Engine/Transmission (1998.5 - 2002) Well..Another '02 VP44 on its way out.

[Motorhead]

My friend and fellow member of TDR called me tonight about 8 hours south of his home in Seattle WA. He ask me what would be causing his truck to have little to no boost and intermittent loss of power. He said "My turbo's not working". I said likely that there is nothing wrong with his turbo. He pulled into Medford OR and stopped. I told him to check his codes with the key. He showed P01693 and the dreaded P0216. His truck is an '02 H. O. ETH-DEE. He only has 66,000miles. He put a FASS pump on it and we both installed guages right after we bought our trucks. He never has had a low primary fuel pressure problem..... WHY the Inj pump failure???

 

[MVieira]

Motorhead,

My VP44 fired up the P0216 code last September, along with surging boost, and a momentary dead pedal. It all happened on one trip. I pulled the VP44 off to have it repaired by Diamond Diesel in Sacramento. They called me back to tell me there were too many updates on my pump, by its date code, and they didn't advise me to rebuild it. The main things were my whole housing had to be updated because of an updated front main shaft bearing and probably the main cause of my VP44's demise was the poor decision by Bosch to use a brass servo piston sleeve which would wear prematurely and cause a timing failure. This was confirmed by Gary on this sight also, who had a very good post on the findings from his VP44 that he had II rebuild. . Margret at Diamond Diesel said I should get Dodge to warranty it, but I knew it would be a fight since I already had an after market fuel supply system on it and it has had an Edge EZ on it since new. What did I learn on this sight, if you BOMB, "I am my own warranty station". Anyways talking to Diamond there is nothing I Bombed to cause the advance piston sleeve to fail it was a poor design to make it out of brass, which they no longer do. My truck is a 2002, it had 31,000 miles at time of VP44 failure, and I've always used Stanadyne Perf. Formula since new. It was well taken care of in my mind. Also Bosch does not support an update like that on this level, we have to go to Dodge.

Regards, Mike.

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

YUP - what Mike said!



Bosch's poor decision to go to a brass advance cylinder has cost them - and owners LOTS of $$$ and aggravation. I lost mine at about 45K miles, my brother in law who has a truck identical to mine got over 50K on his, but same failure.



I had only the outer case containing the advance cylinder replaced on mine - all other parts electronic and mechanical were in spec, so other than the advance cylinder, I still have a fully in spec functional original pump now as my spare/backup pump...

 

[Motorhead]

I had heard of this BRASS sleeve wear. My truck is an '01. 5 automatic. Do I have this same part that wears prematurely? I haven't heard of near the '01's fail as the '02's. My friend luckily is still under warranty with 6 months remaining. I also have mods on mine. DO I worry about it or just take my chances??? Is it much cheaper to replace this bushing than to get an updated BOSCH pump?