There are a few ways to look at that statement.
When I read it I immediately thought of the older '94.5 - '97 Single Shot injectors. I would make that same statement above when referring to what came new in those trucks. All of our Premium Rebuilds are in fact way better than the originals, when the truck was 'new'. No question about it.

However, if they are referencing all new injectors, as in what is available new today, I don't buy it for one second.
To make that statement true, they would have to double the cost of the typical rebuilt injector set to include all the new parts like Solenoids ($400 a set), new fuel plates ($360 a set), machine the Poppet seat ($500 a set) etc, and that would price their rebuilds way above what a new set costs.
That just isn't likely to happen.

Ever wonder why 'new' injectors from Ford are $350 each? Because they usually aren't new, they are re-manufactured with all the work I just mentioned done to them.

Please also keep in mind and understand the differences in products between New, Re-manufactured, Rebuilt, and Overhauled.
There are 4 very different levels of work done, and people don't seem to use these terms properly.
Re-manufactured injectors should equal the quality of new injectors. Rebuilt injectors do not, and are not meant to.

One last thought:
On our typical rebuilds, if there is going to be an issue, 99% of the time the issue pops up as soon as the injectors are installed, not months down the road. If you put the rebuilt injectors in and the truck runs well, it should run well for a very long time. 99% of the time when we get an injector back months after the initial sale, it's from installation error, bad fuel, a blown engine that put junk into the fuel/oil, etc.

 

If the injectors are properly rebuilt, there shouldn't be any noticeable difference compared to new, and they should still last several hundred thousand miles with proper maintenance.

 

I had reman'd PIS with 30% oversized nozzles installed in November of 2013. A few weeks later, I started having ICP issues.

I replaced the ICP sensor and IPR with new units from International, it didn't help.

After some data logging, we moved on to the HPOP thinking it was leaking down and got ahold of a Terminator unit, it didn't help.

Begrudgingly, we started doing the "Cody" test- removing the ICP sensor and putting compressed air in the oil rail and determined that an injector o-ring was bad. So I thought maybe they got screwed up during the instal. Eventually after putting it back together and having another o-ring fail and repeating that cycle a few times, we pulled all 8 injectors, replaced ALL external o-rings on my dime and time. ICP held and all was good for about 2 months.

Then the truck began using oil at an alarming rate, about a gallon every 1-2 hours of running time depending on load, did all kinds of things to trouble shoot that situation, including, but not limited to, buying and installing a used turbo thinking my old one had a bad seal, it didn't.

Started talking with PIS about the problem, they told me it was possible, but unlikely that there might be an internal o-ring failure causing the injector(s) to directly be injecting oil into the cylinder. Ran some cylinder contribution tests and determined that an injector was failing, moved it around and the failure moved with it.

Called PIS and they paid to ship ALL 8 of my injectors back to them, put them on the bench and all 8 had some level of internal o-ring failures, to the point that they felt like some needed the nozzles rebuilt just to make sure. They flow bench tested them, balanced them etc, and shipped them back to me, all free of charge.

It took well over 100 hours of work,(maybe 200), several long phone conversations with Tugly, and Dave at PIS, new ICP, IPR, Terminator HPOP, turbo and in-tank modifications,(all of those parts I did not actually NEED at the time) to determine that the o-ring manufacturer that PIS had been using towards the end of 2013 had quality issues that led to my failure. It was a perfect storm that cost me over a thousand dollars out of pocket, several more thousand dollars in lost plowing time last season, had my truck down more than it was up for a whole year, contributed to the failure of my marriage(no joke), all because I was trying to save some money by going with remanufactured over new. Take it for what it is worth, but it is all a true story.

Tim and Dave at PIS were very nice, backed their work up 100% and helped in the ways they could, but in my situation, going new would probably have saved me a TON of headache and maybe, just maybe, some heartache too.

 

Thanks for the considered response Jim.

About remachining the poppet seat. "I" would like to see the poppet seat on a body with my own eyes. I'm in the machine trades and like to solve issues such as these.

 

I'm going to put in a few words here that don't directly fall into the "new vs. reman" argument, but can cause customers to THINK that there's an issue with the injectors (including me).

I purchased a set of remanufactured injectors a while back; injectors that I sent in with 15x,xxx miles. When I installed them, the engine had a miss and surge that I spent a couple of months chasing and my tuning laptop was beginning to hate me and I was getting really frustrated with the hardware available at the time concerning the tuning because I COULD NOT make the surge/miss disappear. Everything was fine under a load but there was nothing that seemed was going to fix the unbearable and constant light-load driving anomalies. It's a 2wd regular cab so it's not often that normal driving puts the engine under load.

