I have an option to buy a e450 with a 6.0, 100k mi, with a utility body. I have the same thing but an 03 with a 7.3. this van has some known issues, biggest being it sat for a year and a half. it was parked due to excessive smoke out the exhaust. ford shop diagnosed it as bad head gaskets, personally I am not believing it. there is no evidence of puking on the degas cap, and someone removed the band clamp from the down pipe and there is nothing but a little soot, so I don't really think a turbo seal either. the batteries were dead tonight so I am going to take a set of batteries down and see what happens. he is only asking 6000 as is. I am thinking probably egr cooler, egr valve or injector problem. If I buy it I am going to install a new oil cooler, blue spring, clean the turbo and delete the egr. what are your guys thoughts? late 04 engine btw.

 

What color smoke? Take a gauge of some type to check the live data.

 

While not a big fan of vans for a utility body that is a good price. The body alone is worth more than that.
You know the drill on testing the heads and as mentioned bring something to read live data with.
Good luck on the purchase.

 

I did purchase it. got it started, it is white smoke but smells like fuel, not coolant. it backfires when revved past 1100 rpm. no blowby at idle. I am going to get a good charge on the batteries and see if I can get a contribution code to see which valve cover to pull. I am suspecting a valve train issue. I'll update when I find out more.

 

Hopefully it ddnt chew up a lifter or you will be pulling the motor...or trans.

Good luck,

Sarge

 

here is a video of what it is doing, I have a crankshaft position sensor performance code, that's it
it is carrying 48 volts on the ficm and sensor values look normal.

 

Do you have anyway to do a cylinder contribution/balance test?

 

I was hoping it would through a contribution code. , but it didnt. I have gotten my snap on 2500 to give me contribution codes when running the koer test, but usually it idles up to 1200 rpm and do the test, I'll try it later and see what happens.

 

is the Cat still there? if so may be clogged, simple enough to unbolt it and run it to see. A bit loud but easy check.

 

the downpipe was unhooked in the video. I am gaining,slowly. When I purchased it the downpipe and y pipe to the turbo were unhooked. Looks like the EGR cooler is bad, but also I get the P0336. With the y pipe connected I can get the truck to rev to 2000, but still misses randomly. The engine will stay pretty steady even though it is missing, but the tach jumps from 1500 to 2000 RPM. Does the crank position sensor give the input needed for the tach in the dash? I am going to try and record a graph of the crank position sensor, cam position sensor and see if one bounces and one doesn't. Does this add up to a bad crank sensor? It always syncs and starts right away. I am going to install a EGR delete on this but only really want to tear it open once, it looks like a PIA.

 

I found out that I actually loose sync while running and the rpm input on my scan tool bounces from 2k to 1k without much change in the engine. being that I always get a p0336 every time, I am going to replace the crank sensor and see what happens. here is a link to my scan tool watching sync and rpm while it's acting up.
E450 loses sync and still runs:

 

I got it fixed, it was a bad crank position sensor. Now to do a oil cooler and a egr delete, change all fluids.

 

Good deal glad it was simple. Not that getting to anything on a van is easy to get to.
Did I mention I hate vans?

 

What is the condition of the engine harness like? I bet on a van that age, it must be pretty brittle. I've changed more than my fair share harnesses on lots of these vans for various driveability issues. And I don't miss working on them one bit. When changing out a set of coolers on these, my chest and arms used to get all scratched to rat ****. Better you than me.

 

The harness itself is not too bad, but I do have a question. What was mounted on the back side of the ficm bracket on the e series toward the back of the engine? Looks like something was broke off and there is a 2 wire plug not plugged in but I have no codes.