2 more flats? IDK. I'm down 4 flats already, and I'm starting to see performance decline. I'm afraid if I went down one more flat, it wouldn't start.

How many flats can someone go down before it becomes a problem? I've never heard of anyone turning up or down their IP more than 3 ever. maybe IDIJohn can chime in and tell us how much he turned his IP when we swapped from 7.3 to 6.9. He mentioned it back earlier in this thread.

Just for reference, when I had my IP on my 7.3, I had turned it up 2.5 flats when I put on the Hypermax Turbo kit. So if it was stock, then it is -1.5 flats what I got from Justin at R&D. I talked to him and he said to play with the timing, because its cycle is not burning the fuel.

I'm thinking ATF is the way to go now before more timing and fuel screw adjustment. I don't run the stock fuel filter, so all i have to do is just pull one of my Stage 1 filters, fill it with ATF, and then run it right? For how long?

I don't think it's compression. the 6.9 ran fine in the other van before i pulled the engine.

 

I agree that it's a ton of adjustment. And maybe it's not the answer, but too much fuel is too much fuel. I'm leaning towards something sticking in the IP, or a return line obstruction from the sounds of it. It's very strange to say the least.

So if we throw out the low compression idea:
The fact that you are having harder starts is weird. Lowering the max fuel screw, while it does change the timing slightly, won't affect the starting/idle fuel delivery. (Edit: just realized the idle may come down in doing this, and you'll have to adjust the throttle arm to compensate. Maybe your idle RPMS are just too low)

For the ATF yes pull a filter, empty the diesel and fill with ATF. Run the engine for 30 seconds or so and shut it down. If your primaries are on the frame rail or much further away than the stock location you would probably wait longer, though i'm not sure how long. Maybe a minute?

Also I'm sure you're covering you bases here, but does any of this have to do with your alternative fuel usage? Maybe a bad load or something? I don't know much about it in general or your setup but thought I would throw it out there.

Oh, another thing is that these harmonic balancers are a two-piece job and AREN'T KEYED. So they CAN slip, and then your timing mark would be off. New engine, maybe the mark is wrong.
Does it sound like a gasser when cruising? Any rattle etc? I was amazed how off my timing was when i first got my ferret. Something like 1* ATDC! (I was chided by the forums for not being able to "hear" the timing better, haha) Point is your timing number could be "right", but the actual timing could be wrong due to the balancer.

Anywho hope the ATF wakes it up and you can drive the beast again.

 

u know, now that u mention it...maybe it is a return line obstruction. i have been fighting a few leaky injector caps for a few days. replaced the caps, new viton seals, etc. maybe the return pressure is building up, causing the caps to leak. with the van, thhis is easy to test due to access to the back of the engine.
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i doubt this is an alt fuel prob. i disconnected the whole alt fuel circuit before we pulled the seven three. this six nine hasnt seen a drop of alt fuel. also, prior to the engine swap, i hadnt run alt fuel in the van since july. so the injectors and ip had only diesel for months.

QUOTE=The_Josh_Bear;16966073]I agree that it's a ton of adjustment. And maybe it's not the answer, but too much fuel is too much fuel. I'm leaning towards something sticking in the IP, or a return line obstruction from the sounds of it. It's very strange to say the least.

So if we throw out the low compression idea:
The fact that you are having harder starts is weird. Lowering the max fuel screw, while it does change the timing slightly, won't affect the starting/idle fuel delivery. (Edit: just realized the idle may come down in doing this, and you'll have to adjust the throttle arm to compensate. Maybe your idle RPMS are just too low)

For the ATF yes pull a filter, empty the diesel and fill with ATF. Run the engine for 30 seconds or so and shut it down. If your primaries are on the frame rail or much further away than the stock location you would probably wait longer, though i'm not sure how long. Maybe a minute?

Also I'm sure you're covering you bases here, but does any of this have to do with your alternative fuel usage? Maybe a bad load or something? I don't know much about it in general or your setup but thought I would throw it out there.

Oh, another thing is that these harmonic balancers are a two-piece job and AREN'T KEYED. So they CAN slip, and then your timing mark would be off. New engine, maybe the mark is wrong.
Does it sound like a gasser when cruising? Any rattle etc? I was amazed how off my timing was when i first got my ferret. Something like 1* ATDC! (I was chided by the forums for not being able to "hear" the timing better, haha) Point is your timing number could be "right", but the actual timing could be wrong due to the balancer.

