After talking/e-mailing to ed, i can tell he knows what's going on inside the ficm. He doesn't want to tell you the exact component change/upgrade he does. He is protecting his knowlege/buisness. I know what position he is in with being self employeed myself

 

I would think that what ever repairs or component replacements any repair depot may make in order to guaranty the product is 100% repaired to meet or exceed OEM performance specification is their business. However, is the repair depot certified by Ford to make factory authorized repairs which would be an indicator that they have the original performance requirements in order to know what is required to meet OEM minimum specifications. I can think of NO reason why a reputable repair depot would conceal or hide any OEM certification, any procedure/process and specialized equipment they implement to confirm what their guaranty claims in meeting 100% OEM specification. But of course... if they actually don't do anything but replace parts!

With the repair of complex electronic circuit boards the real value of any repair depot comes into consideration with a guaranty of 100% TEST coverage to meet or exceed OEM performance specifications.

 

please.

ford blessed the original design of these sub optimal pieces of poo.
if i wanted their blessing, i can buy the "remanufactured"
stuff they sell, like the one month old remanufactured
alternator from ford that won't charge my batteries fully.

ford "redesigned" the oil cooler with another layer of
core, so it lasts 10% longer. i could buy one of those, too.

a suggestion.... call up ed, and talk to him, one on one. then
post what your thoughts are on the subject.

he spent about 40 minutes on the phone with me one night,
discussing the ficm, what he does in a general way, and at
the end, explained in the interest of honesty that he's only had
a handful of ficms fail on E vans, and if mine isn't broken, i might
want to not change it out, "just 'cause". he said in his experience,
it probably won't fail.

so, down the road a bit, i'm gonna buy one of his ficm's, and keep
my original one as a spare in the vehicle...

so my suggestion is, instead of speaking in generalities, call up ed,
talk to him, and then tell us what you think.

 

Agreed Fulthrotl!

I also agree that we all must be careful in choosing parts and service suppliers on the Internet. Lots of folks that are marginal in quality, know-how, etc.

I am not doubting you (theonlyphoenix) that you know your stuff, but believing your post is not much different than trusting that FICMrepair.com is competent and has done his research (except I have first hand experience with Ed like Fulthrotl does). Without personal experiences, it is ALL across the internet, so we must use certain tools and techniques to weed out the facts from fiction. You said earlier that you "weren't going to poke fun", but the very choice of words casts doubt. IMO (personally having done more than the average amount of research), that FICMrepair.com is knowledgeable, extremely technically capable, and honest. That is enough for me to go on record to separate him from the crowd of other Internet business.

Many folks have watched the knowledge base on these FICMs develop. No doubt that heat and vibration takes its toll. Also, there is no doubt that the extra voltage is going to generate more heat. It is ludicrous to believe otherwise. So - that leaves a better question IMO ............. "what is the ACTUAL benefit of the extra voltage to offset the extra risk of more heat generation" and "how many people have verified the benfit in designed (controlled) experiments (eliminating external variables) with a statistically valid data set"?? In the end, it will still be "Internet information", subject to the same old skepticism!

I probably have more info than most on the actual components that fail and the ratings that are best for longevity, but personally do not want to post because it would possibly hurt Ed's business. He has shared thngs with me in confidence. I also choose to believe someone that is NOT trying to sell me something more than those folks that say you get a benefit from it (IMO it is almost like more MPG's from intake elbows, air filters, and the like).

 

if you think dorman has done any of this your pretty far off base. just do some reasurch on the 4.6l dorman intake vs oem.

 

that's why i didn't ask specifics. he's not charging an unreasonable
amount of money for the refurbishing. he's done a fair bit of work
to get a solid and stable solution to a poorly made component.

nor are we talking about ISO 9002, or anything other than a small
business doing the best job that they can, and standing behind
their work. that's really what this is all about.

another small biz entering this market is bulletproof diesel. they
are making a power supply only for the ficm, in a cnc machined
case. is it "better" than refurbished oem? dunno. don't know
anyone running one... it's $800, for the power supply alone.

ed's offering a good service at a reasonable price.

