CAC Duri-Lite vs Stock

[8042]

It was documented on the old site about my CAC troubles.

I have 2009 Prostar and live and work in Canada pulling Super "B"s, (two trailers first has 3 axles and a fifth wheel, second has 2 axles) these are tankers and very common up here. Total GVW 63500 Kgs. I work in the oil patch so I also need to have a positive air shutdown on my intake system. This is an automatic gate valve that will block intake air in case of a runaway motor event, these valves are placed behind the CRC usually in the long blue with the wire in it. The problem I have started there, because I have to cut that blue tube the clamp wears on the wire and the tube fails prematurely. Being cheap and trying to find a better way I found a Kevlar reinforced heater hose rated for -40oF to +300oF (-40oc to +149oc) and 100psi made by Goodyear, 3ft for less than $35 Canadian.

That solved my piping problems but I still had a leaking CAC so off to the dealer and got talked into a Dura-lite, all was good with a bad mandate removal and an overspooling Turbo, truck had tons of POWER, and boost 50PSI was easy to hit. Fuel mileage sucked but so what it would pull.

Then I saw the light and found Rawse and this site, wanting to get better fuel mileage I went with a M*M* with Unilevers help. Got my turbo under control and my mileage came up a bit, but he could not get it dialled, (and he went the extra 10 miles trying) puffs of black on shifts and not as much power. Boost had dropped to 40Psi and I ran it like that for a bit.

I started the truck with the hood up one morning and noticed that the blue Pipe after the CAC collapsed. WTF it collapsed sucked closed!! After many discussions trips to the wrench puller and head scratching, we thought that the Dura-lite could be the problem. So again being cheap and a customer I called them to get the specs on the flow rate, of my fancy CAC. I was told that they were designed to be better at heat transfer, but that made them more restrictive on air flow, but it would not be a problem because the turbo would push past it.

Fast forward to today I had to go to the stealership for cab filters (have not found another source yet) and a quote for a new factory CAC and he shows me a cutaway of the OEM and Dura-Lite. You tell me what one you would pick.




Dura-Suck on the left OEM on the right

[Waterloo]

This has been discussed here before, go with the OEM CAC. You are not the first person to have issues like this. The OEM CAC is specifically designed for your truck, just as is the EGR Cooler that many get talked into replacing with an aftermarket one and do damage to their engines. And I to recently fell into this trap with an aftermarket radiator, it lasted all of a few weeks, I just put a new OEM one in.

I am sure Rawze will pop in and get into the specifics with these CACs and our trucks. The problem is with the volume of the airflow, none of these aftermarket CACs are properly tested for this, where as the OEM CACs are and you know what you are getting. Put an OEM one back in and watch your problems go away.

[Wiseman]

I remember your case . Rawze wrote about aftermarket CAC and so , but we didn't have pictures of cutouts side by side . Now we can put two and two together. For those members that missed part one off the previous (wiped) thread , the question : - You tell me what one would you pick ? Is rhetorical. Obviously the OEM CAC in this case is the way to go !
Nice picks ! Thank you 8042 !

[Rawze]

It is a terrible feeling to have someone come to you desperate to solve their truck problems, knowing they have been financially sucked dry by all the dealers because of mis-diagnosed emission systems. They show u receipts from spending upwards of $40,000 dollars in a year on DPF cans and other very expensive repairs, none of their problems solved. Don't blame em for seeking the alternative solution. At this point they got no other choice except to go out of business. What actual risk tho?

- The Sad part is we've seen this wasted money at the dealers at least a hundred times by now, and have informed people to get in touch with Mr. Rawze himself, Unilevers, And/or Gearhead to get advice towards very good actual solutions on both sides of the EGR "Mandate" fence. Best program that exists for ISX is the Milk Money 2 program. Has saved a lot of truck owner not going broke over all of this.

All is very sad indeed, there is some sense of saving ones truck business out there .. but sometimes things can get worse instead,... Much Worse!.

In comes and Owner-Op the other day. I'll call him Joe (actual person and true story) ...

Joe has had nothing but major problem for over a year with his truck. EGR problems that have sucked his bank dry and a truck that simply refuses to not derate, etc. He has spent every dime he has and is now in major debt over all this. New EGR cooler, DPF can DOC can, turbo, you name it. Nothing seems to help costs exponentially high by now!. This guy really has not much of anything left in his life going right at all so he saves some money up and seeks axing the "Mandate".

He finds this forum and starts reading,... and seeks the advice of getting the "M" "M" done... No one can blame him.


