I can smoke grey on a cool morning. It can be unburnt fuel at the right temp I thought I had a problem to unitl it waremed up 15 degreese then it was BLACK again! Mine will do it in the mornings on my way to work at around 50 degreese.

 

Ok guys my buddys just did the exact same thing last week and it cost him $$$$1850.00 for the new injection pump and lift pump, the problem is that your lift pump is going bad you had better get it on a pressure gauge to check the pressure it needs to be at LEAST 10psi and 15psi at wide open throttle i would bet that yours are NOT.. i just dont want to see anybody have to go through this again cause it sucks...TJ

 

[quote author=Incanus link=board=4;threadid=19724;start=15#msg186668 date=1063943950]
Black smoke at lower box settings, grayish smoke at higher settings, doesn't seem to be much difference in power between lower & higher settings -- is the box messing up the injection timing?

I.
[/quote]

Since you haven't pierced the pump wire, things are looking better for your VP44.

Sounds like your box or it's connections are going out.

I'd pull the connections on the box, make sure they are clean, put some dialectric grease on them, reconnect and see if it makes a difference.

If not, pull the box out completly and see if anything clears up.
If that fixes it, give Edge a call, maybe they'll send you a replacement to try, and box to send yours back.

If that doesn't do it, pull the MAP and IAT sensors, clean them if possible, replace if not possible, and see if things clear up.

Check intercooler boots for tightness and possible leaks.
(if boost isn't suffering, than they are probably ok)

After the above, then you can start looking at the injection pump as the culprit.
I'd remove all the cheaper possible culprits before looking into the expensive one.


phox

 

I usually do use an OBD2 scanner to look into the live values teh sensors do give me. With the truck idling you should see no boost (atmospheric - a little bit pressure on the map sensor) and the ambient temp on the IAT. If your ECM or PCM do see this wrong you know where to start. If you have a mechanical boost gauge you can also look for boost while driving and compare it to the mech. gauge. (Don't do this with the comp on since it incorporates a boost fooler!)
Usually this saves me a lot of time while diagnosing. If I see something wrong, I do a thorough connector clean on all connectors involved and recheck. If still wrong I do a continuity check from the connector to the sensor to the pin on the ECM or PCM respectively. If this is OK I'll swap the sensor. This way you can avoid throwing money at parts not necessary. Had a Dodge Dakota gasser in that suffered low performance, bad mileage etc. They had already changed oxy.sensors, ignition coil, ign. wires and lots of other stuff with no result. I read out realtime data and found that the IAT was reading way too high. This didn't set any codes since the temperature shown by the IAT was still plausible. Now the IAT is replaced, fuel economy 20% better and power restored. Total cost 1 hour of work and 1 IAT. A lot cheaper than all the other unnecessary stuff that had been done.
I did a lot of testing for some values on my RAM and have found lots of sensors reading slightly wrong and decreasing performance and efficiency.

Sorry for being OT, hope this helps in diagnosing your problems

AlpineRAM

 

I'm kinda in the same boat as Jamie on this. I just thought the grayish black was from the cool temps. On hot humid days she's black. Crap

Ben

 

It's not really the temp. that makes the smoke gray or black but the hummidity. The more hummid the air is the blacker the smoke. As the hummidity decreases the grayer the smoke will appear. I drove to Florida with my family this summer and you should have seen the clouds I left at lights when I was down there. (so many convertables and so little time)

DB

 

I know for sure mine is fine. I have great fuel pressures and I know its the humidity and outside air temp that makes the smoke. Hot humid day van be turned dark really quick. Cold crisp dry morning hardly any smoke at all maybe grey haze at best.

 

so many convertables and so little time. I couldn't have said it better. Mike

 

Alpine,

Just so you know, the 01's don't report the correct pressure. 14psi at idle.

I have checked mine with different scanners. OBD always reports the same.

 

I never thought about a leaky turbo.

 

[quote author=StakeMan link=board=4;threadid=19724;start=15#msg187010 date=1064025289]
Alpine,

Just so you know, the 01's don't report the correct pressure. 14psi at idle.

I have checked mine with different scanners. OBD always reports the same.
[/quote]

Stake: Hate to correct you, I said boost. Standard athmospheric pressure at sea level= 14.6959503 pound-force/square inch (PSI) and we read a MAP (Manifold AbsolutePressure) sensor, so 14 psi at idle are perfectly in order and reasonable. A boost gauge measures pressure difference between intake manifold and ambient air.
Since the diesel can pull a little bit of vacuum at idle (filter restriction and restriction through the whole system) the sensor should show 14.6959503 psi minus altitude correction (this is ambient) minus the pressure drop caused by the restrictions mentioned.

AlpineRAM

 

Alpine,

My 01 reports 54.488 inHg with just the key on. You do the math.

 

Stake: Have you got a box on it? In my experience the boxes do 2 way boost fooling. Top end they limit the boost the PCM and ECM see to avoid defueling and setting codes, low end they signal more bosst than actually availlable to allow for more fuel for better response. (Like turning the AFC starwheel on the 12V)
14 PSI would be 28.5042892 inch of mercury.
54.488 inch of mercury [0 °C] = 26.7620074 pound-force/square inch (PSI)
Where did you get the 14psi in your first post of the 01 always reading 14psi ?

On my 98.5 I see a reading of around 950mBar (got a metric OBD2 software), at idle I see 915mBar.

AlpineRAM