The darndest thing happened today, my silencer ring fell off!!
Shortly afterward, I passed a honda (at WOT) and the driver had that look on his face expecting a Freightliner to be passing him. The turbo is definately noticeable now. Took all of 3 minutes to remove including finding my tools.

 

Remove the baffles in the intake muffler ( or whatever they call it) and its even more noticable. Not much, but the more the better.

 

I've been wanting to remove that ring for quite a while and after reading your post I went out and did it. You're right it takes about 3 minutes. Big clamp next to air filter box and big clamp next to turbo. Removed wire loom from air filter box and then removed big S-shaped intake tube. Removed retaining ring with a Swiss Army knife and the silencer ring came out.

I hate to rain on the parade but I couldn't hear any additional turbo whine. Bummer!

Maybe I'll try to find those baffles.

 

Well, I removed the baffles and now I can definitely hear the turbo more. Cool! It's not obnoxious, the turbo can only be heard under fairly hard acceleration.

However, for those thinking about doing it, it requires breaking things. I removed the plastic tube containing the baffles and the only way I could get the baffles out was to stick a flat-blade screwdriver between the cap holding the baffles in and the plastic tube. Working slowly around the cap, I was able to crack the seal and get the cap off. This resulted in breaking the seal which was apparently made with some sort of plastic glue. To get the cap back on I decided to use 4 stainless steel screws in lieu of gluing it back together. This allowed me to put the baffles back in if needed.

However, I forgot to plug the airbox wire loom back in and resulted in setting a 073 code. Now the check engine light is staying illuminated even after several starts. I remember reading it will go out after X number start attempts but I can't remember how many.

 

OK, this seems to be a hot thread late on Sunday night.

After reading my shop manual, it seems that most emissions related DTCs will be cleared after 3 "good trips". The manual is ambiguous about what exactly a good trip is but said it is related to temperature cycles.

Anyway to make a long story short, I just went out after letting the truck sit for about an hour, started it and the check engine light was no longer on. Crisis resolved.

 

Do you think 4 screws alone are sufficient to provide a dust proof seal?

 

Triplenickel you bring up a good point. It's not as good as glue I'm sure. On top of that I initially only put in 2 screws but noticed some separating at the 2 90 degree indexes where there weren't screws. So I put in 2 more. However, that broken seal isn't just a flat surface. There is a ridge that fits down into a groove which along with the 4 screws should provide a good seal.

 

i was just going to get a piece of stainless pipe the proper diameter, polish it, and put in place of the stock intake muffler, saving it and the silencer ring for reuse if needed; warranty work.

 

Yes there is definitley a good ridge around the circumferance. I ended up epoxieng mine at the joint, then when it set up I just ran another bead of epoxy around to seal it, the spray bombed it flat black again. Just so I wouldn't get any unwanted attention from a dealer tech in the event of a warranty visit. Only 24,000 kms but so far so good.

 

Turbo whine is even louder with an AFE Tourque Tube!!!! Almost ear splitting!!! One question about the turbo does some air flow around the outside of the fins or does all air pass through the fins? If some does travel around the outside edge of the fins, does it make sense that the silencer ring plays some part in guiding the air directly into the turbo. I ask this b/c I read somewhere that a TAG unit was supposed to be used with the silencer ring in place.

thanks Jamie

 

The compressor wheel is a centrifugal air compressor, meaning is sucks air into the center of the wheel, and it exits at the outer diameter, obviously at a higher pressure, according to my gauge, at 33 psi. i dont believe any should be pass through the outer edge of the fins, or you wouldnt get boost.