About a year or so ago,.. Joe had an EGR cooler replaced. The shop (a stealers#it nonetheless) talked him into an after-market EGR cooler that was slightly less expensive,... AND claimed to be "tougher" than the original factory unit. I think the name was .bulletproof' or something. Not knowing any better and taking the advice from a supposedly good mechanic,.. He had it put on. It sounded promising, at least one less part to go bad so easy. --- Only -- This so-called "better" EGR cooler WAS IN FACT THE START OF A DOWNWARD SPIRAL!.

-- So he goes to get advice towards getting the "Mandate" taken care of and has now been running the truck against this horribly-designed EGR cooler for almost a year now. Upon taking his truck to a very good shop to have alternative methods done,... It is very quickly discovered WHY Joe has had so many problems. The truck arrives, and the hood goes up,... and here is what is discovered right away...



At first glance, it is subtle -- But look at the difference in color!. -- The Venturi (EGR mixing pipe) is BURNT!,... You can see that the paint on it is discoloured and burned badly. An investigation on what caused it clearly pointed to the crappy after-market cooler that was put on.

It is also clear that a lot of damage heat from the exhaust was getting in intake of the engine. It takes 450+F hot gases to burn a pipe like this. That super-duper EGR cooler that some shop installed was responsible, and that was a huge factor in him having so many problems ... but there is more to this story...

- Axing the "Mandate" will stop those excess hot, damaging gases from that after-market EGR cooler from going into the intake,.. so he goes for it instead of trying to fix it and spend the money on getting the correct EGR cooler,... only no one knows the damage is already done to the truck internally. The truck still seems to run mostly fine at this point. it also has several hundred records in the ECM of derates in it for excess intake temps.

The work is done,.. Some good programming too, and a tune that is set for 485-HP with torque 1750. It runs like a dream once again, that EGR cooler closed up so permanent so it can't burn the intake any more. -- Everyone is happy and guy can sigh a feeling of relief. Maybe he can now go out and start the recovery process of actually hauling freight instead of this "Mandate" killing him.

Only a few days go by, and there is suddenly smoke out of the stack. -- A LOT OF IT! but the truck is still running very smooth, like nothing is wrong. --- So he drops his load and bobtails it more than 300 miles back to where he had the work done. It worries him greatly, as he thinks it may be the turbo. He is worried badly, as he does not have the money for another turbo at this point!.

He arrives at the shop,.. truck running smooth as a button like nothing is wrong,.. only there is a LOT of smoke puffing out the stack. -- Puff Puff Puff, it looks really bad even at idle.

Someone walks over and looks at it --- Then unscrews the oil fill tube only to discover there is even MORE smoke puffing out of the oil fill tube and the truck is now several gallons low on oil. --- - --- the engine is toast! -- It has lost a piston.

It is absolutely heart breaking indeed to stand there and see a grown man hunched over shaking with his hands in his face, knowing he has just lost everything!. -- Especially when it is clear he has tried everything he could to survive this game... and Now has a broken truck with no financial solution whatsoever towards getting it fixed at this point. The guy is now so broke over all of this, that he can not even hardly pay his truck note, nonetheless can come up with the money to fix it,.. or even buy the parts and do it himself.

It is a hard thing to swallow, watching the death of a trucking business, even though the Owner of the truck did everything he knew to avoid it, even resorting to alternative methods in the end... But it was too late. The damage was done, and the engine was ready for failure by the time action was taken.

The act of removing said mandate, allowing the engine to suddenly run on clean fresh air quickly revealed that he had a very carbon packed, worn piston that was not being oil-cooled any more. It is always a risk to drastically change how an engine runs that was severely tortured by those dammed DPF cans, but this was so severe then it was obvious the high temps into the intake for so long is what caused it this time. When the engine was dissembled, the intake part the head around that piston was so severely carbon-packed, and so hardened by the high temps coming into the engine for so long, that it was as hard as steel. It looked like a wall packed up several inches thick that was so bad you had to hit it with a hammer to break it free from the intake. That cylinder in particular could not even breathe properly any more. I have seen soot packing at the intake on engines but it is usually soft. This was burnt to a crisp and hard as a rock from high EGR temps due to that cooler.

Also I seriously doubt that he would have had $40,000 in repairs chasing ghosts if that cooler had never been put on in the first place. All his DPF and turbo killing problems started after that thing was installed, yet no one questioned it. - Repeated problem after problem due to lack of anyone actually repairing anything and troubleshooting anything because he kept running off to the stealerships every check engine light he got is what killed most of his trucking business. He should have never gotten to the point where he was so desperate and broke. I blame the bulk on piss poor training of the OEM's and crooked money-hungry greed by them too, but it did no good to have a component sold for a truck that will break you and put you in this position either.

