6.7L Power Stroke Turbo Problems

DT Install

February 2015 Installs, PowerStroke Len F. Davidson

When Brian Yohe first took possession of his father’s slightly used 2011 6.7L Ford Power Stroke, he knew the truck needed some help on the performance side of things. Georgia is Ford country after all, and you simply can’t be driving around in a stock truck, or in his words, “a grandpa truck.”

After a little research he purchased a cold air intake, tuner and an aftermarket exhaust. These parts are pretty typical upgrades for diesel truck owners and are intended to increase not only fuel economy, but also the performance.

Brian was very pleased with the performance and probably would have left the truck alone if the stock single sequential turbo hadn’t exploded on him just months after these upgrades were installed. He knew the turbo was hurt, but he didn’t know why it failed with so few miles on the odometer.

Do It Right

Working with his family business as a plumber he knew the fix was going to be costly, but he was taught to do it right the first time rather than spend money trying to fix it cheap.
Brian started looking around on the Internet for a local shop to help him remedy his problem. After calling a few different places he ended up on the phone with Jonathan Brooklyn from Lead Foot Diesel Performance in Monroe, Ga.

At first Brian was planning on replacing the stock turbo with another factory one, but Jonathan took the time to explain that Brian wasn’t the only person having issues with the factory 6.7L turbo. Many customers had been calling in about the same thing and the shop had already replaced several of those turbos on both high and low mileage trucks that weren’t modified at all.

Homework

Brian knew at that point he didn’t want to put a stock turbo back in his truck. He went back to the vast expanse of the World Wide Web to see what other people were doing to remedy the problem. After countless hours of reading on the forums he called Lead Foot Diesel back and ended up talking with Vincent Himes. They discussed a couple of different kits available to replace the single sequential turbo with a much more reliable Borg Warner turbo.

Vincent told Brian he could call around and see if any of these kits were better or worse than another and he would see how soon they could get a kit to the shop.

After more reading and research, Brian discovered some horror stories about some of the kits they had discussed and he narrowed his choice down to one manufacturer that had received rave reviews on the single turbo kit for the 6.7L Power Stroke. He called Vincent back and asked him to get a hold of that company and see if their kit was in stock.

The call was made, and it ended up that the manufacturer was waiting for parts to complete a kit for shipment. Brian wasn’t in a hurry, yet he couldn’t be without his truck for as long as they were anticipating the parts could take.

Looking At Options

Brian called Vincent back and they had a long conversation about what his best option would be. Vincent told him about their race shop and how they fabricated compound turbo kits and aftermarket single turbo kits for a lot of the local sled-pulling crowd. The suggestion was made that they could fab up their own version of a single turbo kit using the turbo of Brian’s choice as long as he didn’t mind being without the truck for a couple of months.

Brian weighed his options and decided to go for it. He made the two-hour drive down to the shop and waved goodbye to his truck, knowing it would be under the knife for awhile.
The LFDP crew got right to work lifting the cab off the truck in order to make it easier to mock-up their piping. They knew other companies had made kits like this and their number one concern was making sure their kit was different than anything else on the market.

One-Of-A-Kind

After weeks of mock up and trying several different configurations, Tony Rizzi, the master fabricator at Lead Foot, was happy with his creation and felt it was much different than any of the pictures he had seen on the various websites they had researched. He finished welding everything up and the kit was sent out for powder coat.

During Brian’s hours of reading he had seen one question pop up on the forums that none of the other manufacturers had taken the time to answer. That question was simply, “What are the drive pressures with the Borg Warner turbo?” When Vincent called and said the truck was done and running like a dream, Brian asked him about the drive pressures and if there was any way to check them.

Fortunately the LFDP crew was curious about the same thing and they had already hooked the truck up to their IDS Ford computer and drove it for about 20 miles making sure everything was operating within a safe parameter. Drive pressures were 1:1 under heavy throttle for a split second, which means when the turbo was making 39 pounds of boost pressure the EBP (Exhaust Back Pressure) was reading almost 39 PSI but quickly dropped to 17 PSI while the turbo held over 30 PSI at the intake manifold.

Brian couldn’t wait to get the truck and was even happier once he got to hear it himself. The once almost silent tone of the 6.7L’s exhaust was now much more aggressive. He is now looking forward to putting more fuel to the truck and possibly compounding off the Borg Warner S464 that resides in the valley of the engine.

Mock-up consists of building of multiple bends that get tack welded together and then the cab has to be lowered down to check clearance around the fire wall. Once everything is cleared the final welds can be performed.

The finished product is a much cleaner engine bay and the factory plastic intake Y bridge is replaced by a very clean powder coated stainless steel Y bridge.

The completed down pipe is a full 4-inch stainless pipe, which replaces the restrictive factory down pipe. This pipe gets wrapped with a lave shield product to keep heat away from the fire wall.

LFDP opted to go with a T4 Borg Warner turbo running a 64mm billet compressor wheel to keep throttle response close to factory if not a little faster, and drive pressure well within their 1:1 ratio.

The CNC-machined pedestal base retains the factory oil return fittings to ensure there are no restrictions in the oil flow throughout the engine.

All of the hot side tubing is heat wrapped to ensure none of the under hood wiring is compromised. This material is not cheap, but shows the level of care taken to ensure the customer is getting one of the highest quality kits on the market.