Usually between 200 and 300 miles is normal for a stock 6.4 when driving unloaded. With a lot of city driving or towing you will see under 200 though.

As far as checking the turbos, the lp turbo is easy. Pull the air intake away from the turbo and check for shaft play. The hp turbo (the one that usually fails) requires a bit more work. Generally the best way to tell is to pull the down pipe away from the turbo and check for signs of oil.

Another thing that people don't consider is their air filter. If the turbos can't feed enough air into the motor you will get a lot of excess smoke. That extra soot will lead to frequent regens and can actually damage your hp turbo as well. Aside from oil and fuel filters the air filters on 6.4s are one of the most overlooked maintenance items.

 

On my 6.4 with the banks 6 gun (dpf on tuner) I would normally run about 500 miles between regens with no towing.

When towing I always ran in stock power with over 10K lbs. Then regens were about 130 miles apart.

 

something is going on with my truck ever since I did an all out attach on the exhaust system and used fuel tank based DPF cleaners with every tankful of fuel.......I went to regens every 50 miles (before the cleaning champian) , to like I cant remember the last time it regened and I've driven 500 or 600 miles. it turns out that there are two types of regens active and passive and one happens all the time and the one we notice happens when particulate accumalates and needs to be blown away as ash.

 

It's been about 25,000 miles since my last post. Since then my regens have reduced to 90-100 miles unloaded. At around 140k I decided to attempt to clean the dpf myself which help the smoke issue and helped the regen frequency slightly. I know it's not the "proper" way of cleaning, but I used a pressure washer and air until I had clean water coming out the reinstalled on the truck. The truck went into regen immediately and lasted 2-3 times longer then normal. Then after that regen it was up to 150 miles between regens. Since then though the frequency has fall back to 80-100 miles(mostly highway). However since cleaning the filter the smoke is not nearly as bad and atleast not noticeably existent all the time. The truck has 155k now and I'm going the have off over Thanksgiving for 11 or more days and would like to clean, service and repair anything(turbo rebuild, egr rebuild or cleaning, air filter, cat cleaning/replacement , new dpf and sensors ect...) that could be causing the frequent regens. I have a long trip in December I'm taking the truck on and would like to have it done by then so I can really test it rather then the shorter trips (avg. 100 miles) I've been on lately.

Before anyone says delete, after a lot of consideration I plan on keeping the truck stock.

Thank you for the input and advice to this point and beyond.

 

Are you using any fuel additive? I think some additives may help with cleaning the DPF's during the regen cycle. Are you running any bio-diesel in your truck? That may not be good for the DPF either.

 

There's no way to know if just cleaning the DPF and rest of the emissions parts will be a good fix or not. I will tell you that I know of more than one dealer that has a service manager who recommended a DPF delete for any 6.4. Anything that puts more fuel than what is burned can make the DPFs more frequent.

I suggest trading it if you want to eliminate the issues but don't want to delete it. That's probably not something you want to hear. Otherwise, I guess cleaning can't hurt.

 

I am with speakerfritz on this one, your not going to hurt anything including your pocket. I also read in another thread on here in regards to DPF regens that another owner actually took the leap and poured an entire 250 gal bottle of powerservices grey bottle into their tank at fill up while on a trip using his tow/haul mode, because he was having the same issue, after he did that no more issue.

Now just a note I know i am new but with the research I have found on dpf replacement is this but dont quote me i could be mislead. Ford knew about the turbo seals early in the game when they had so many warranty issues with DPFs, or poor preformance, EGT problems etc. On the business side of things it was "cheaper" for them to replace a DPF under warranty than the turbo system. I read somewhere that a owner had 3 dpfs replaced before the warranty expired and found out the turbo was causing all the issue. Now its common knowlage that anything finding its way past the turbo can plug it up, oil, coolant, etc. The only suggestion I can give is if you choose to try the DPF cleaners first and still have a issue have a good knowlagable Powerstroke tech look your unit over, hopefully someone you can trust.

Good luck

 

So are you saying the turbo's could be causing visible exhaust and not the DPF?