So, I sent two of the injectors back: One that was really causing issues and one that didn't. I got them back with an email saying that nothing was wrong with them and that they work just fine. Well, I had no reason to doubt the person telling me this as the pickup does (well, did) have 262K miles and there could be underlying problems although the previous 160/100% injectors had ZERO problems like this and ran like stock.

I worked on the tuning again a little while back because I had to take a break from it all......I was THAT frustrated! I hit the computer with a new perspective and found that I needed to have a VERY high minimum pulse width to make the injectors smooth. These particular injectors have very specific needs and the tuning for them will not likely work with any other injectors.....AT ALL. If I had to rely on someone else thousands of miles away to tune it, I'd have given up long ago and I'd have been excommunicated by those offering custom tuning. It's THAT crazy.

It must be noted that between the time I gave up on my personal pickup and today that I tuned another pickup with the same "size" of injector from a different rebuilder (here comes the confusing nomenclature) and it runs beautifully with the type of tuning originally written for my injectors. I have run into this countless times over the years, but this one had an effect on me personally.

The point to all of this is that even though you may have a common-specification injector, the shop that builds them is going to dictate your tuning needs and that your injectors are NOT always at fault. Sometimes things just work a certain way even though there's nothing wrong mechanically.

 

Send me an email, noting your post and what you'd like to see. I have a few pics I can email to you.

 

I don't even know if the shop can help a lot of times. Again, the flow bench is a great tool for what it is. But once you get into the performance side of things, there can be a lot of variation in making a truck run well.

I personally installed a TS chip with X tuner's tunes in 3 different, yet equally set-up trucks, and all 3 trucks ran different. These were OBS with Stage-1's, can't get more basic than that.

 

Or if you might have sent in your injectors to be rebuilt.

Edit: but if the O-rings were faulty, then I guess it wouldn't matter which injectors.

You have a ton more patience that I do Jason, you spent countless hours troubleshooting & working on your 7.3L. Most of it is documented so I am sure your posts will be helping folks for years. Hope 2015 rocks for you😎

 

Wow. The heavy-hitters have joined our conversation and I'm glad for that.

I had trepidations about this thread when it looked like it might skirt the popcorn counter - but everybody stayed on topic without bashing the builders (or the tuners). I theorize that because everybody contributed with respect and professionalism, we were visited by a rebuilder and a tuner to get straight and honest answers. Kudos to all for helping to build what I feel is now a reference thread for future injector swappers!

FTE rocks, and you you ARE FTE.

 

I have thought this for a long time! And I would assume this would be especially true with performance injectors.

 

I am beginning to think along the lines of replacement injectors since my truck is at the 27x,xxx mark right now, so this discussion is of premium interest to me. Thanks for tossing it on the table, Rich!

Thus far, what I am most pleased to be seeing is what appears to be a level of honesty without flaming or down-putting, and if this thread discussion is to have the true benefit for which it was meant, this is critical to helping facilitate the realization of that goal.

Keep going....

 

It looks like this thread explored the corners of the topic. I know what burning question is left unanswered - who to contact for injectors.

With the different level of rebuilds and the pool of cores out there, the best results for remans will be to send yours in - that's been established. I have dealt with FFD and Swamps directly on different issues - and they back their products with great service. I know a number of people who have had the same support from Swamps, Rosewood, and PIS. I'm sure there are other good injector vendors out there that I haven't listed here, but these are the four that I have dealt with directly or indirectly - with excellent support when things don't go as planned.

 

i had talked with Jim before this thread started and was confident with his answers to send him my injectors when i pull them in the spring for reconditioning.

 

My stock injectors had problems only after 155-160k...and the issues did not appear to be orings as those were all intact and looked good. I sent my own cores in to be rebuilt that had 160k on them to Rosewood diesel for 238/80s, and he got them rebuilt within a couple business days, really good service, and the lowest price out there amongst the big names. When you call or email, Jim is the one that answers which was a surprise to me. The truck finally started right up in the cold and drove and sounded real good...but I think with the extra power, chip, and 38R I found a weakspot in my engine and threw a rod. I was worried about the transmission, not the engine lol.
But if you are going to rebuild injectors, Rosewood is an excellent choice.

 

Unlimited Diesel Performance. I believe they are the only Lifetime warranty out there. He has stood by it so far for me. He has also been featured in many mag article on truck builds with Gearhead tuning.