I just got done last week with installing my new intake, new injectors, new timing chain and some other stuff like a new water pump, TB, oil pump, oil sending unit, Pulstar plugs and a new IAC. She was running great- perfect idle this morning and on two trips- there were no problems. I took it out for a long ride today and noted no power going uphill or, lack of I should say and it felt like it was bogging down. Then, I get home- rough idle again. This is the same exact symptom I had before when I had a blown plenum.

This is driving me nuts to say the least man. I am F-ing pissed. All that work and it was fine. All of a sudden she's running like **** again.

I am going to rip the Pulstar plugs out and put the NGKs back in and retest.

I also replaced the TPS sensor, MAP sensor etc. What would be the root cause or causes for rough idle and lack of power? Truck is a 96 Dodge Ram 1500 non EGR Canadian made model w/ 5.2 Y series engine.

 

The first thing that I am going to check is all the o-rings on the injectors for damage. I did end up damaging two prior so, there may be more. I also noted rust in the fuel rails prior to assembly and made a decent effort to clean that out. I am going to check each injector for rust on the inlets along with replacing all the old vac lines and check valves. They have never been replaced.

The other thing that I have never replaced is the purge solenoid. I beleve that is what sits on the rear of the drivers side valve cover. It has two vac lines and an electrical connector on it. The hoses go to the purge canister under the frame.

But, I don't know if that affects the way it runs or not. I wouldn't think it would but, I may be wrong.

 

Sounds like it may be a clogged CAT someone told me. Going to be shopping for a new CAT, muffler, headers and all new pipe.

 

Root cause is clogged fuel injectors. After removing the CAT and running it wide open- there was no change. After plugging all the intake vac lines there was no change. Changed plugs back to NGK from Pulstars- there was no change.
Removed fuel rails and injectors and performed 100% inspection on half the set so far.
One had a damaged o-ring due to improper installation and removing too many times.
All four had debris in them.
The fuel rails are loaded with particulates- large and small.

Summary: Due to high amounts of contaminants in fuel supply lines, the injectors are clogged.

Action items:

1. Buy new fuel rails- Al or SS
2. Determine whether or not the fuel injectors can be cleaned.
3. Flush the feed supply line as well and check for debris.
4. If debris is found- look into an external filter assy as the OEM pump filter may not suffice.

I knew this was going to be an issue from the start and should have thrown the damn things in the trash two weeks ago when I had seen tons of rust drop out of the fuel rail at time of assembling my Hughes FI on the bench. I went through a serious flush and there's still tons of debris coming out. They are shot.

I will update the results of this whole ordeal once I get everything in and retest this week.

 

I was curious to know if you had been running the Pulstars since you took care of the fuel injection problem? Want to know if they live up to the claims considering the cost.

Thanks.

 

The Pulstars are very nice plugs. The company is also quite amazing. I had a problem that I thought was relating to their plugs working with MSD ignition systems. They sent me another set immediately. Now, that's outstanding service and, the technical support was also very impressive.

While I don't have any hard data all I can say is that I have been testing them out for two to three months on and off and during that time, I and others have noted a very noticeable difference in throttle response and super smooth idle characteristics.

I just bought a new set of NGK V-powers and ran these tonight. These were the baseline plugs that I have run for years. It feels solid but, it's not the same. There's something about those plugs that I can't quite put words together other than they feel quite different at mid to high rpms and, this feel is preferred over stock resistor type of plugs.

I had also ran Autolites on the same run. All three plugs faired well and felt good but, I do like the Pulstar plugs the best so far. I haven't mapped out the amount of miles vs. NGKs so, I can't really comment on which one yields better gas mileage but, I can definitely tell there's a lag or lack of performance with the NGKs.

The only thing I hate about these plugs is the smooth insulator. This creates a big issue when running certain types of cables and I will tell you what that is.

There's a reason why most plugs are ribbed at the insulator and one is to aid in cooling and the other is to prevent the boot from bonding to it.

