CAC Duri-Lite vs Stock

[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.