Low Boost

[SShafranko]

Yep i checked those wires several times and unplugged and cleaned connections quite a few times. Thanks

 

[TomJohnston]

I got word back from Marco who is the maker of the Smarty. He said that he is aware of a few people with 06's that have this defueling problem and has requested my dyno graphs. He said that he would do whatever he could to help and if anyone on the planet knows the inner workings of the ECM it would be him. I am very encouraged and grateful that he would take the time to help us out. Keep you posted, Tom J.

 

[SShafranko]

Great news. Please keep me posted. Thanks

 

[TomJohnston]

I have some good news. I talked to Rip and Bill at Source automotive. They told me that some dealerships are getting a brand new y-tech or whytech diagnostic test system. It displays all parameters of your truck on one page and while driving around it will flash red on what ever input is out of limits or unexpected. According to Bill from source, his friend that works at a dealership says that it is almost revolutionary and they are troubleshooting problems in minutes instead of days and people thay were unable to help before are getting their issues finally fixed. I am scheduled to go into the local dealer on monday (I doubt they have it) but if they are unable to help I will call around southern Oregon and find out if any of the dealers have this. Otherwise I will drive all the way to Portland (5. 5 hrs) and have them use the y-tech on my truck. I was pretty amazed to have a premium diesel repair shop tell me to go to a dealer but Source is really a stand up business and helps anyway they can. Good Luck, Tom J.

 

[SShafranko]

Wow. Something so logical you would think that testing tool would have been out long ago. But this is awesome news. I gues monday i will start calling dealers myself and try to get in somewhere. I'm assuming Source has the tool? I am going to call them on Monday also and if noone around me has this tool Oregon, here i come!!



Tom thanks so much you've been a great help. I think i'm starting to see a light at the end of this tunnel.

 

[TomJohnston]

Source doesn't actually have the y-tech system but the Dodge dealership near them does and they are now sending people there that have complicated electronic problems.

 

[SShafranko]

Ohh OK. I should be able to find somebody close to me then. I'm going to try to find a place on Monday and see if i can get the truck in right away too. I'll let you know what happens but if you get in there before me please keep me posted. Thank you

 

[TomJohnston]

Went to the dealer today and I was surprised that they actually had the Y-tech diagnostic system. I wanted to be there when the checks were being done but wasn't allowed. The tech was in his early 20's and may have been a diesel genious but I have no way of knowing. I had mentioned the surging without a boostfooler installed but that wasn't really a problem since the boostfooler made it go away. Never the less the majority of the troubleshooting that was done focused on that issue and when I came to get my truck he said that he installed the boostfooler that just happened to be laying on my center console and it fixed the problem. Then he told me that the truck was perfectly fine and he didn't have to do anything. After the blood stopped shooting out of my eyes I asked him what he did about the defueling, he said that the computer said everything was fine so it couldn't be defueling. I then asked him why the rail pressure goes up dramactically after 2300rpm and my boost goes down and BTW how much boost do you think this truck should make with all the mods I have done. His response was that it probably was defueling but he had done all he could.



Well I am sorry to say but I do not own that truck anymore. I purchased a 2010 Dodge Ram Laramie 2500 today, it is not fast but it has a lot of neat features and I got a great deal. I just couldn't see an end to the money trap that getting this truck to run right would cost. New ECM, TST box, CP3, bigger injectors. I have already spent over $15,000. 00 on upgrades and I am miserable because I am not getting the results I expected.



BTW, Marco sent me an email today and said that he took a mostly stock truck that ran about 340 hp and loaded the TNTR tune and installed a cp3and some other parts (not important) and dynoed at 530 hp. The weird part is after he returned the parts and program to stock and redynoed he was getting 430hp. It is a liitle confusing but apparently loading the TNTR tune changed something in the ECM and even when it was removed and performance parts returned to stock the truck made 85 hp more than before. Marco showed me the dynos and like my truck it was defueling or starting to lose HP at around 2300rpm, the TNTR moved the defueling up to 2800rpm. So get with Bob Wagner @ smartypower.com and have him send the TNTR to you, just don't move the rpm limiter up to 4000rpm.



Good luck, Tom J.

 

[SShafranko]

Sorry to hear that. I'm pretty ****** that you sold it because i just lost you as a diagnostic help. Honestly with your drive and ambition to fix this problem i thought for sure we would get it shortly. But anyway good luck with your new truck and to be honest i hope it starts defueling on you soon. LOL just kidding.



I loaded Smarty in my buddies stock truck couple of months ago to show to him and when i took it out it left his idle at 800 instead of the stock 750. maybe thats why my tach is haywire now.



Good luck with your new ride.



Sasha

 

[AH64ID]

The current flash has the 06+ trucks running at 800 rpms, so it may not be related.

 

[TomJohnston]

Keep in mind that if you go with some 90-120hp injectors your boost will go up but whatever the electronic issue is, it will still be there, just not as noticeable. This could be a problem that is just hard coded to our ECM's, maybe if you could get an 07 ECM and make it work on your truck it will go away. I still don't know what the experience level of the tech was that worked on my truck but he was very young. Hopefully you can find someone with a lot of experience that can use the y-tech system to really get to what your issue is. I am pretty upset that the tech used all of his time troubleshooting the surging without a boostfooler instead of the defueling like I asked him to. But if the ECM was going to a defualt MAP like I thought then you would think it would be obvious on the monitor. You may also look at getting a TST box or Edge Juice that wires directly to the injectors and will increase the duration whether the ECM wants to or not. There still may be some defueling but only a fraction of what you have now. I must say that it is painful to drive this new truck without the power I had before, defueling included. My wife wants to kill me already for buying a new truck so building up this one will have to wait for quite awhile. I am hoping to sneak some 60-80hp injectors but I doubt I can get away with it. There also isn't much stuff available for the 2010's yet so I guess I will be sticking to the slow lane. Good Luck, Tom J.

