I am working on my friends 7.3. He claims that he has lost about 5 lbs. of boost all of a sudden. We pulled the turbo and had it inspected by a turbo specialist and was told that it was in great shape. His truck is equiped with a Banks package that consists of intercooler, pipes, CHIP and Big Head waste gate. The chip went back to Banks for reprogramming. I relocated his boost guage tap from the MAF line to the inlet housing. The ducts are weeping oil from where they are clamped to the pipes. Could this be enough leakage to loose that amount of boost? I can't think of what it could be. The truck runs fine but he states not like it used to.....any ideas would be helpful!

Thanks!
Sam

 

yes, that is most likely the cause. pull all of the boots off from the turbo to the intake manifolds ( there are a total of 6 of them) and clean them with brake kleen or something that gets oil off. due to the nature of the crankcase vent system, oil mist is sucked into the intake pre-turbo and is sent through everything, intercooler, pipes, boots, etc. the stock boots arent designed to handle this oil, and it seeps out around the edges over time and needs to be remedied. do a search for CCV mod, or look in my gallery, i tied my crankcase vent into my exhaust stream, which works well.


a quick fix for now is to severely tighten up all the hose clamps from the turbo to the intake manifolds (two on each boot, total of 12)

 

In addition to the good input from Strokin i suggest removing the Y pipe and filing down any surface protrusions where the boots meet the pipe. After that
add hair spray inside the boots and reinstall,once cleaned of course, and this will
keep the potential for leaks down.
Check this thread for more info:https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...d.php?t=452082

Nut

 

A loss of fuel pressure will reduce the amount of fuel injected, reducing both boost and power. Just a thought.

 

Just to clarify, the oil won't cause the boots to break down, just begin to slip off the intake pipe. If you look on the boots, they should say "Pipe contains oil residue" printed on them. Although, like strokin said, a good cleaning sounds to be in order. If you use brake cleaner, be sure to use one that won't harm rubber parts, or is o-ring safe. I've seen many a brake cleaner cause rubber to just crumble. I'd reccomend something safe like dish soap and water or some simple green.

 

Thanks for the replies! New boots shpuld be on order today. I will propse the ccv mod. The y pipe wiil get a filing down of the casting except for the lip that helps hold the boots on. I thought about fuel. I don't know wht the next step would be in trying to figure out if that was the cuplrit.

Keep the ideas coming....

Thanks again!
Sam

 

[QUOTE=DesertDiesel]l get a filing down of the casting except for the lip that helps hold the boots on./QUOTE] Correct...got to leave that one alone. just the
the lines that parallel the pipe axis.
Nut

 

Just a couple of other ideas. Maybe the new fitting for the boost line has a slight leak, or the tube that feeds the boost line has a small kink in it? Perhaps you're getting the same boost, but not reading the same. I'd make an attachment to pressurize the system so you can see if the boost guage is reading correctly and test for leaks. See this thread for some more info:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...d.php?t=451881


Also, when the turbo was pulled and put back on, was the wastegate rod possibly adjusted differently, on accident?

 

The boots are Banks and they are blue and have no writing on them whatsoever. I replaced the line to the MAF from the manifold. Wastegate rod was not moved from the orig. position. The kit was fine tuned by Banks in Ca. after install in 2002. The turbo guy that looked at the tubo says the rod was properly adjusted. I will make something to check the gauge but the owner says he feels a lack of performance from what it used to be.

Thanks Guys!
Sam

 

You've got me then. The only other thing I can imagine is that the red line to the wastegate was unplugged, thus disabling the wastegate. Diabling the wastegate would provide quicker spoolup, more boost, and more power. Perhaps upon reassembly, the wastegate line was plugged back in, making the wastegate function as designed and losing boost compared to what it was before. You might try unplugging the red line to see if boost and power comes back to where it used to be.

Another thing to try. Unhook both batteries to let the PCM reset itself. Then give the truck a week or so worth of driving for the PCM to re-learn and re-calibrate itself to the sensors.

Past that, I would begin to think that there is a some sort of fuel issue. Fuel pump going bad, clogged fuel filter, bad injector, or something else that isn't allowing adequate fuel supply.

 

jt....thanks for the info. I'm a 6.0 guy so any 7.3 info helps. I'll try the red line to the WG and see what that does. I'm thinking fuel, too. Be it injectors or pump, it seems like a fuel delivery problem. I wish I knew more about these but I KNEW it wasn't a turbo.

Thanks!
Sam

 

oh yeah. The batteries had been disconnected for 3 weeks and were hooked up again when I put the turbo back in on Saturday....Maybe some driving it around will help. It is not the owners daily driver so I'll get him to drive it a little more.

Thanks too all!
Sam

 

That might help. I've read somewhere that it takes at least 10 key off key on driving cycles to get the truck back calibrated. But, that could be completely wrong too. I know it takes some time though.

 

What happens if you disable the wastegate?

 

Try running a search to see what you can find out. There'll be more info there than what I can remember to type out. The short of it: faster spool up and more boost.