Rebuilding Detroit

[Rawze]

(11-09-2020 )Jimmy3308 Wrote:  ...has been mandated at 500,000
...getting a total rebuild motor
... is there anything else you guys can think of that I should have done while it is out ???
...

For a Detroit, have the programming looked at by Mommaburt on here.


- Don't trust that casual attitude of "it Seems to run ok". - A person should confirm and Know exactly what someone did by sending their program to me (I review cummins programming) or one of the couple people mentioned on here that can tell you without bias as to exactly what you have. Until then, you should assume it is bad now that you are aware of how big of a plague that bad delete programming is in our industry.

This plague of bad deletes is just as bad with detroits as it is with cummins. Detroits are a bit more resilient than red engines with regards to bad delete programming due to top-stop liners being less sensitive to excess friction based on bad programming. Make no mistake about it though .. bad programming does shorten their life. How much so also always depends all on how hard its driven too. - Best thing is to avoid it all together and not make kind of assumptions about what you have in your ecm based solely on "seems to run good"... because about 7 of every 10 people that find this forum who have red engines that clearly had horrible programming also assumed the same thing at first.

- Most Detroits that have typical bad deletes are usually stuck permanently in "high altitude" or sometimes "exhaust warm-up" operating modes. Some over-boost all the time and some do not, but they all run way too lean when they are set this way and create a lot of internal friction. Some people also will report that their radiator temps climb more easily after their delete than before and this is a sign of something wrong as well ... depends on how bad the programming really was.

Detroits, like cats, do not have mid-stop liners. This results in the problems with excess internal friction by bad programming baing not quite as damaging like it is for cummins. Some see the Detroits as overall more resilient to this kind of abuse, but this is by no means an excuse to use and allow harmful programming. Some brands of engines do not show bad programming as easily as others, but they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Any programming that is harmful will indeed shorten engine life (or engine component life) in one way or another.


== As far as someone proclaiming they are good at this type of work goes, it helps to be able to ask the right questions...

These days, if anyone even near worth their salt with regards to custom engine tuning cannot answer clearly and precisely, and what i would ask them to show and explain to me ...

* What engine operating mode(or modes) the engine is going to run in and what modes got disabled?

* What turbo A/R ratio range the turbo should be running after their tuning was done?

* What are the acceptable injection timing ranges should be expected at what rpm and fuelling rates for this model and displacement engine? .. What are they now going to be set to now that there is no more EGR gas?

* What secondary (fall-back) or other emissions controls internal to the engine programming will still be left active?

* What is the new Fuel-Air-Mix for the engine going to be re-programmed into the enigne now that EGR gas is missing?


+++ I would likely ask dozen other "VERY EASILY ANSWERED AND STRAIGHT FORWARD CONCERNS THAT SOMEONE WOULD HAVE" about their engine.

- Are they also willing to give or e-mail a copy of the program they are about to put in your truck so that it can be restored and that you are not reliant on them if anything ever happens to the ecm?. This is a huge mistake that most all truck owners make, and i get hundreds of phone calls a year where a truck owner lost their ecm and now the "guy who deleted it" wants another several thousands to do it all over again. It is bad enough that an ecm might cost you a couple thou$$sand dollars, but then some dick#he@ad wants another few thousands more to program it because it was "deleted".. that or even worse, it has been several years and the person is nowhere to be found. You have backups of your photos and other important business documents, ... why not your custom and unique ECM programming that is hard to replace?

-- Trouble is that all these clowns that do this type "delete" programming are experts in making the lights go away off the dash of the truck or car .... they all claim they know what they are doing ... but it clearly points towards none of them understanding what the he#ll is going on inside that engine enough to properly correct things once that EGR gas is taken away. Some have figured out how to force the ecm in various ill-begotten ways to make more power by tweaking fuel or torque settings, but beyond that, this is where the extent of what they know stops dead in its tracks.

I call it "jail-breaking" the ecm .. but it has no regard towards the health of longevity of the engine itself. I think that these people all too quickly forget that it is not the ecm programming alone that makes you your living, it is that engine ... and that engine is the most important thing to understand, yet this is where they all fail.

- whenever I review someone's cummins ecm programming, I look at proper engine mode control re-mapping, what corrections to injection timing have been made, what corrections to fuel-air-mix have been made, what corrections to turbo boost control have been made, how the engines fall-back emissions control that try to take over when egr gas is missing have been handled, what power or torque changes that someone has made, and if there is any places in the ecm where they are destroying trim data or other balancing estimations because they tweaked fuel quantity or other settings in attempts to fool the ecm into giving up more fuel than it is supposed to against its will. - Those are the first things I look for when reviewing someones programming and also where the biggest mistakes are made. i then verify that the settings in the ecm also match the make/model truck and components of the engine. This is just as important because a lot of these delete guys ignore this completely as well.


- You know your in trouble as soon as you start asking one of these tuning guys some of the basic questions about necessary corrections and how they are going to be adjusted in your engine (the things I mentioned above) and they are quick to respond with "we left that factory" and "we let the ecm figure it out" and they tell you things like "that is our secret" and all the other excuses they can come up with to avoid answering any of these basics about the engine because they have no absolute clue themselves, and then resort to getting defensive and sometimes even downright mad and mean all due to the fact that they do not want you to know that they themselves are completely clueless!.

Sad part is that I don't fault these guys who are doing this type of work for being clueless... I fault them for charging, usually, thousands of $$$$ to their victims for terrible programming and then getting arrogant and defensive about "how smart they are" instead of taking steps to genuinely improve and correct what they are doing when someone attempts to show them the errors in it. I have met very few people who give a damn past that quick $$$ to slap a program in your ecm that they themselves mostly have no clue what it is about to do outside of making some emissions lights disappear and the engine seem to do somewhat ok. This is quick and easy money for them and is the heart of the entire plague of bad deletes. It is why it is so rampit, plaguing our industry. Combine this with truck owners who are desperate to rid themselves of the constant problems those system present, this creates a widespread opportunity for every shop to make money off every 3rd person who walks into the doors.