duramax's melting down???

[oldred95]

We were talking about new diesels in Auto I class the other day and the teacher was saying how the aftermarket programmers are too hard on the engines and what not and how some people take it so far that they have actually melted down a duramax. He said the intake itself which is made of that composit plastic stuff melted down to nothing and the pistons even gave it up and became a big blob of aluminum. Has anyone ever heard of this? I can see in a way how it could happen, stupid idiot with more money then he knows what to do with wants a big fast truck, mods mods mods, doesn't pay any attention to things like EGT's and bam but still I find it really hard to literally melt down a diesel engine like that.

[duratothemax]

another ignorant person who makes assumptions and knows nothing about the duramax...

tell him to find me a picture of this "plastic" intake on a duramax.

"melted into a big gob of aluminum" haha ok. Do you know what kind of underhood temps you would see if the engine physically actually "melted into a gob of aluminum". The whole truck would be a big gob of aluminum.

If anyone says the duramax is a joke because the aluminum heads melt down, just laugh and say 'ok cheif' and walk away. They are too stupid to bother arguing with. The only things that fail in stupidly high hp engines are the rods, specifically #8. Again, this is stupid high hp, like 800+ at the rear wheels running lots of drugs.

Anyone who is making a "potentially" dangerous amount of hp with their duramax knows what theyre doing and does not drive the engine into oblivion. There is no such thing as a person who dumps $$$$$ into a duramax and has no idea what they did or how to use the power. People like that who blindly throw money at a vehicle to make it stupid fast just go out and a buy a corvette.

If you do drive the engine to huge EGT's the turbo will fail first, I guess "saving" the engine. After the turbo fails you're going nowhere fast, but the rest of the engine is most likely still in one piece.

just my oppinion.

[oldred95]

Yea I don't think my teacher knows as much as I do at times. He also said in 06 or 07 model diesels they are gonna start putting cats on them and some sort of filter in the exhaust just ahead of the cat and this filter will plug and they are going to spray diesel in the exhaust and super heat this filter to like 5000 degrees and burn the crap off this filter or some chit. I think he's been smoking some poundage but idk. Diesels have been using cats for a while now and this filter deal he speaks of is just stupid. And if you heat a cat to 5000 degrees the frickin steel casing is gonna melt off. Like I said, he may be smoking some serious poundage.

[KickAss89chev]

like 5000 degrees

hahaha, serious poundage

[chevyz71man]

Actually they are going to put cats and egrs on them. Also on big rigs if the cats get to clogged the truck will shut down and spray fuel into the cats to help burn and unclog them...but not no 5000 degrees. I also agree on melting a cylinder head...you would ruin a turbo long before.

[duratothemax]

They have had cats and EGR since 2004

[seth350]

A guy at work told me IIRC that on the Cummins engines, you had a fuel plate and that if you took it out it and drove it hard you could melt the engine down.
But thats the older Cummins engines, idk how the newer duramaxs work.

[BlueOx03]

Originally Posted by duratothemax

They have had cats and EGR since 2004

actually, 2002...LB7s got em too...

[duratothemax]

If you want to split hairs, Ox...

[Jokeman]

I doubt that. Dude at Carlisle made 970 ish lbs foot on just a tune. Id kill for one.

[AZdragger]

good thing they didn't say that would happen to the cummins......... know a few guys running over 700 hp and 1300+ ft. lbs. out of their motors


and true, the turbo would fail before the motor from the heat


next thing he'll tell ya is that if your truck blows black smoke it's a bad thing and that all diesels on the road aren't maintenanced properly and that's why they blow smoke

[oldred95]

He drives an 02 powerchoke and says it has way more power then he could ever use. My arguement was if you can in some cases almost double your power for not a lot of money and do it safetly then it would be stupid in my opinion not to. I'm the type that wants to have a rediculous amount of power on tap, not that I need it all times, but I'd rather have a ton of extra power and not need it then be underpowered and work the truck to death.

[AZdragger]

i do think you get a lot of rigs that have issues with adding power because they don't upgrade the fuel system or they don't have guages.

both are critical if you are adding power.

for fuel, i beleive a great upgrade is to an FASS or Airdog setup and then gagues: EGT, Boost at a minimum......

lot of ppl don't do these and will overheat an engine and possibly cause some damager due to this.

[duratothemax]

hahahahaahahahahaahahaha a 7.3 PSD has way more power than he could ever use....priceless...

Originally Posted by duratothemax

hahahahaahahahahaahahaha a 7.3 PSD has way more power than he could ever use....priceless...

Our 99 at work does.





Of course its not even close to stock

[71sweptline]

It would be possible to take the tops off of the pistons, diesels will melt down just like a gas engine, but, believe it or not, the aluminum head actually will decrease the chance of it happening...............
I have a 91 Cummins, and it is a dog......LOL.......the 02powerpoke ain't much better.

[Joe]

Originally Posted by duratothemax

another ignorant person who makes assumptions and knows nothing about the duramax...

tell him to find me a picture of this "plastic" intake on a duramax.

