CM871 losing power

[Rawze]

Ok.... So Victor26 stopped by here and I helped him look at his programming before the hurricane weather got the best of us. This is what was found so far...


- He had complained about different serious issues with programming prior to the tuning he had in it when he showed up here. One of those bad programs they had tried, took out his turbo. One had lots of other issues, and so on. They finally resorted to telling him to come back yet again,.. and they actually put a MM style tune in it, but it had some problems. The program he had, clearly was a direct copy form someone else's truck, serial numbers, and vin# and all. The ABS system was complaining heavily about the mis-matched vin number in the ECM and other problems resulted. Also, the turbo had not programmed for his truck at all. In fact,... NO adjustments at all were made to the program pertaining to his truck. It was set for a peterbilt instead of a Volvo.

- It became clear to the both of us pretty fast that whoever did this tuning had no absolute clue how to program an ECM correctly but was just copying other peoples work blindly and hoping for the best. -- Sad indeed, as this guy paid good money to have his truck supposedly "tuned" and got a train wreck instead. I flashed his truck back to the factory program it was meant to have in it, then set everything for his truck correctly. When he test drove it, he was amazed at how much better it ran. I don't know, because I only sat in the passenger seat as we went out for dinner (Thanks again for buying dinner,.. that was appreciated). It was raining and windy pretty hard by that time and unsafe to load test it, etc.


- The bad weather was starting to set in and stopped us,.. but we did manage a few things prior to the rain ...

I started to look things over and he asked me to check his turbo with him. We drained a few gallons of coolant and took off the actuator. Both of them looked pretty new. -- Uppon inspection, they were both in good shape, the VG arm was nice and smooth, and the turbine was good too. Actuator did not feel worn out. The grease for the sector gear had burned away though, so I put new thermal grease on it. I also re-calibrated it for him when we put it back together.

At some point though, he was running the engine idle, and i noticed a high pitched "ping, ping, ping" very subtle under his engine cover. We took the cover off and I looked at the overhead cams. They they were worn and aged, but not bad yet. On the other hand, one of the engine brake rockers (#2 cylinder) was completely loose and flopping around. The detent hole on the rocker shaft itself was shot for sure and all the engine brake rockers had weak springs in them. - He decided to go to Mr. Hags on Tuesday to have him repair it instead of taking the job on himself. I think he would have done it here if the weather had not been so bad though.

He also told me that he had a new head put on his engine by the guys in Chacago,.. supposedly a reputable shop. He had asked them about that "ping" sound and they told him not to worry about it, that it was normal. -- What a joke!.

After that, while putting the cover back on,.. I dusted off the date stamped into the side of his nice pretty unpainted head they supposedly put on new,.. only to discover that IT MATCHED EXACTLY 100% the 08-10-2008 date of manufacture of the engine itself!!@!. -- THEY LIED TO HIM AND PUT HIS OLD HEAD BACK ON THAT WAS 870,000 MILES OLD!!! and charged him for a new one!!!--- A BUNCH OF F$$4ING CROOKS IN MY BOOK!!!

--- WHY do so many shops do this?--- IT IS A FREGGIN' PLAGUE it seems here lately,... a LOT OF ENGINES lately that have been inspected by myself and/or Mr. Hag have been found to have re-used parts on them that were only mere "cleaned up" instead of replaced like the invoices say. This problem has been seen by people that sell re-man motors, shops AND EVEN OEM DEALERS doing this swap-ery-doo, lying crap and charging $$$$$ for new parts that they don't even put on!.

Needless to say,.. The weather set in and we had to stop. I never did get to look into and try to discover why his power might have been falling off like he was complaining about before we re-programmed it correctly. We were interrupted by the hurricane. It could have been the fact that the program in his ECM did not match his truck, but nothing jumped out at me directly. Maybe the complaints of the abs about the mis-match vin# in the ECM? -- Who knows for sure. It could be other things like a bad injector, or other problems related to the fact that all his rockers are worn and the engine brake rockers are failing? -- Perhaps the fact they re-used his old head and maybe he is loosing compression?

We never got that far.

Perhaps the story will continue to reveal itself later. At least he knows for sure now that he has good programming. We sat down and did it together, ensuring that at least that part was 100% right. He went to Mr. Hags for the rocker issues, so hopefully that will get taken care of properly once in for all too.

- I enjoyed having him here and we ate some good food, drank a beer or 2 and played trucks for a day or so. -- Thanks Voctor26,.. I hope you find your problems and that you will let us know what it was, as I am sure there are others just as curious as me.