Strange engine problem last night

[mike100]

Last night I was driving around and got on it in first gear in a little spot where I usually accelerate and right near the shift point I heard what i thought was something mechanical let go and was sounding like "clack clack clack"..etc and it slowed with the engine speed.

I thought something broke in the new tranny or a valve spring let loose. I looked in the mirror and noticed a butt-load of white smoke and realized that one injector was acting up and mis firing and/or squeezing way to much fuel at the wrong time.

Shut it down for about 30 seconds and when I restarted it all was normal. Blew out the pipe and drove for about 15 miles to make sureit was ok and didn't have any problem today either.

So I was thinking that one of two things happened.

1) when I wound it up to high rpm one of the lifters got pumped up and compression was momentarily lost in one cylinder which all the fuel got pumped thru unburned...hence the miss and white smoke screen or...

2) the electrical valve cover gasket insulation is failing and something fishy with an injector getting pusled at the wrong time due to a short to the adjacent injector wiring which would cause an out of time injection pulse???

It sure had a loud diesel clatter and had it been a gasser, I would have diagnosed it with death rattle for sure.

Any knoledge on this? Perhaps I should flog it at Carlsbad to see if I can get it to happen again. I'm only 2 miles away and could probably afford the tow . I did not check the oil yet, I hope fuel in the oil is not a problem... I'll update on that later.

I have plans for this work truck so even if I buy a new one, I want to keep this thing running. Besides, I still haven't even got the credit card bill for the trans yet!

[mike100]

Bad news..the oil level raised up some. At least I didn't drive it all month not knowing. The oil is almost new and it should have absorbed it.

Strange coincidence as I was just about ready to pull the injectors out ot have them redone back to splitshots as I have an unsolvable driveability problem with my current setup. Unfortunate that I will never take these to Carlsbad but I think they are worth about 20-30 hp and more torque with the same chip and might have even dipped into the 14's. my plan now is to upgrade to superduty plungers (late 99 and up) so it will still be better than what I had before..maybe a small nozzle upgrade ala stage II's, but I'm tired of the units I have now not running right.

My advice is that unless you need a lot of fuel for real racing..never change your injectors. Smoke gets old.

So... still don't exactly know what the failure mode was... but is seems to run fine right now. I could change the oil and keep running, but I don't want to waste anymore money.

[mike100]

I think a couple of loose injectors may have been what happened. Swamps is rebuilding my injectors back to splitshots for me and says they look pretty good. He is trading me for the parts because he needs single shot parts more than stock splits so it is a mutual good deal. gonna try some AD code splitshots (same as 2000 up superduty). With my early code AB splits being smaller, the chip should command a bit more duty cycle out of the larger late model units and I should still be able to get more than 300 rwhp without idle side effects and embarrasing smoke clouds from big nozzles.

did I tell you how much smoke those 160 cc single shot injectors put out at 8000 ft?

[mattymx]

Swamp is the man for sure... I have come close to getting some 170ish Swamps, but every time I am able to do it, something comes up and the $$$ goes away. That is just not right!!!! Keep us informed.


Matt

[mike100]

Too bad your cores aren't splits, I just gave up some 160 cc singles., I just didn't want to take it any farther with a old singleshot pcm and then start burning new chips for that. Swamps has seemed pretty knowledgable and offered up some ideas even though I didn't ask him about it. If the new units work good I will be happy with him.

[bigfish]

Mike, Good Luck, with the new injectors. I've been thinking about changing mine, may hold off for awhile, hope to see you at the upcoming event. Take care, Bryan