Engine/Transmission (1998.5 - 2002) Burned up my engine today

[PRout]

Hmmm, this makes a person consider hooking up a separate pryo in the 6th cyl output tube. Wonder if the wall is thick enough?



I dont think it was just coincidence that on mine, the first exhaust man bolts to come loose & disappear were off good ole #6.



That baby must be running hot, so 1150-1200* will be my absolute high limit while pulling, because it is a great point that it is just an AVERAGE number of all 6 combined. Sounds like peak temps are significantly higher.



Sorry you had the problem Cliffman. . The bright side is it could have been worse. At least this is fixable. You still have a good truck. You also have more experience under your belt that can't be taken away.

 

[ThrottleJockey]

That 33 psi of boost was near the top of the map for your turbo so it wasn't cooling anything off, either. Which is what makes twins so popular. An increased amount of cooler boost. Number six is the hardest to cool because of where its at, I assume. Twins help alleviate this problem, I hope.



Brian

 

[Huff N Puff]

Using a flashlight look behind the fan on the inside of the shroud

Make sure the blow by bottle didn't slim the radiator causing your overheat. Merv

 

[Cliffman]

Gary - KJ6Q, I believe it's a 190 but not sure.



ThrottleJockey, Very good point indeed. Twins are in the making.



Shortshift, I'd like to hook a temp probe to each cylinder just to



see how they run.



Huff N Puff, not sure what you mean friend

 

[ThrottleJockey]

A second pyro on number six would be slick!



Brian

 

[JRodgers]

Cliffman,



If you indeed did lose your head gasket, I would strongly suggest that you pull the engine down and check the piston oil cooler nozzles to make sure that you dont have stuff plugging them. Often when a headgasket lets go, stuff from it can get into the oil supply and clog the nozzles before you get it shut down.



I just completed a rebiuld of my engine because it did the same thing under similar conditions to yours. I found that the #6 piston was overheated and scuffed on the skirt so had to be replaced. There was gasket material found clogging the oil cooler nozzles under the 2, 5, and 6 pistons. If I had rebuilt without checking this, I probably would have lost some more pistons soon after due to overheating.



FYI



Joe

 

[JRodgers]

BTW, my headgasket let go while pulling a 4000# trailer on pretty level ground at 75 mph. Mods to engine were stage 4 injectors, Quad timing box, Bluechip FMS, 4" exhaust, AFE filter, stock HX35 on a 2002 ETH 6 speed.



Should have been able to handle it, but it didnt. When I got it in to the dealer, (this was at 31000 miles) they denied the warranty claim and the tech said, after pulling the head and wrecking my injectors by leaving them in the head, that the engine must have been running "too lean" because of the aftermarket air filter and timing box. needless to say he didnt have a clue.



I ended up rebuilding it myself over a couple of months time in between fighting with Chrylser and hassling with getting parts and machine work done on the block to hone out #6.



Now it is back together and runs great, with some more bombs of course.



Joe

 

[ThrottleJockey]

JRodgers



What happened to you is EXACTLY what I went through!

Theres that timing box thing again..... I swear, ETHs HATE the durn things!



Is yours an ETH?



Brian

 

[JR2]

Mods to engine were stage 4 injectors, Quad timing box, Bluechip FMS, 4" exhaust, AFE filter, stock HX35 on a 2002 ETH 6 speed.

The STOCK turbo part scares me. I have DD3's and a Drag comp and with the stock turbo or the PDR HX35 I had I could easily get into the 1500's egt wise. I know you don't tow with the blue box on kill (or I hope you don't) but man you are in need of a bigger turbo.





Cliff... sorry about the engine, look on the bright side, whiles its out of the truck you can put a new cam in real easy. . and have the heads worked over or get all new "fancy" pistons... or or or. .

 

[Cliffman]

JRodgers, what were your EGT's just before your engine went south? The head gasket looked good BTW.

 

[Texas Diesel]

FYI, a Dodge mechanic once told me that all the siezures and meltdowns he had seen were on the #5 & #6 cylinders and they were STOCK too.



DD makes a version of the Edge that has LESS ADVANCE. I've always felt the EZ (Edge) stuff has too much advance for the ETH.

 

[Cliffman]

A lot of guys on this thread are talking about the Edge Comp advancing the timing and how it may have something to do with the top of # 6 piston melting. How does this affect my ability to monitor an EGT gauge? I don't mean to be a wise ass and please don't be offended but 1300 degrees is just what it is, 1300 degrees. Please enlighten me if there's something I'm missing here. I can understand how advanced timing might blow a head gasket though.

 

[MCrossley]

Hey Cliffman, I have a spare block for ya if you need it I have not heard anythign from the person who was supposed to contact me about it...

