EricArrow

Hi folks...my stock 2004.5 5.9HO feels a little down on power..mostly when towing. I've been toying with the idea of a test pipe and a free flow muffler....but I don't want it to be to loud. Any recommendations?...Do you think this would help?...Thanks

DodgeChallenger

I may be on a rant here but will say it again. A lot of reasons the public gets turned off these and other light diesel vehicles is they don't like the warm up requirements and they complain about losing power. One big reason is they do not cool the engine (actaully i mean turbo) down before they shut down. Example - if you are driving at or above highway speed and pull into a rest stop you will find the egt temp will be around 400. If you are pulling or travel up a hill your egts could be as high as 800 or more. If you shut down at those temperatures then you turn the oil on the turbo bearing to coke (not the drink) which is abrasive. This in turn takes its toll on the turbo bearing and eventually the turbo starts to spin slower - hence a drop in boost/power. I go up an 8% hill going home. EGT reaches 800 and it takes 4 minutes to cool down to 300degF. Best thing to install to save the turbo is a turbo timer which shuts the engine off after a preset temperature is reached.
If anyone is down on power I would check turbo condition and boost levels first.
Hope this helps people

RyeThomas

What year is the truck? It's really not going to matter the free flowing exhaust is not going to help, and removing the cat will not either. It may reduce egt's a few degrees but I ran 750 hp through a stock cat no worries and no EGT issues. Best thing you can do if you want more power is come over to the dark side and buy a programmer, or downloader, or even better EFI live.

Whatever you do don't buy a chip, ruffles have ridges and only make you fat.

C Schomer

My 97 ctd had a cat and it started losing power at about 19k miles, over a period of 2 consecutive weekends/camping trips. I didn't know they were so notorious for plugging cats so I checked the turbo/wastegate/boost couplers first and that was all fine. Then, I cut out the cat and it was about 1/2 blocked. I took care of that and never had a problem again. I sure wouldn't disregard the cat but check everything else, too! Craig

EricArrow

Thanks folks....I've been running bio-diesel the last 5 tank fulls or so...changed the fuel filter after the second...Could this be the issue?

RyeThomas

Bio is known for its super cleaning characteristics, so if this is the first time you have run it or even the first time in a while it can muck up your fuel filter. It's easy to check it, so give it a look.

KKB

My response is to one of the first posts about coking the oil in the turbo, I have heard this many times and my question is--Why don't they make something to shut down due to oil temp and not egt? You could run your engine for one minute and have high egts when you shut down, but your oil would not even be warm. you could also be running for several hours in 100+ degree temps and let it cool down to 300 after a couple of minutes, but I would assume the oil temp is considerably hotter than the first curcumstance I mentioned, so wouldn't the second circumstance be worse for oil coking than the first? Not trying to bash anyone, just thinking out loud here on something I have thought for quite a while.