backround on the truck. 2004 columbia MBN C-15 set to 435hp. 673k-ish miles.

2 weeks ago my truck went down in MI. turns out that the hose to the t-stat housing ripped causing me to loose coolent. so.. i had the line changed and new thermostats. thought my CAC was leaking, found out a boost line was cut in half by rubbing along the fuel line.. both lines were replaced. the day prior to being replaced i started the truck to go down the road to grab a bite to eat. truck started up coughing smoking like crazy but it cleared. next day.. same thing. now its still doing it, only when its cold. it'll start up fine but run like its 5* outside. coughing smoking etc. again it does clear and i really dont notice it untill i drive around at very very low rpm's around town.. kinda lugging it. this truck NEVER did this before. the thing is that it dont throw a code. i have the warrantee on the truck untill june. while at the dealer i asked them and they said most times they wont cover it untill it throws a code or the injector dies all together. what do ya'll think?

 

What about your "power"? How does the motor react pulling hills....loaded and empty??

You're in a "damned if ya do......damned if ya don't" situation there! White smoke indicates injector. Black is turbo and CAC. A rebuilt injector is gonna cost you about $1,800 by the time it is all said and done. A 6-pack is going to run you about $5,400...but will give you warranty for another 100K or so miles.

Make sure it is the injectors....and make sure you don't have water in the fuel! If you blow a tip off.....the bills can be quite a bit higher!!

 

the white smoke does clear. as far as power goes.. i'd say its fine. i'm not running much weight. i go all across 80 in pa and never drop more then a gear. the CAC was tested and came back fine no leaks. after the truck warms up its ok. unless you know the truck you wouldnt know something is off. i'm going to change my filters next trip out. also sitching to cat filters to see if there is a difference

 

Personally, I feel that "Cat" filters are way over rated. They are made for Cat by Wix. I ran Fleetguard filters with my C-15 after having run Cat....and found my mpg's improved by .3 ....... but...that was my experience and was with an 01 International 9400...... for what it is worth.


An 'after thought" here! Have you had your fuel rail pressure tested?? I had issues for months back in 09....then the ITH dealership in Portland OR tested the fuel rail.....replaced it....and solved a lot of my problems. The fuel rail being bad caused the injectors to wear out prematurely.

 

By what your describing I wouldn't believe it to be an injector. Is it mis-firing when you rev it up some and hold it there? When I lost an injector, cracked the tip, I had an obvious miss and it was belching a grayish smoke when you revved it on up. At idle it resembled black smoke and ran real rough. It just plain sounded sick when wound up.

 

no. when its warm its fine. no smoke at all you can hear its a bit off though.. so today its getting worse. more smoke while cold, down on power and now there is a tick.. i'm calling my warantee people tomorrow to have it looked at and hoep its covered

 

That's might be, but i've never put another brand on my truck. If god forbid, you'll loose an engine over a bad filter, CAT will stand behind their name. Not sure about other brands....Firebird, can't really say, just guessing, it has something to do with overhead. Last week my ECM went bad, replaced it, and they said they will program the same parameters, as it use to be on an old one. But engine didn't feel the same, don't feel "sharp" anymore. Did it at Harrisburg, going to check if everything is done right. I hate those "electronics"!

 

Not to make you worry too much firebird but we had an F350 diesel that was doing something similar, it ended up needing an engine. It would smoke real bad when cold and had what could be described as a tick or slight knock.

It could end up being something like what was going on with some of the diesel's Ford had issue's with that was only a Ford issue. It was building up carbon real bad and would cause the truck to smoke, be down on power. Take it to them, they cleaned out the carbon, reset the computer and everything was fine until it built up the carbon again. Once that carbon broke loose it would straighten itself up but usually it had to go back to the dealer to fix it. At it's worst it would cause the truck to simply cut off going down the road, you would have to then sit and wait a few minutes before it would re-fire. They told us it was something with the ECM and computer not working correctly on those models. The newer trucks have a "fix" for it.

 

solo, ask for tim at night. he's excelent. he is the only one i let work on my truck.

as for my problem... what i'm starting to think is that i lost a injecotr tip and it went in to the motor. the ticking is getting worse. i stopped for the night in snowshoe pa. i have a run going back to mi on monday when i get home i will be calling to make a clame on the warantee. i am very paranoid but my oil psi seems to be down just a bit. ran the truck flat out all day while the tick got a bit worse the truck is running ok. down a bit on power but other then that its doing ok. i'll update soon. fyi.. if anyone is staying at the snow shoe rest area going east.. sorry for the smoke in the morning..

 

You need to get to a dealer and have them connect your ECM up to their computer. They can tell in a few minutes if it is an injector. The cost should be minimal. I would not let something such as you describe go very long. You could just have some water in your fuel tank. Usually if an injector goes out it misses all the time, much like a spark plug misfiring. I once dropped a couple of valves and thought it was an injector. It cost me almost $7,000. Have you opened the drain plug on your fuel filter to see if you have water in your fuel?