"melted into a big gob of aluminum" haha ok. Do you know what kind of underhood temps you would see if the engine physically actually "melted into a gob of aluminum". The whole truck would be a big gob of aluminum.

If anyone says the duramax is a joke because the aluminum heads melt down, just laugh and say 'ok cheif' and walk away. They are too stupid to bother arguing with. The only things that fail in stupidly high hp engines are the rods, specifically #8. Again, this is stupid high hp, like 800+ at the rear wheels running lots of drugs.

Anyone who is making a "potentially" dangerous amount of hp with their duramax knows what theyre doing and does not drive the engine into oblivion. There is no such thing as a person who dumps $$$$$ into a duramax and has no idea what they did or how to use the power. People like that who blindly throw money at a vehicle to make it stupid fast just go out and a buy a corvette.

If you do drive the engine to huge EGT's the turbo will fail first, I guess "saving" the engine. After the turbo fails you're going nowhere fast, but the rest of the engine is most likely still in one piece.

just my oppinion.

Actually there is quite a bit of evidence that modded Duramax motors are blowing up

Not everyone who goes out and buys power mods knows jack about the potential concequences.
A buddy working at GM has shown me the papers and there are quite a bit of failures with over modded Dmax motors.

[duratothemax]

Originally Posted by Joe

Actually there is quite a bit of evidence that modded Duramax motors are blowing up

Not everyone who goes out and buys power mods knows jack about the potential concequences.
A buddy working at GM has shown me the papers and there are quite a bit of failures with over modded Dmax motors.

not saying they cant blow up, beelive me I have seen them blow up. #8 rod is the first to let go when the engine has stock internals. Not really all that dramatic tho. Just a semi-loud pop and lots of oil all over the place.

I have seen the papers, but those pictures IMHO are not from extemely modded engines. IMO They are from customers who do not know anything and throw a simple hot tune, nothing else on the truck, no guages no nothing, and tow up long hills with no regard to EGT's or anything. Note the lots of carbon deposits on the pistons, especially in the bowl. That is from simply lugging the engine and overfueling it to extraordinary EGT's. So much fuel and heat that proper swirl can not be induced and the burn in the cylinder does not happen smoothely or completely. A 'properly' modified duramax can make huge amounts of hp and leave much less traces/giveways inside the engine that it was even modded. These are not people who dump lots of $$$$ into their trucks. If you have guages and a little common sense its safe to say you wont "melt down" the engine. Crazy crazy hp on stock internals, 800+ at the wheels, 1600+ torque at the wheels, and you wont be melting things down, but you put the rods at risk. The rods are the weakest part of the duramax's stock internals.

The cam gear pin shearing has nothing to do with modding. It is the one main achilles heel of the duramax as far as design. Even stock engines can shear cam gear pins, its a fluke thing. As far as I know, The problem with the design is that it relies on the end nut being tight as well as the pin to key the cam gear on the camshaft. If the not is ever so slightly loose, the cam gear and wiggle just a little bit and stress the poor little aligning pin. Once the pin shears or breaks completely, the cam gets way out of whack, timing gets way off, valves hit the pistons, no more engine. There is a fix developed by Eric Merchant, it involvs machining several key ways into the cam gear and camshaft itself...... Also what can trash an engine is a turbo failure. If the turbo fails "a certain way" and stops lubriating the #4 (I think?) cam bearing, the beaing gets spun and the engine is junk. Turbos can fail on stock engines, just a fluke thing...

Ben

[Frankenbiker]

Originally Posted by oldred95

Yea I don't think my teacher knows as much as I do at times. He also said in 06 or 07 model diesels they are gonna start putting cats on them and some sort of filter in the exhaust just ahead of the cat and this filter will plug and they are going to spray diesel in the exhaust and super heat this filter to like 5000 degrees and burn the crap off this filter or some chit. I think he's been smoking some poundage but idk. Diesels have been using cats for a while now and this filter deal he speaks of is just stupid. And if you heat a cat to 5000 degrees the frickin steel casing is gonna melt off. Like I said, he may be smoking some serious poundage.

He's actually correct.

For the 2007 model year, at least class 7&8 diesel engines (11+ liters) will have particulate traps and Selective Catalytic Reduction, in addition to the EGR systems in use since 2004. The burning he's talking about is what's called "regeneration," and must be done periodically on the particulate traps to get rid of the accumulated soot. This can be done most effectively by dumping fuel into the exhaust and lighting it off; soot is just unburned fuel. It won't get to 5000 degrees, but it will be fairly hot.

Service intervals on the units are expected to be in the 100K-150K mileage range; that means a dealer service every year or so.

I haven't kept up completely with the new 2007 regs, since I have no intention of buying a 2007 rig. The problems in-service with the 2004 engines were nightmares for everyone, and the 2007's aren't expected to be much better.

For what it's worth, GM has been using EGR on it's light-duty diesels since at least 1982. But it didn't show up in the big rigs till 2004. And I've heard that the "cats" that GM used on the 6.5 and early Duramax motors were nothing more than soot traps.

-blaine

[craq]

Originally Posted by BlueOx03

actually, 2002...LB7s got em too...

and 2001, since LB7s came out that year...