 

bullet proof is not really that small in the 6.0 world. they have possible the best egr coolers on the market

 

I'm not sure the relavance here but on that note I would add, look at the OEM intake plenum on the vintage GM 3.8L (say 95 ish), the hot EGR exhaust gas ran through a port in the plastic intake plenum which was also adjacent to a coolant passage. You say hot exhaust gas in a plastic plenum Yep you guest it, the exhaust gas burns through the plastic plenum right into the coolant passage in 70K to 100K miles. Can you say hydrolock! That is what happened on my 95 OLDs 3.8L at 100K miles. Dorman replacement plenum for the OEM part bailed them out by putting a steel sleeve through the EGR passage in the plenum. No problem with the Dorman plenum for the next 194K miles at which point the car was sold at 295K miles on the clock running. So my limited experience with this Dorman part and a few others others they make has so far been good.

Just happen to pick up the Dorman FICM power board ( 904-229) for our FICM, a local supplier cut me a real deal on one and what I saw was real interesting. To be continued?

 

For those wondering about the Dorman replacement FICM, you no longer need to any more. This part appears in every aspect to be a replica of the OEM part boosting the Dorman label and country of origin as CHINA. The circuit board even has the base number with just the revision up from C to F as compared to the several old boards I have.

All major components appear to be the same as on the original OEM FICM including the poor soldering job as was common with some OEM. So if you plan on using this as a replacement, break out your soldering irons before installing.

 

as I said. dorman aint all that.

 

Dorman just responded to an email I sent them -

The EGR cooler and oil cooler are also made in China.

 

Well no loss as the Dorman power converter has become part of another of my experiments. Since each power converter board occupies only half of the clam shell why not add a second converter so the load is split between the two and therefore less stress on each?

At this point I have modified an exiting housing to accommodate a second converter board, added more fin surface area to improve on heat dissipation and made a few inter board wiring mods. The result is a 8 phase power converter with twice the capacity of the original single board converter.

Still in kind of a kludge state but I need to do more testing on this config to see any real advantage? May end up changing the power FETs and capacitors to reduce component size and up the capacitor voltage rating to 63V and temperature rating to 150C to see if I can find any real advantage to using a higher drive voltage (54/58V?).

I still believe the original design, although marginal in some aspects, can be reliable as I have gone 7 years and 135K mile with the original OEM FICM without a failure in outside ambient temperatures of -32F to 103F. Or maybe it comes down to what Clint Eastwood said in one of his movies "do you feel lucky"?

 

can the injector coils handle the voltage?

 

Coils are generally wound with magnet wire which has a durable high tech enamel coating for insulation. Depending on the grade of wire used this coating varies not only in thickness but also performance qualities such as temperature rating (100C to 200C )and break down voltage. Generally speaking magnet wire has a minimum breakdown voltage of between 700 and 800 volts but typical levels can be in the range of 5000 to 6000 volts.

So... to answer the original question of the effect of increasing the converter voltage from 48V to 54V or 58V, there should be minimum direct impact on the injector coils. However other people have questioned whether there is an indirect impact of the faster rise time due to the higher voltage creating additional mechanical wear on the injector internals. Also note that the injector drivers are current limited by design so the direct affect of the higher voltage will be on the injector drivers (on the CPU side of the clam shell) and they will disipate the additional power in the form of more heat.

The remaining question would be what grade wire was originally used in winding the injector coils? Are the coils wound with a marginal grade wire like some of the marginal components used in the FICM and historically has there been as big of a problem with the injectors as with the with FICM?

 

if you raise the voltage applied, you increase the current flow.
the current flow increases the heat generated.

as long as you don't go over the breakdown voltage of the coil
conductor insulation, all should be ok....

however, higher voltages degrade insulation over time. just
cause it doesn't go pop! and let all the smoke out right off the
bat doesn't mean that it won't shave some time off the life
of the component. going up 12% of the design voltage shouldn't
be an issue, 25%, might be shaving a few of the 9 lives off the cat.

but the current flow will make the coil hotter, which might be ok for
stiction, but that current will also make the FICM hotter as well.

unmarred by logic or facts, i'd go up 12%, but not go up 25% without
a compelling reason.