Anywho hope the ATF wakes it up and you can drive the beast again.[/QUOTE]

 

hi. I'm not too familiar with the front end on your van. I presume that with the king pin/beam axle setup you have leaf springs. It is possible to have uneven compression rates from one side to the other if a patch repair has been done on one spring for instance. I would look for any differences in the springs/hangers/bushes including lengths. Also check wheel base from one side to the other off jig points in the frame.
I had a vehicle that the wheelbase was 7/8 inch different from side to side, the track(width )was fine.
Also possible that rim and tyre size or offset if different from stock can change the steering angles set up in the king pin system.
Ackerman steering angles take a line through the centre of king pins or ball joints which, when the line contracts the ground must coincide with the centre of the width of the contact surface of the tyre tread.

 

Nope. coils. Leaf springs on are on the back, but coils with i-beams in the front. If I had a 4x4 van, then i'd have leafs in the front.

As for the kingpins, I got them in after I had the spindles honed at Vellios in Los Angeles. I was able to put it all back together with a MOOG kingpin set pretty easily. The van drives a hell of a lot better now. No more play in the steering, and no massive camber in the front anymore.

 

Just running in to give you an update. can't address your comments due to more freakign rain. wanna keep wrenching while i can stay relatively dry.

I disconnected the main return line from the pass side injectors. Took it out. Blew thru one end of the tee (driver's side): good flow.

Blew thru pass side of the tee. Hard at first. Then it got easier. I didn't see anything fly out, but I wasn't looking very hard. It felt like a lot of resistance.

I took the return line back to the tank. blew into that. It took a small amount of force, but after a decent push, i was able to hear bubbles in the tank. Then I keyed on the van (just in case it was defaulting to the other diesel tank) flipped the switch both ways. Both tanks bubbled with air.

the diesel selectors appear to not be stuck closed.

I put the stuff back together, but instead of putting the return-to-tank hose, i put a temp hose on the return lines tee. Then stuck the end in an empty milk jug.

Fired it up. I checked for flow. At first, it didn't flow any diesel. Got kinda worried. But after about 30 seconds of idling, the return diesel started trickling. I assumed it would be more. Maybe a 1/4 cup every minute.

Still smoking black out the back. I revved it up. black smoke started reducing. Revved a bunch. Black smoke dwindled. By 2 minutes of revving, it was hard to get any black smoke.

The engine wasn't warm yet, but i figure this is a good sign.

The black smoke at idle (in drive) has returned to white like when we first put the engine in last week. So I think my timing is still a little off. But I think we found the excessive black smoke problem. I can't take it for a drive until later this afternoon to test for sure.

There must have been a clog in the passenger side return hose to the tee by the turbo. I don't know what it was, but i felt the resistance at first. This could explain two of my problems: excessive black smoke and why the passenger side injector caps and seals were such a pain to keep dry.

I'll put it back togehter and see if the black smoke returns.

 

Sounds like those are clear enough...unless you're super human you can't blow harder than around 2psi and it should take more than that to throw the IP out of whack but I never measured it either. My guess is that the restriction at first then getting better was blowing fuel out the tube then when empty, air flows much easier through a small space.

So here's hoping it's good on that end. I forget what your fuel pump/type is?

Good thinking on verifying both tanks and the selector valve.

And sounds good on the alt fuel, you're definitely fine there! None since mid summer is pretty convincing, hehe.

Is it clattery on start up? Like a powerstroke

 

I just got back from a short test drive.

Anything above 25mph is clear smoke. I even found a decent hill, hit the WOT and checked the smoke. Clear.

That's good.

However, it still smokes white/black at idle-in-drive. clears up in Park or Neutral. When I stop at a light, it starts to give a little white/black smoke, then as I accelerate to 15mph, the smoke lessens. By 25, it is clear.

I'm assuming the timing is off.

Also, the turbo is not spooling much at all. And the power is like a NA again. I'll mess with the timing a bit to see if I can clear some of the smoke. I'm assuming my timing is off and that's why I'm getting the white/black smoke at idle-in-drive. And as I accelerate, I burn off that unburnt fuel.

Maybe if I can get the timing right, then I can turn the fuel screw back up to get the turbo back up to par.