 

[Cliffman]

Thanks for the offer Croz but I sure hope I dont need it!

 

[willyslover]

Mike that is a 98. 5 block isn't it ?? [also a 53]

from over on the coast ??

different set up than Cliff has. . that one is only a 98. 5 and 99 compatable.

 

[MCrossley]

true it is but I think with a pcm and a vp44 it would fit right in...

 

[Cliffman]

JRodgers, How bad was your cylinder scuffed and how much over did you have to hone it? What were your EGT's when she let go?

 

[JRodgers]

I think my head let go either while towing, or on the way to get the car I put on the trailer to tow back home. The truck broke down in the middle of the night and in the middle of nowhere (where else?) so I am not sure as to exactly when the headgasket let go.



I was traveling about 75 mpg over flat ground with some slightly rolling swells in the road. EGT was normal in the 750-1000* range before I noticed the strange noise from the engine. I had not had the EGT to above 1200* during the trip. There was nothing unusual happening before the noises started, so I suspect that the damage may have occurred earlier and the added stress and heat buidup in #6 was what started the piston scufffing against the cyclinder walls. It wasnt until I teardown that I discovered the not-too-obviously-blown headgasket, and bits of headgasket material in more than one oil cooling nozzle.



The timing box was a mild one, and the FMS was adjusted for max fueling (63%). Truck is an ETH model, so it ran really good with the setup as I described in the post above. I seldom say EGT values above 1200, and it was really controllable with the right foot. If I really hammered it for a stretch, I could get them to top out at about 1400*.



Since the rebuild, the truck now has total seal rings, new bearings all around, and new seals. I fire ringed the head with the Haisley fire rings, and installed a set of HX35/HT3B twins, and 5" exhaust. I currently have some stock injectors in it until I get the damaged ones replaced (stupid chrylser "mechanic") and the FMS hooked up again. I plan on installing a propane kit for some mild propane injection to see if it does anything for mileage, but have not done that yet. Just have been driving it around for the last couple of weeks to check things out and break it all in. No problems so far.



When the engine was torn down, the piston was not melted really, it just looked scufffed or galled around the edges and skirt. I had to use a hydraulic press to get the wrist pin out of the old piston because it had expanded enough that it was no longer a slip fit into the piston. The rod was not damaged. I can try and post pictures of it on here, but need to get some batteries for the digital camera first. Let me know if you guys want to see it. As a result of the piston scuffing, I honed out the block about . 001 a side (. 002) total on all cylinders to rebalance the bore diameters. The cylinder walls were not really hurt, there was some galled aluminum on 6 and shallow (about . 001 deep or less) scratches on one side. I think it could have been much worse if it had been allowed to run longer after I noticed the noises that didnt sound right.

 

[JRodgers]

Cliffman



Double check your headgasket, particularly around the oil passages for any part of the red silicone/black stuff that may have peeled off around there. My headgasket looked pretty much brand new all over, even around the fire ring portion of it. It was not until several weeks and at least the third time I looked at it that I found what had come off of it and gotten into the oil passages. In fact I had pulled the oil cooling nozzles out from under the main bearings and found some black and red stuff in them that prompted me to look at the headgasket again. Only then did I confirm that the HG had blown because there was no other evidence of it that I could see on the HG.



I agree that there may be too much timing. I need to double check the FMS specs, but I think that it does not add timing until you stack it with a timing box. I dont remember for sure. I talked to Quad today about the Quad timing box I was running and he said that the program they use does not really add much timing. He said that there is from about 3-7* of timing in their box. If the FMS does add more to that then I could definitely see where you would get into trouble.



Now, knowing of at least three other 2002 ETH trucks that have blown HG within 40,000 miles of new, I also suspect that there may be something else going on that is not really the fault of the timing boxes, or other bombs per se. There could also have been a change in a spec that we are unaware of, or a change in a part supplier (headbolts, gaskets, whatever) that is a significant factor in what is happening. This of course is all speculation, but I do know that there are a lot of trucks out there that are way more bombed than mine was and have run a long time before having these sorts of problems. These trucks have all gone longer and harder on the the stock HG before lifting heads and blowing gaskets, so eexperiencial evidence seems to suggest something else may be at the root of this.



BTW, my truck dynoed at just over 415 RWHP, with the setup as described earlier, a week or two before it died in west Texas in the middle of the night. I would think that if the timing box itself was at fault, then there would be a whole lot more blown gaskets out there among the 12v trucks running 500+ HP with advanced timing and stock gaskets. Also, the earlier model 24v trucks running the same power range with timing boxes dont seem to have problems with stock HG until the 500 HP mark is exceeded.

 

[Cliffman]

JRodgers,



Great post! I'll take a closer look at my head gasket. Looking foward to having twins