Well I fell off the grid for a while, but now I'm back and wondering how the guys with the new powermax's are liking them. I believe the last I saw John and Dan were putting them on.
I have been having some greyish blue smoke out the exhaust when the truck is warmed up for a while now, there is no real smell to it and it is easiest to see when I am stopped at a light, I can see the cloud forming and flowing up past my passenger side door. I knew it was either the injectors or a turbo seal going, but I kept running it figuring I'll fix it when the breakage comes.
This weekend while changing oil, fuel and coolant filters I noticed that I had a black streak of burnt oil running down the bottom of my exhaust pipe, upon closer inspection I noticed that the oil was getting pushed out of the first and second joints in my exhaust. I believe that this is probably a clear indicator that the smoke is being caused from a turbo leaking oil.
I would rather get a new upgrade than deal with the downtime and hastle of rebuilding the stock one. So how are those with the most recent powermax additions liking them? And on another note, the truck has 86,000 on it and is needing a new turbo, is that a little soon?

Thanks
Jeremy

 

My truck had a bad turbo at 82k, then another at 104k. Sometimes during cold starts mine will puff out blue smoke. i still have the 12month/12k mile warranty so i think its time to get this one looked at. If this turbo is bad im demanding money back from Ford, and i will also get a Powermax.

 

heard nothing but great things about the powermax even on stock trucks. i would get one if i were you just my .02 cents!

 

I love my Powermax.
Very nice power and great sound.

 

I think you'd like the powermax a LOT Jeremy. I put one on EODguyJake's truck running very similar mods to yours and it drives great. Little to no turbo lag as some have claimed and you'll LOVE the whistle.

 

What are the Powermax selling for? Do they raise boost levels?

 

They are about $1200.
Your boost will actually be lower but it moves more volume.

 

I just got off the phone with XDP and PTP and they are both sold out. I went with those two because their prices are both at around $1200 with free shipping.

XDP told me they are on a national backorder and they probably won't see one until April.

PTP told me they had three in their warehouse, but they had been sold already. They also said they should get a few soon and put me on their waiting list.

So now I wait, this will give me a little more time to budget for it though.

 

Contact the place in the last post.
Who sells Powermax? - Ford Powerstroke Diesel Forum

 

I have had mine on for about a month now - works great - smoke is gone. Boost is lower for the same about of throttle. Power is incredible. Matt tweaked my SRL++ tune to accommodate the powermax. There is no lag at all. Fuel mileage is unchanged (poor - due to tuning and driving habits).

The whistle is great- even at low boost - starts at 4-6psi - so its good even in the 'burb's.

Stock turbo blew seals at 33K and the reman blew them at 42K (8K later). Turbo is fine other than the seal - I am going to rebuild it for a back-up.

 

Thanks for all the info and thanks smokersteve for the link.

I just got another call back from PTP and they found one in their Atlanta Warehouse, I ordered it and it should be here by the end of next week. It cost me $1200 even.

That speaks volumes for the service of Performance Truck Products. Even after they didn't find any on the first try they continued to search for half the day until they found one for me.

I can't wait to slap it on, there is a Dyno Day in Austin, Texas on March 5th, I have to get the details for it, but hopefully it will show up in time and I can run my truck down there and see how it goes.

I think I'll be writing Matt at gearhead to get some tunes for the new setup.

 

Make sure you get the upgraded oil lines for it.
I got mine from PTP back in the fall, great guy and great service.
Keep us up to date how you do on the dyno.

 

Thanks, I have the solid feed line and the larger drain tube, I just emailed Matt at Gearhead for the SRL++ tune, I can't wait to get this thing together.

 

I got the powermax the other day and installed it today after work. It only took about 40 minutes to install and WOW does this thing whistle, Tim you were right I love it.

I pulled into the drive way and my wife came running out asking why my truck was making all that noise. I laughed my butt off.

It also seems to chase the deer off. I live on some back roads and usually the deer just stand there at the edge of the road and stare at me while I drive past, but today they took off hauling.

I didn't notice any extra lag, and it worked great on the tunes I already had. With the old tunes, boost was about 2-3 pounds less than the stock turbo though. Stock turbo was 26-27max and powermax was 24max.

I had Matt at gearhead write me some tunes for the Powermax and man!!!! his tunes shift SMOOTH. I ran the SRL+ tune today 28 pounds of boost, so I'll jump to the SRL++ tomorrow and see how it does.

I only had two issues, I broke the wire off of my oil pressure switch so I have to find the part number for the pigtail, and after switching tunes and plugging the insight back in, the screen stayed blank and doesn't seem to want to shut off. So I think I'll be calling customer service on monday.

EDIT: I forgot to mention when I first started running the new turbo, there was quite a bit of whitish blue smoke out the exhaust for the first 10 minutes, I assume this is normal due to the factory coat of oil that it was packed in burning off. No smoke now.

 

Congratulations on the new part! Enjoy and let us know how it does on "dyno day".