Timing rattle

[Grinder1]

Hi guys, what’s the best way to get rid of the somewhat annoying injector/ timing rattle on my 07 5.9? Truck is stock and drives strong. 125k on the meter, with Bosch 505 remans. I’ve heard a Smarty or Edge tuner does the trick.

 

[dsldude]

Smarty didn't help much with mine. I would go EFI live on your truck hands down.

 

[Grinder1]

Smarty didn't help much with mine. I would go EFI live on your truck hands down.

I’ve heard of the EFI live thing, but no nothing about it. Could you or someone here educate me on it?

 

[dsldude]

Well I know I wish I could use it on my 04. I think you can buy specific tunes for it and tweak it yourself if you are savvy. The smarty type tuners have sorta gone to the wayside now that EFI live and HP Tuners are so dialed. You can get your truck running crazy perfect with no smoke and power exactly where you want it for the type of driving you do. You should do a search on it or start a new thread on it and find the best tuner for you.

 

[Superdawg]

Are you talking about the occasional timing rattle under load on a grade from 2000 to 2500 rpm? Sounds like locusts under the hood. I have Bosch reman injectors and Smarty Jr on Tow, Torque 2, Timing 4 (conservative settings). I have heard it is a stock Bosch injector thing.

 

[Grinder1]

Are you talking about the occasional timing rattle under load on a grade from 2000 to 2500 rpm? Sounds like locusts under the hood. I have Bosch reman injectors and Smarty Jr on Tow, Torque 2, Timing 4 (conservative settings). I have heard it is a stock Bosch injector thing.

Hey Superdawg, thanks for chiming in on this. I’d say it’s more mid range at around 1600-2000. Sounds like very moderate pinging from the days of 60s vintage towing and crappy unleaded gas. I don’t want to waste money on a Smarty if it does no good.
My buddy’s stock 05 with double the miles didn’t do this. I believe the 07 5.9 has tighter emissions standards which is causing the rattle. Maybe you or some other TDR guru can enlighten me.

 

[cerberusiam]

Stock injectors rattle, new, used, or reman. The fix for the rattle is to fix the injector problem that causes it. Easiest fix is order a set of BBI's.

Smarty and HPTuners will oy tune the pre-06 trucks to what ever you want to do with them. Plenty of tuners can provide custom tunes for the older trucks.

 

[Superdawg]

My goal is to learn as much as Cerb has forgotten. I would like to get BBI's but I will have to wait until these crap the bed.

 

[Grinder1]

Stock injectors rattle, new, used, or reman. The fix for the rattle is to fix the injector problem that causes it. Easiest fix is order a set of BBI's.

Smarty and HPTuners will oy tune the pre-06 trucks to what ever you want to do with them. Plenty of tuners can provide custom tunes for the older trucks.

Good to hear from you Cerberusiam.
I was leery of going with the 50hp BBI as I live in SoCal. A smog tech friend said I might’ve been ok, but who wants to go through that much work and $$ and then get dinked at a smog check.

So are you saying it’s a lost cause trying to rid the rattle with any kind of tuner? What are the specifics on 06-07 5.9s that make them tuning challenged?

 

[AH64ID]

Timing rattle is fairly normal on these trucks, it has to do with timing, cam, piston design, etc... Reman injectors can also be a bit noisier than others.

It can be tuned out, but it can also be made worse with tuning. If I run a stock tune on my truck is quite noise even with my BBI's, but I'm also running 03-04 pistons. My current UDC Pro tune is dead quiet and as quiet as any 5.9 I've heard run.

The 06-07's aren't more tuning challenged, in fact they have more tuning options as EFI works on them when it doesn't on 03-05. There are some distinct differences from 04.5-05 to 06-07 but the guts of the tuning is the same.

For box tuners I prefer Smarty and for custom tuning I also prefer Smarty with UDC Pro. UDC Pro offers more tables to adjust than EFI Live and Smarty on deals with Dodge/Ram Cummins where EFI primarily deals with other platforms.

I wouldn't put an Edge on anything.

 

[cerberusiam]

So are you saying it’s a lost cause trying to rid the rattle with any kind of tuner? What are the specifics on 06-07 5.9s that make them tuning challenged?

Like AH64ID said, it can feast or famine with tuning to try to adjust for a mechanical. You need high end tuning tools like Smarty UDC Pro or HPTuners to really get to all the good stuff that makes an impact. Really, in the 06-07 trucks I think it is the protocol used that makes the difference. Those trucks are pretty much all CAN bus rather than the proprietary protocols that dis not allow as much data exchange but seem more solid on general terms. The CAN bus protocols and amount of data pushed thru all seem just more susceptible to noise in the system, grounds, and connections.