on the front of the turbo for an ID plate, and let us know what model # you have. Also look at the exhaust side, on the side facing the firewall (you'll need a mirror) to see what numbers are there. If there's a wastegate controller (looks like a big vacuum can for a heater valve) attached to the turbo, don't waste time looking for numbers on the exhaust side. The stock exhaust system on the truck is 3", if it's bigger, that's great. It's hard to tell if the pump's been tweaked from the outside, but with boost and pyro gauges already installed, I'd bet it has.

 

Okay, I got the truck from the lot now, so I can take pics and look at it closer:

Turbo and downpipe, do they look stock?


I doubt that Dodge put flex pipe exhaust from the factory, so that rules out the exhaust being stock. ;D

 

The turbo looks stock to me (except for the orange paint). I'd guess from looking at it that you have the (stock) 18.5 cm turbine housing.
Starting from the turbo that exhaust looks wierd. It looks like somebody used a cast exhaust elbow off something to start the flex-pipe special downpipe. I never saw one like that before. Is the whole system made of flex pipe, or is there actually some tubing on the truck? I just put a 4" system on my truck from bigexhaust.com, you might want to look at their prices and replace that whole mess.

 

[quote author=wannadiesel link=board=9;threadid=18015;start=0#msg169635 date=1060297958]
The turbo looks stock to me (except for the orange paint). I'd guess from looking at it that you have the (stock) 18.5 cm turbine housing.
Starting from the turbo that exhaust looks wierd. It looks like somebody used a cast exhaust elbow off something to start the flex-pipe special downpipe. I never saw one like that before. Is the whole system made of flex pipe, or is there actually some tubing on the truck? I just put a 4" system on my truck from bigexhaust.com, you might want to look at their prices and replace that whole mess.
[/quote]

It's solid flex pipe, except for the muffler. I'll look into getting new exhaust pipe. A good buddy of mine owns a exhaust shop, should be pretty cheap cuse there's so few bends. I still would like ot run a muffler, it's already loud enough. This is supposed to be my "comfort" truck. Just need to decide if I want 4-5-6 inch pipe.

Reguardless I am very happy with it, and is a BIG change from this:




;D ;D ;D

 

The 3.5 inch downpipe to 4 inch I put on mine seems like a pretty tight fit, I don't know how you'd get 5 or 6 inch on there. You bought a 4x4 1st gen dually for comfort? That Jeep must be a real bone rattler if a W350 is a smoother ride!

 

It looks like the previous owner may have known to switch to a 16cm housing. You'll have to look at the back to know for sure. There's a good chance since the turbo is painted. If the turbo is rebuilt professionally, they would have probably replaced the tag on the front with one that says it's rebuilt. Hard to tell at that angle, but the down tube looks swollen towards the bottom, like it's been modified. Is there a weld seem after the bend? Welcome to DTR.
Don