So I have been looking for a fun project truck to work on in my spare time and found this ford f250 4x4 diesel. I haven had a chance to really look at it but it sounds like a good start. It is kind of a budget build since Iʻm in school still but, I canʻt tinker much on my DD, 02 F.350 Powerstroke. My real question is if there is a better 5 or 6 speed transmission instead of the 4 speed. Also I have a bunch of exhaust parts piled up from my buddys recked dodge that he gave me mainly a 5" stack kit with 7" Bull Horn stacks, yes they are a bit of over kill and gay but they were free and a bunch of 5" tubing, what other upgrades are there for these trucks that will help keep up with the exhaust, injectors, intakes, and such. My budget is going to be about 2000 after the truck and i donʻt know how much of that I will spend getting it running. Thanks a lot for the help.

 

there is quite a bit you can do to these engines the thing is the money. you can turn up the pumps and stuff fairly cheaply.
As for transmissions the T18/19 4spd trans is extremely strong trans but if you are looking for a 5spd in 87 they went over to the zf5 5spd but the dual mass flywheel which is junk but there is conversions to fix that.
A little bit of searching through google will find you alot of info I also would say to check out oilburners.net they seem to know alot about the older international IDI engines if you have any more questions you can pm me and I will do my best to help you out.
I am currently in the process of building a 6.9 IDI engine
good luck

 

Hey man,
check out this article:
1987 Ford F250 - ZF Five Speed Transmission - Diesel Power Magazine
They do a lot of cool stuff to that old truck for very little money. Might give you a few ideas!

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oh wait, I got that mixed up with the D250 article where they bombed the truck for like $700, my bad...
In this article they just get the truck to run.

 

I love my IDI motor, there very easy to work on yes, but also very important to keep an eye on, and yes cheap upgrades except some of the usual, and look in to after market turbo systems, they make all the differance in the world, ive got the ATS turbo system on mine, its got 245,000 miles on the OD and still running strong, but i kno nothing about that trans but i still say go for it

 

Yeah the ZF 5 & 6 speeds will bolt up but I wouldn't say they're any better. For the money and they do go for $ I'd go with an overdrive unit from somebody like Gear Vendors or US Gear and keep your cast iron trans. It will outlive a ZF and is a piece of cake to repair.