Trip with the Terminator

The time came for me to upgrade the High Pressure Oil Pump on my 7.3L PowerStroke Diesel. While I would have loved to do a modification like this on my own, I knew best to leave it to a professional in this case. A phone call later I made plans to hook up with Joey Omlin of Terminator Engineering out in California. I’ll spare the boring details, but Joey builds and modifies High Pressure Oil Pumps for 7.3 PowerStrokes. His most recent creation is the T-500. I’ll get more into that later.

Thankfully Joey offered to pick me up at the airport. Being a quick trip, this saved me some money as well. Time being of the essence we quickly got to work. Joey is pretty secretive about his stuff, so these are the pictures that he approved for me to show.

A quick warning as well, don’t try this at home. This is NOT a how-to guide on modifying your pump. Many of the steps are not shown here, nor will they be shown. This is a very quick overview. This is also not an HPOP install guide.

Here is my pump on the bench at Joey’s. These things get nasty just from normal use, Yuch! I probably should have cleaned it up better.

A healthy wash in the parts washer will take care of that really quick.

A picture with the seal removed and then out comes the snap ring.

Back cover snap ring is now removed as well and then some more internals  are removed.

The internals are pressed out. This is another one of those times where I warn you not to do this yourself, you could easily damage your pump.

Stock internals now out of the pump. If you have never saw the inside of a pump before, now you know what they look like. Now, where is my 6 s.. I mean 7 shooter. Some new parts are all installed here and not pictured.

Reassembled internals. Then the internals are being pressed back into the housing. This is another one of those really easy to screw things up moment and another reason to leave it to somebody who knows what they are doing.

New bearing being pressed in. Then back cover is reinstalled and snap ring to hold it in.

New front seal installed and off to the bead blaster for some prettiness and a good looking finished product.

Every pump is branded and given a Serial Number. That way Joey can keep track of every pump he makes so he knows where its been, what group of production it is in and so on. Very smart idea.

And now to apply… Oh of course he just HAD to be out of stickers.

It was a great trip out to Joey’s. I got to learn a lot about High Pressure Oil Systems and got to check out his projects and help a bit.

 

Now for some install pictures.

A tip for cleaning up the front bolt cover for the pump. I just got the sander out and used the vice. It worked really well.

It made an excellent beer coaster while installing.

Its an 18mm socket. I know people forget this one so I thought I’d throw it in there. Lots of people talk about the washer falling it. As far as I know, it cannot go anyplace. I don’t think you’ll want to fish it out of there either, so pay attention when pulling this out. Pretty strait forward.

I installed the IPR on the bench. Made it so much easier. There are torque specs for the IPR, if you want to apply them in this situation, the bench is going to be the easiest place. I used the snug method. This is a part that doesn’t need to be arm-stronged.

Installed pictures. Kinda self explanatory there.

Getting ready to RTV the front cover and put in place, boy is it a pain to get it lined up. Everything is in the way down there. Not fun! Have some paper towels around to clean up the mess your going to make.

 

This project was done over a month ago and to show what the sticker looks like, Joey sent me a picture of a finished pump with a sticker on it completely assembled. This is a Super Duty pump, notice the HPOP fittings.

And for some fun, a randomly approved picture from a project he is working on that a few people are waiting on.

Oh boy is that thing pretty!!!!!

Dealing with Joey was excellent. I’d like to thank him for all the info he shared with me on the project. I was quite surprised he was okay with doing this. If your looking for an upgrade to your 94-97 7.3, or your Super Duty 99-03 7.3 for more performance, this modification will upgrade your 15° HPOP to a 17° and make it flow better. There are some other things that happen to the pump as well, but those are secrets, so you’ll just have to believe me and the other users of Terminator pumps that it works. The pump performs great and has no troubles keeping up with my injectors now. For the Super Duty guys, this gives you the flow mods and the other new mods for the pump, so don’t count yourself out.

Terminator Engineering also makes dual pump systems for people looking to make more power with their 7.3 PowerStroke. Dual systems are 2 modified HPOP’s, paired up, that will produce more oil volume than a single pump.

The T-500 is also affordable as well. $449 for the upgrade to your pump. You just send it in, and he upgrades your pump. There are other options available as well for you and that is something you would have to discuss with him. Joey is easy to deal with and has a great product and stands behind it.