Is my VP44 dying?

[307Kenworth]

My family's owned my truck since about 10,000 miles on it. We put a BD lift pump on it at around 150,000. Now I've got her up to 257,xxx miles and well, the motor's kinda turned into a gutless pig. I noticed on a trip the other day (empty, no trailer) that as I had my cruise set to 70 or 75 on a state highway, that as I'd get halfway up a few rolling hills, that were a decent pull, I was slowing down to 55 and the pedal was matted. Have we just taken too good care of this pump by installing the BD lift pump early on, that it just won't flat out die? No electrical performance mods are done to it, only a 4" straight exhaust and a K&N air filter (not even the cold box intake kit). The only other thing I'm going to check when I get home is maybe an intercooler boot? IIRC though it oughta kinda smoke badly if one of those has blown off?

[lovinCTD59]

few things to check...

Air filter
Fuel filter
Exhaust restrictions
Fuel pressure


Yes, usually you do notice an increase in black smoke when ther is a major boost leak such as an intercooler boot. Are there any trouble codes?

[kmltrucking101]

My VP 44 went out at 50K (due to a bad factory lift pump).. When mine went bad, there was no "wondering" about it. It went into what I call "derate" mode. It wouldn't run over 20mph.. Lift pump and Injector pumps were replaced under warranty. Im running a Raptor Lift pump with an Edge Computer now. I mentioned the Edge because it has a built in fuel pressure monitor. Ive been a trucker for many years, sounds to me like youve got an air leak. Id check hoses as well as the charge air cooler. If your turbo is spinning up as it should and there is a leak? The boost wont find its way back around to intake side of the motor.. Any turbo charged diesel is pathetic without boost.. Hope its a quick fix.. Good luck..

[307Kenworth]

To update anyone who'se been reading this. I think I found my problem. For a long time my auxillary fuel pump has been on a toggle switch, Something of my old man's doing before I took over the truck. I went to go and fix this and to my absolute horror, found the stock fuel pump there on the side of the engine, little guy was kinda grinning at me like he was amused. So it turns out what I had was a BD 'helper' pump that'd been pushing the fuel through a dead factory pump for who knows how long. I'm honestly surprised and amazed that all that torture hadn't smoked my VP44. An AirDog 100 is on its way Monday morning so that should remedy this little ailment.

[20012500dodge]

Actually the VP44 will pull from the tank as long as the vacuum is never broken on the injection system. But if power is lost and acceleration is not as responsive you have most likely lost the lift pump. If you loose the VP44 the truck will run very erratic and if you get over 10 MPH I would be suprised. If for some reason you did loose your VP44 look on thouroghbreds web site was on it earlier and they had great prices on the VP44 and also lift pumps and even had a few kits wit filter systems.