 

No what i am saying is that turbo problems such as oil leaks or coolant leaks in the turbo can cause the frequent regens and cause the DPF to clog up. As far as the smoke, I cannot say for certain, I have heard of course that coolant getting past the turbos can cause smoke and so can excess fuel and oil. BUT I cannot say that I know this for sure, My f350 is stock and and never seen as much as a puff of smoke of any kind out my pipe EXCEPT when it was in regen mode while I was in town and honestly didnt pay any attention to it, When I did and realized it was in regen mode i worked my way to the interstate, and when I was on the acceleration ramp and got into the throttle, it must have been clearing out the ash trap cause it blew out a white cloud that lasted the entire length of the ramp but it stopped as quick as it started.

 

coolant smoke is always white

unburned fuel normally very very light blue....but....if you have a dirty DPF...it will be black or brown until the DPF is cleaned out...then back to very very light blue.

oil is gray to black smoke

 

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying. I'm DPF/Cat deleted and will get a puff if I whisper on the accelerator with my Spartan +40hp tune. My next check is the EBP tube for soot as I've read it's output has alot to do with fueling. Base psi is to be 5 and mine is 3.

 

I do wish you luck, and here is something else i have discovered in the 6.4 section. I have read a number of times that guys that are deleted say that the 6.4 is for the lack of better terms " clean burning", meaning that even being deleted they rarely have any smoke out the pipe except when taking off then its like a puff. Nothing like the "coal and roll" stuff a lot of the kids love. And if thats your thing then great, I have nothing against that except thats just a lot of unburned fuel going out the pipe and to me thats throwing money away. But it does look good at tractor pulls and stuff like that.

Hopefully some of the other deleted guys will chime in and elaborate on the smoke production after a delete as to what color, how much and how often.

 

If smoke is refering to smoke during regen, mine would leave a smoke screen and belch white unburned smoke like squirting lighter fluid on hot BBQ coals as it was heating up the DPF. It was vile and happened mostly on cold days <55F. Factory said it was perfectly normal to spew like a volcano. It never smoked much on summer days. Not sure what's worse... some soot or a cloud of HC's and nasties blanketing the entire road as I drove during regen.

If I'm not mistaken, I remember seeing a PID to clear out the DPF tables which are in non-volatile memory, so pulling the battery won't do anything like it does to the EGR tables. I think the AutoEnginuity can clear it...I'll have to look the next time I hook it up to the truck. I understand it properly, the ECU keeps track of how much ash is purportedly in the DPF and adjusts the regens based on that along with DPF pressure...hence the regens going back to 90miles.

If Propel HPR Diesel is in your area, you can try running it instead of regular diesel. Soot generation is purportedly a lot less than regular D2 and therefore more miles between regens, all else being the same.

Propel Diesel HPR

It's supposedly 100% compatible with regular D2, cheaper, and doesn't gum up things like bio. I ran HPR exclusively for over 2500 miles...it smokes and stinks a lot less, but fuel mileage seems to be between regular bio and regular D2; driving cost per mile is about the same as regular D2 .

They say energy content is higher than bio, but makes no mention comparing with regular D2, hence confirming my ~1mpg less compared to regular D2

 

Jaynick123 - I deleted my dpf/cat in January this year. Everytime it would regen it would blow clouds of blue smoke out the tailpipe for miles. The dash notice would show cleaning, cleaned and go back to cleaning exhaust filter. I finally had enough of that crap and deleted. I have a stock tune and it only puffs out black smoke if I jump on it to pass or quick stomps on the gas pedal at park. Even then its minimal. The dealership even suggested I delete and tune. Mileage has improved and truck runs alot better now. Degas level stays even all the time and oil stays clear on the dipstick alot longer. Exhaust sounds like a jet engine exhaust now but glad I had it done. I was to the point of dumping the truck.

 

The ecu does not keep track of ash in the dpf. Time to regen is based on the exhaust back pressure sensor which detect increases in back pressure due to a full dpf.