My rig has an overhauled motor in it. Got about 5000mi on it. Was coming home from a week at the lake yesterday and climbing a slight hill when it started missing and blowing smoke and flames!! Pulled over fearing the worst. Had it towed to a mechanic and he says no compression in one hole! He is pulling the cab to check the damage. I had no warning signs at all! Was running great and I drive it easy. Now I have to decide whether to just fix the one hole or do another complete overhaul with Navistar pistons and fresh injectors. Its true about these 6.4s being hard on the wallet!

 

That stinks. No warranty on the overhauled motor?

 

is the tune stock?

how many miles were on the injectors they put into the rebuilt motor?

 

It was a backyard wrench that did the overhaul. He is a good guy and is helping me with this, to a point. He is pulling the cab to check the extent of the damage. Not sure about the injectors. This guy I bought it from bought the truck with a poor running motor. He pulled it and found a cracked piston. It had a 300hp tuner on it and was built up with aftermarket turbos, studs and such. I figured the guy who originally built the motor probably did injectors. Its a 2010 motor in an 08 truck. Someone had run it hard before. He put a new piston in, rings, crank bearings and resealed it. I ran great. These injectors **** me off that they don't really give you any indication something is wrong. I put a custom 100hp tow tune in the SCT tuner and drive it real easy.

 

so the injectors might be plus up's to deliver more fuel in the custom application you are discribing.

my thoughts are a bad injector caused the hole in the piston....these injectors stick open when they fail and either tourch a hole into your piston or hydrolock the engine. the new low sulpher fuel standard does not help as it reduces the lube value of diesel fuel.

the difficulty with replacing the injectors is that most injectors on the parts market are used...they take your old injector that toruched a hole in your piston....replace the tips...and sell them as -remanufactured injectors.


my 6.4l in my 2010 has 87k miles and I have every low confidence in the injectors, lifters, rockers, waterpump plate, etc.

I would recommend that you replace your oil cooler and oil filter since you probally have metal particles from the metal mass of the piston hole.

 

So my mechanic called me today. He said I have a heavy foot because I cracked a piston. No cylinder damage and the injector is fine. The problem is that I drive the truck very easy. I don't even maintain the speed limit up longer hills and I don't think I have floored it for more than 1 second. This worries me. In a discussion with my mechanic he told me the deletes I have add about 50hp, I have a custom tow safe 100hp tune and he theorized that the previous owner may have added bigger injectors which could all add up to about 550hp. I figure even with that hp the fact that I drive like a 90 year old nun should nullify any effects of too much power! I did have my 4000lb slide in camper in the box but I hardly even did the speed limit. Makes it hard to trust this motor. If I had more disposable income right now I would have him throw a set of Navistar pistons in, but I don't.