I say shame on the maker of that EGR cooler and what they sell.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Back to the subject of De-mandating...

In many cases, a bad de-mandate can cause failures like this too. I looked over the program carefully and in this instance, it in fact was NOT the programming at all. It had been done correctly, rare as that may seem, given the track record of bad deletes out there... At least the shop he used was dedicated to doing things right and did have it done right.

personally, after a hard look at what was done, I don't think the "Mandate removal" itself, nor its programming was responsible for destroying the engine in this case. There are just too many trucks with this same program that have run it for years that prove just the opposite. I do however think that it is very possible that the sudden, drastic change in how the engine runs could have been the triggering event that made the problem show up.

Does this make the shop that did the work responsible?

-- Not really, because there is no way a 485 tune could have burned through a piston and have done this type of damage,.. -- Not in a few days,.. Not even in a year. Not even with an abusive driver! ... The poorly designed EGR cooler that burned the hell out of the intake and sent excess temps into the engine for so long was the major contributing factor that caused the engine failure,.. but the "Mandate removal" certainly did NOT reverse the problem,.. or stop what was going to eventually happen any ways. What actually happened was that the injector tips got burned badly and the spray-pattern was very uneven.. it can be seen in the tops of the pistons easily, I looked at all of them when the head came off it. . The piston was also very heavily carbon packed because the engine could not breathe properly on that cylinder in particular any more. This made for hot spots in the piston and cylinder, and poor cooling from the oil around the rings. It was visible when the engine was taken apart, but the actual failure was a cracked piston. Funny thing is though, the crack was not one that had burned through like I have usually seen on a piston that has poor oil cooling, or perhaps engine running too lean, excess boost, etc. and it getting drilled through on the exhaust side. This one had clearly suffered a severe mechanical damage due to something getting into the cylinder. You could also see evidence of it on the bottom of the head too. It appears that a big chunk of burned carbon that was lodged in the head in front of the cylinder (number 2)had come loose and went in and jammed between the piston and the bottom of the head. it had no where to go, and split the piston all the way through cleanly in one single jolt without any warning.

My take on all of this is that having custom tuning done to a truck that is old,.. or has problems already, -- sometimes not known yet,... and that sudden change in how an engine runs can certainly make a problem show up very soon after.

In my book,.. it is always still a risk to have something like that done, -- a very big risk if you are already having issues with the truck and the engine is old. Most all of the time, it goes well, and there is no ill effect, but reading on here, and this forum, certainly has proven that people do indeed sometimes have trouble out of their trucks AFTER such things are done when the engine is very old. On occasion, it clearly points to the possibility that altering an aged engine like that, is a big risk, and the guys who brag the most about how well their "Mandated" truck now runs, mostly had low to medium miles on the engine when it was done. It is very clear that good custom programming extends the life of an engine greatly, lots of evidence of that, clearly pointing out that programming can and will make a positive difference, but for that to happen, it needs to be done early in the engines life BEFORE all the soot and other "Mandate" problems take their toll on it,.. and BEFORE all those dammed EGR and after-treatment components have done their damage!.

My own conclusion is that "Mandate removals" are risk period!. There is no magic pill out there that is going to cure your truck or engine problems once they set in. Milk Money seems to be one of the best alternatives out there, but any kind of drastic change to an engines operation is a risk that gets higher exponentially as your engine ages. There is no getting around it, so if you are one of those people reading this post, contemplating such things,.. And you have an engine with lots of miles on it,.. like say 600k plus,... Or are having failure after failure of the Emissions system,. and lots of derates,.. Those derates and excess back-pressure in the exhaust is in fact damaging to the engine, and No amount of programming or mandate removal is going to reverse what has already been done!.

Truck Owner beware! --- After-market components CAN AND WILL cause engine damage over time! and If your engine is old and having repeated failures from clogged up emissions components, and has had a life of excess soot in the oil,.. NOTHING WHATSOEVER BY NOW is going to reverse this damage! and doing a "Mandate Removal" can make those problems show up all at once regardless of who did the work.

[Rawze]

Opinion:


600k on an EGR engine that has no bypass filter, and has had a lot of soot and DPF problems = a million miles on a non-egr engine!.

People go out and buy trucks close to this mileage think they are doing well, and think they their particular truck will be the one that holds up for another 600k miles before that inevitable engine failure or inframe, have a rude awakening awaiting for them,... It is coming,.. Are you prepared for it?

