I'm needing to know what you guys thing about this. I've been thinking about getting a set of bigger injectors for my 07 5.9L but with them costing so much I've been looking at just getting bigger nozzles. I'm not needing THAT much more power but, any extra power I can get I'll take. What are the limits on just getting bigger nozzles? Am i just fooling myself by trying nozzles over a set of bigger injectors? HELP! I've found nozzles for around $900 opposed to the $3,600+ cost of new injectors and am sort'a on a tight budget. Any help would be great.

 

I see you have a Predator, but no mention of a bigger turbo. Any larger injectors at this point will result in a zero sum gain for you. In other words, you'll run out of turbo before you can really take advantage of the larger injectors. At this point for you, the two must go hand in hand.

Second, to answer your question directly, you don't mention how many miles are on your current injectors. If they are still lower mileage (say 85k and below to be conservative) you can just do the nozzles and be ok as long as there is no issue with the current injectors.

Let's be clear here though.... whether you buy whole injectors or simply nozzles, they both gain the power the same way-- by enlarging the nozzle passages. By your post, you seem to imply that "bigger injectors" seem to be different than "bigger nozzles". They aren't.

If you have a tight budget, I wouldn't get larger injectors until after you can get a larger turbo to support the additional power. The stock turbo won't cut it.

 

I've got a stock turbo and as far as i know i've got 4 injectors that are orginal and two that have less than 10,000 miles on them. (truck as a whole has 111,000) So your saying is that the first thing i should do is look for a bigger turbo?

 

Yes, turbo first. However, now that you've clarified the injector status, you have higher mileage injectors, have had trouble and replaced two already, that is a good sign that others may follow as well. The "safe" advice would be to at least change out the other 4 injectors that are old and put nozzles on the newer two. Definitely send them to a shop that will balance all 6 out (F1, DDP- there are others) and not just slap on nozzles.

 

Around how many miles can you expect to have on stock injectors?

 

There's no "right" answer to that question. It will vary widely dependent on fuel quality, filter quality and frequency of changes, pressure boxes used and etc.

Most injectors though will be borderline on leak back volume at 110-120k miles. Solenoid response time is usually degraded by 150k miles.

Again, individual results vary a great deal... some injectors do fine well past 200k miles. Others not so much. Look at the 2 you've lost already.

 

There is a guy on here that drives long haul all the time, his factory set lasted over 400K. But that is very far from the norm.

 

Agreed....The more you work the truck the longer the injectors will hold out...providing the filter (s) are changed regularly. I have 297k on my factory sticks but I'm a stickler for filter changes and I too use to do long haul. The more heat you can keep in the cylinder while obtaining a clean burn, the cleaner the tips will stay, and the city style driving is almost non-existent which is even better for these trucks.