1996 F-350 7.3 Powerstroke
The truck is running a little rough and is missing a lot of power. It's been a gradual decrease in power and increase in roughness. Im still very green to the diesel world so all help is appreciated. I'm pretty sure I've got one or more injectors going out. I've run Sea-Foam directly into the fuel bowl, and mystery oil, 2 stroke, and ATF through the Fuel system (seperate tank fulls). No upgrades quite yet except for muffler and cat delete. Let me know if I've left out any vital info.


The main thing is I'm looking for a way to narrow down which injector(s) are out so I can replace specifically it(them) now and the rest when cash flow is better.

Looking into having them rebuilt/Upgraded by jim at Rosewood Diesel, Anyone done this or know of them?

Edit: Also, I have no direct access to a scanner. I want to do a Buzz test, but dont have the tools to do it. Are there alternative ways to testing which injector is out/going out?

 

You could always take the valve covers off, start the truck and watch oil spill from the injector oil spouts... They should be even and consistent. Any spout which is not spitting oil could be a sign of an injector issue... You could also go through one by one and disconnect an injector. Obviously that would cause the engine to run rougher because of a loss of an injector. But find the one that doesn't change the idle much, that could be an injector with an issue as well...

 

Update:
I'm taking the injectors out Sunday and shipping them off to Jim at Rosewood Diesel monday to be rebuilt and upgraded to stage 1's. I'm planning on requesting feedback on how each injector was internally. Looking forward to getting better than 14 MPG after the rebuild.

 

Got the injectors installed last monday, and changed the oil, and glow plugs while i was at it. The injectors got rebuilt by Rosewood Diesel to Stage 1 Injectors. The packaging was gorgeous, enough so that you can tell they take great pride in their work. Anywho, Since the install the truck has run great with a few exceptions. Firstly, it went from doing an average of 14 mpg with bad injectors to 12 mpg with good ones. What am I missing here? For clarification, the injectors I installed are Stage 1's, and I am currently running them without a chip. Also, it's been below 49* here for the last few days and the truck has been incredibly hard to start. It takes about 20-30 seconds of cranking with white smoke for the truck to start. Also when it gets to the low 30's and lower, the truck runs pretty funny. For example, if I am at a friends place, where I cant plug in and the I'm there long enough for the block to get cold, it randomly gets bogged down while driving. Im driving it like a grandpa and I'll seemingly randomly loose power and here the engine act like you added half a ton behind me.


On top of this, When you first start the truck, hot or cold, after a few seconds the engine bogs down the rpms go down and hold, and the exhaust rattles for lack of better term. This all holds for about two seconds then goes back to normal. Any explanations?


Thanks

 

Change out the CPS, they are pretty cheap and if it going bad, your truck will not run at all when it goes out completely. Change the fuel filter as well, mid 40's arent enough to make the fuel gel, but a dirty filter will cause loss of power and poor milage.

With stage 1 injectors, you might want to think about a turbo upgrade as well, need more air to burn more fuel.

 

Any suggestions for the turbo?

 

You'll be fine running a stock turbo with stage 1's... No need to upgrade... I've been running stock turbo and stage 1's for two years...

How many miles on your injectors yet?

 

Less than 300. Changed the filter and the cps and still hard to start in mornings. Second day this week i've drained the batteries trying to start it. Plenty of white smoke just wont catch. Also after i changed the cps yesterday, it still dipped down to 500 and whined the exhaust like before. Any idea what thTs about?

 

Is your HPOP giving you enough oil pressure?

 

Oil pressure shows normal.