My friend thinks one of my injectors is bad. If that is true, wouldn't i have smoke at all RPM's? Especially when I idle-in-Park?

 

yes.

But im' terrible with tuning by ear. That's why i got this timing gun and ferret meter. I'm essentially diesel tone deaf.

 

That's why I don't think it was the IP. The return line on the passenger side didn't have the return coupler from the IP. It was just from the four injector caps on the pass side. So the IP was able to flow (along with the drivers side injectors) without restriction.

IT was only the pass side injectors that had cap leaks, and it was the return line (that tees into the return tee) that had the obstruction.

I forgot to mention, after I got the pass side return hose and tee, I not only blew thru it, but I hit it with my air compressor to give it a really good zing.

But now that I think about it, the return pressure was not that impressive into the milk jug. It trickled into the jug. I wouldnt' be surprised if there wasn't 2psi of force coming thru that return line.

 

Yeah it seems like every IP is different with how much fuel it bypasses when running. I've had 3 IPs so far and two of them hooked up to a jug at some point. First one took 10 minutes of driving at 60mph to not quite fill a liter pop bottle...the second IP took less than a minute to overflow!
I DID run into an issue where my 7.3 had 6.9 style caps and lines. The second IP bypassed so much fuel that it ran poorly until I got the bigger caps and lines on it. Doesn't seem to be your issue but food for thought.

Haha roger that.

It's hard to say without seeing it/hearing it. The smoke only in park and very low RPMs is goofy.
It's almost like a VERY clogged air filter or something keeping the turbo from spinning correctly.

If an injector was "bad" you should be able to hear a miss. Either stuck open or stuck closed would make a non-uniform sound at any engine speed. And I agree it would be an issue at more than just idle RPMs.

 

I adjusted the timing to 7 and 3 degrees to see if that clears up the smoke. Neither setting cleared up the idle-in-drive smoke. That means I tried 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 deg BTDC. All have idle-in-Drive smoke.

Idle-in-park is clear. The air filter is new (I changed it in July.... it's a long story, but hypermax forces you to "make" a new filter, so I did it then. It's clean.)

I think my power loss is from turning down the fuel screw 4 flats. If I can get the timing worked out, then i can turn that back up again, to regain the power.

I'm done for the day, but I ended it by filling the diesel filter with ATF and run the engine for 1.5 minutes. I hope that was enough time for the ATF to work its way thru the IP and injectors. Hopefully in the morning, it will have helped resolve whatever is causing my idle-in-Drive smoke issue.

 

Looking forward to it!

 

News. News. News. News. News.

Still isn't fixed, but seems to be getting somewhere.

I'm not sure the ATF did anything. I started it up this morning, and ran it for a while. The smoke seemed pretty much the same, but hard to tell. The main point is, there is still plenty of revving smoke and idle-in-drive smoke.

I wanted to see if maybe a specific injector was causing the problem. I undid the #7 injector line, and put a baby food jar to collect the diesel. It ran with almost zero smoke in idle, idle-in-drive, and revving. I put a new injector in. Now the van seems to have about half the smoke.

I pulled the #5 line and it still smoked about half. Im going to pull the #3 and #1 lines and see how the smoke goes.

It appears the #7 injector was causing some smoke.

But more to go. I'm also running at 3 deg BTDC, so that could be some smoke issues too. I'll test more injectors and move forward.

 

QUick Update:

Got the smoke almost handled. Still a slight bit of white smoke with idle-in-drive, and slight smoke before the turbo spools up (probably should get the puff limiter from Hypermax), but other than that, it's running clear.

Bumped the timing to 4.5 deg BTDC, and fuel screw still at -4 flats (might go to -3.5 flats), but the main culprit was a smokey injector on #7. I replaced the injector with a spare, but that didn't seem to help much. I tried all other injectors, but it didn't impact the smoke. So I went back to #7, replaced it with yet another spare injector. This time it was much better.

So who would have thought I had two bad injectors in a row? Odd.

I still got one injector (#1) that has a little bubble coming up from the base so the crush washer must not be seated precisely. I'll torque that down some day when I have to pull the alternator, so that could be contributing to the remaining smoke, but we'll see.

Just driving it around appears to be helping it a little. And the timing is working better for the turbo too. I'll test different degrees over the weekend.