Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
I talked to a few top executive Bosch reps yesterday. One of which was the go to guy in service that is involved in field testing and failure analysis. There were a few things that I have been suspecting with the Common Rail Fuel System. Since we have been servicing these systems in house (CP3 pumps & injectors), we have been noticing failures of the injector body (cracking) and check ball seats (erosion). I had to ask direct questions to get answers. The first thing I'll cover is, they have done testing on filtration on 3rd gen Dodge. They used a 5 micron test media that is very fine steel shot. They placed 1 teaspoon full of media in the fuel and then ran the engine with a 10 micron rated filter. At 20 minutes the engine started running bad and missing etc. They then changed the filter to a 7 micron rated filter and again placed 1 teaspoon of 5 micron media in the fuel. It ran for 35 minutes this time before running bad and missing. They then changed to a 5 micron rated filter and again placed 1 teaspoon of media in the fuel, this time it ran 45 minutes before showing the same missing and bad running. Next they changed to a 2 micron rated filter and this time they found that the engine could run for an extended period of time with no failure with the same 1 teaspoon of media. They are saying that we need to run 2 micron filters to keep our fuel systems safe from contamination.
Next we talked about injector bodies cracking. They say that this is caused from pressure spikes. They likened the cause and effect to a tin or aluminum can that with pressure in and out (flexing) the can will start to crack and break. They said that running at a higher pressure alone is not as bad, but pressure spiking is very bad. Next we talked about check balls and seats and what is causing the erosion of the seat. They said that with the high pressure and velocity of the fuel as it passes through the injector check ball and seat, the contamination in the fuel will sand blast the seat and erode it away.
We have been seeing a lose of 60% of our injector cores to these problems and feel that we must educate the public to the reasons for failure. They also said that they tested various filters for consistency in micron rating and saw some filters that should have been at 10 micron actually test at 20+ micron. We at Industrial Injection will be advising all our customers to upgrade there filter/fuel systems to 2 micron ASAP. Thanks, Brady 1-800-955-0476
Next we talked about injector bodies cracking. They say that this is caused from pressure spikes. They likened the cause and effect to a tin or aluminum can that with pressure in and out (flexing) the can will start to crack and break. They said that running at a higher pressure alone is not as bad, but pressure spiking is very bad. Next we talked about check balls and seats and what is causing the erosion of the seat. They said that with the high pressure and velocity of the fuel as it passes through the injector check ball and seat, the contamination in the fuel will sand blast the seat and erode it away.
We have been seeing a lose of 60% of our injector cores to these problems and feel that we must educate the public to the reasons for failure. They also said that they tested various filters for consistency in micron rating and saw some filters that should have been at 10 micron actually test at 20+ micron. We at Industrial Injection will be advising all our customers to upgrade there filter/fuel systems to 2 micron ASAP. Thanks, Brady 1-800-955-0476