The trend that I have seen with EGR trucks is that with no bypass filter,... about 800 - 900k miles, and they are pretty much done for. The soot just eats them up horribly, and any kind of excess back-pressure like a partially clogged, complaining DPf system really sucks the lifespan out of them fast!

By the time a truck owner with 700k or even 800 - 900k miles seeks to remove the "Mandate" etc.... They are already fighting a loosing battle, and suddenly removing all that back-pressure in the exhaust after so many miles of torture it has already endured, can and WILL make all the problems suddenly show up.

[Waterloo]

Rawze, that was one incredible write up, I saw myself all through it... It all started the day I bought the truck, 680,000 miles, it has been all down hill from there with this truck. Fight the mandate, fight and fight some more, money flying out the window as the truck sits in shops breaking me financially. I get pissed, get on internet and miraculously find Rawze...

Now I am able to at least understand what I have gotten myself into when I purchased this truck. I am now, at the least, able to keep the truck moving, but it is not easy and is still costly. I do the EGR Tuneup, a week later the DPF cracks. $7000 they tell me! I'm at the end of my rope. I purchase the Inline Reader, remove the mandate, and Happy Days ARE Here AGAIN! And then I discover the head gasket is bad...

That head gasket was bad when I bought the truck, but I could not see that due to all of the problems with the EGR system. As you stated, the damage was already done. Once the mandate was removed, back to battling the failed head gasket to keep it on the road. She made it another year, but it was a costly year. My wallet has suffered, my marriage has suffered, relations with family have suffered, relations with work have suffered, not to mention the toll it has taken on me physically due to the stress of all of the above.

The truck is now in the shop having a MAJOR in frame done, everything has been replaced other than a few items, externally and internally all the way back to the tail end of the Transmission. What a nightmare this journey has been, and thank God I had access to the money personally to make these repairs.

To any and all reading this, HEED both Marajin and Rawze's words. If you have one of these motors and it is over 600,000 give or take, be prepared for difficult times that may come your way. Honestly, at least in my book, this is beyond criminal what the government and these manufacturers have done to us with these motors. And it is even more criminal what some of these shops are doing to supposedly fix the mandate. I have one right around the corner from me destroying motors on a daily basis with his butchery.

What is the answer? Honestly, I do not know, other than very deep pockets. This old saying really holds water these days, "If you want to make a million in trucking, start with two."

[Rawze]

Whenever I make and test a new custom tune, I record a lot of data while test driving several trucks. I record the Charge Inlet and Outlet temps, the fuel flow rate, etc. etc. ...

The differences in an after-market Charge Air Coolers vs factory are obvious right away. The thermal efficiency and flow rate are THE MOST IMPORTANT!!!! factors above all else when trying to squeeze the last bit of performance out of the truck when it comes to the CAC unit. Duralite may be stronger than the factory units, but it is a trade-off. The thicker the walls, etc. the less efficient they become.

Unilevers has had some pretty bad experiences recently with a couple that were so inefficient, that it was actually hard to dial in the correct Turbo mapping,... and the fuel mileage and response of the truck definitely suffered as a result. I suppose on a stock truck only making 6 or 7 mpg, the difference would not be so noticeable, but when your trying to push 8 or 9 mpg out of one,... the difference can be a lot.

The Detroit CAC units, I haven't tested, so I cannot comment on them, but DEFINITELY!!!,... the Duralite coolers are Junk in my book!.


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What someone needs to ask ANY After-Market manufacturer of heat exchangers (CAC ot EGR Cooler, or Other-Wise),... is not how "Tough" their product is so much as how "Efficient" it is in BOTH Flow AND Thermal Efficiency!!!! ... AND IF THEY CANNOT SPOUT IT OFF THE TOP OF THEIR HEAD!!!!!! .... THEY ARE MORONS!!!! .... BECAUSE THAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTORS OF ALL!!!

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I have had a custom Radiator/CAC Manufacturer recently E-Mail me wanting me to push their products. I replied to them that if they could NOT provide the correct thermal and flow efficiencies to me with a comparison to the Factory Unit,... Then they could go PISS OFF!! ....

They responded back and said they had NO DATA ON THIS!!!,,..... AGAIN!!!!,.... MORONS!!!!

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It really burns my Arsse that there are so many companies willing to rip off truck owners with crappy UN-tested products out here. It only drives the cost of what we do up because truck owners are constantly duped by their heavy advertising.