 

[cerberusiam]

There also isn't much stuff available for the 2010's yet so I guess I will be sticking to the slow lane. Good Luck, Tom J.

Not true, several different programmers and mods available for the 6. 7 now with more on the way. Injectors and tips are available in quite a few spots. A Smarty 6. 7 will put the smile back on your face.

 

[SShafranko]

I don't think the problem is with the ecm. I think its stemming from something else.

But you bring up a good point. I wonder if the 07 5. 9 ecm would work? I might try it.

 

[TomJohnston]

One thing interesting that the tech did tell me was that the built in boost fooler from the Quad X2 Race was not doing a good job fooling and the ECM didn't like it, but the stand alone boost fooler from Quad worked fine. I never got a chance to test it out but I am sure I have used that configuration in the past and experienced the same problems. So there may be a chance that your truck doesn't like the boostfooler built into the MP-8 but you should be able to run just the Smarty and just throw a code @ 42psi and still continue to build boost. I have just run out of ideas and although it seems everyone knows about someone with an 06 that defuels, no one seems to know of anyone who has fixed it. I am still certain that it is pulse duration because people with this problem and stock sticks get 30+ psi, people with 80-90hp sticks get 40+ and if you go up to 120-150hp sticks 55+ psi of boost. And if everything was fine on your truck you should be seeing 50+ with just the MP-8 or just the smarty. I will keep thinking about this and maybe get a new idea. Tom J.

 

[SShafranko]

Thanks Tom. I purchased the MP8 because of this issue and thought that it would propel me past the 30-35 psi mark i'm stuck at. So i had the same problem with the Smarty alone. I do have a Quadzilla boost fooler laying around which i will try today and see if it does anything. I think Smarty is programmed to go to 45 psi without throwing a code.

 

[TomJohnston]

Your right it is 45psi. Funny thing is that if I removed everything but the smarty it sure was easy to set the overboost code. And another weird thing is the tech that checked out my truck said he could see 51 psi from the ECM. I told him the Map sensor could only read up to 43psi and he agreed but said the ECM was still saying 45-51psi. Maybe that is a clue that the ECM is screwed up. This has to be the issue, somehow the ECM is reading the fooled boost level which should be like 26psi so no code but when the engine is determining what level to fuel at it is for some reason now 50psi. I am going to call that tech and get back to you.

 

[AH64ID]

So there may be a chance that your truck doesn't like the boostfooler built into the MP-8 but you should be able to run just the Smarty and just throw a code @ 42psi and still continue to build boost.

The truck should start to defuel at that boost number. I wonder if thats part of the issue?

Thanks Tom. I purchased the MP8 because of this issue and thought that it would propel me past the 30-35 psi mark i'm stuck at. So i had the same problem with the Smarty alone. I do have a Quadzilla boost fooler laying around which i will try today and see if it does anything. I think Smarty is programmed to go to 45 psi without throwing a code.

For some reason not all trucks accept the Smarty's ability to "boost fool"

 

[cerberusiam]

One thing interesting that the tech did tell me was that the built in boost fooler from the Quad X2 Race was not doing a good job fooling and the ECM didn't like it, but the stand alone boost fooler from Quad worked fine.

Thats a bit too generic to base an assumption on. The Quad boxes have a habit of the BF going bad and not working correctly or they may be doing things a bit differently by design. What exactly "not like it" means is a big question.

And another weird thing is the tech that checked out my truck said he could see 51 psi from the ECM. I told him the Map sensor could only read up to 43psi and he agreed but said the ECM was still saying 45-51psi.

Thats normal, the tech was reading the boost off the ECM and seeing absolute pressure which is what the MAP gives. The typical scan tools do not adjust for ambient. That range gives 31 to 37 psi of actual boost which is about what you reported.

For some reason not all trucks accept the Smarty's ability to "boost fool"

Since the Smarty doesn't boost fool there is nothing to accept or reject from the ECU's point. All it does is read the boost tables and that value goes into the fueling calculation.

 

[AH64ID]

Since the Smarty doesn't boost fool there is nothing to accept or reject from the ECU's point. All it does is read the boost tables and that value goes into the fueling calculation.

Actually the Smarty has to be able to disable the wastegate, and thats all in the ECM. On some trucks the WG still opens at the stock levels, there for the "boost fooling" isn't working. No its not boost fooling, but its the same effect, up thru 44psi.

 

[cerberusiam]

Actually the Smarty has to be able to disable the wastegate, and thats all in the ECM. On some trucks the WG still opens at the stock levels, there for the "boost fooling" isn't working. No its not boost fooling, but its the same effect, up thru 44psi.

Exactly, its not boost fooling its WG off, which one can easily accomplish with a pair of vice grips. Pretty sure Sasha tried that and still had boost leveling out lower than it should.



Boost fooling is electronic signal manipulation which introduces potential problems into the data stream the ECU reads. THAT can cause problems where a simple vice grips or WG off has not been known to cause these issues.



Like Tom said and Marco responded to, there is something WEIRD in some 06 ECU's that causes this unless you brute force override it with bigger injectors and something like a Quad. I think its the blasted CARB update for Cali emissions getting released where its not needed. I think the Dodge engineers did a lousy job of regression testing on all aspects and now there are bugs in the flashes that crop up in very specific circumstances.



Seen it before in software releases, expect to see it again when there are so many nuances to take into account. Software Quality Assurance is as much an art as development and its not getting enough attention in a lot of places.



Besides, Dodge has no pressing need to fix screwups in out-of-date software and equipment. If it ain't current, its get back burnered.