Why does this occur? Due to silica in the boot and silica in the insulator, under heat and constant pressure, the boot bonds to the insulator. This makes it nearly impossible to remove the boot.

The even bigger issue I have with this design has to do with air becoming entrapped in the boot. Now we have trapped air in the boot that needs to be vented out. Why? This trapped air must be vented out of the boot as when it heats up, it can pressurize the boot and cause it to eject off the plug thus resulting in misfires. Then, the end user wonders why sometimes it runs fine and sometimes it misses. This is also another reason why ribbed insulators are used.

I just bought wires that have huge, thick Si boots and, it's a real problem. Even installing them is very difficult without using silicone or dielectric grease. If I were using Taylor wires, it would be a non-issue. The only cure was to order another set of hi quality wires that use a different boot design to prevent that from happening.

The other thing that I dislike is the fact that these plugs are very fragile. If you drop it or bang it- it's ruined.

It is my opinion that they need to change a few things at the design level as well as reducing the cost by at least 75% to really catch on.

 

Thanks for the thoroughness of your answer. I always enjoy the attention to detail in your posts.

 

I have never heard the ribs in a spark plug explained quite that way. Does this mean that you can actually create problems by putting something like dielectric grease on the insulator before installing the plug? (you know, to keep the water out )

 

It depends on the type of plug insulator, the amount of dielectric applied and, the type of dielectric. The reason that many apply that material is not really to keep water or moisture out but, it's merely applied to facilitate boot removal.

It's used to solve a problem in fact and, what the real issue is, is a chemical-bonding action at the plug to boot interface. In any mating of two substrates or mediums, there's always a chance of bonding together such as in the case of using silicone in the boots. It's a chemical interaction that occurs under certain conditions. One factor is heat and the other is pressure. This I just found out last week in fact after speaking to an engineer at a well known cable manufacturing company. I did not know this prior either and, I also learned some other fascinating information regarding plug wires.

The other issue I learned about involves the boot thickness and material type. Many make the ends out of silicone or some mix of it at the very least. The greater the amount of silicone in the boot the more it absorbs heat and, the thicker the boot, the more it retains heat vs. dissipating it as it was intended to do to prevent thermal loading at the plug.

This is another issue that can have a negative outcome on the performance of the vehicle. It may cause the plug to run too hot thus creating a premature detonation or misfire condition. This condition becomes more apparent under heavy loading and uphill conditions in hot environments.

Then we have dielectrics in all forms and makes. Everyone is on that bandwagon selling the consumer their product and, along comes something that is intended to prevent problems when, it can create more issues.

First off, there's so many out there that do squat. It's all BS. Then, you have others that have more silicone in it and so on. The issue is that with those comes lubrication. If you have lubrication in the boot, you may have a boot that may "ride up" on the plug. Place too much inside and try putting it on. It makes one hell of an air tight seal that again, we now have trapped air inside the plug. This is exactly opposite of what the ribs were designed to prevent from happening- trapping air and having it expand and cause the boot to ride up thus leading to potential for an open connection.

The other is heat. More silicone means more heat that can't dissipate thus leading to a hotter plug, no ventilation, and high probability for misfires.

Plug wires are another sales and marketing fiasco with all this spiro wound and super low ohm type of plug wires. More than not, all of those wires are poor at suppressing EMI. What you end up with is a huge corona effect thus radiating around all the EFI components and ECU harnesses. It's not good at all for FI vehicles. But, if you go to the trade shows, MSD has this huge, good looking booth with their wires claiming this and that and the other thing when in fact, their wires are nothing short of the same old wire being manufactured by one company and rebranded by everyone and their brothers uncle.

It's a racket because, those wires are complete junk and, they sell millions of those things. First off, the ends are not superior in any way. If you take them apart and closely examine the cross section of their end design and note the terminal style and crimp method, it's not very good at all and, under certain conditions, those ends are susceptible to bending, distorting thus losing contact at the plug interface.

The worst part of their design is the method in which they crimp the wire into the terminal. It's sandwiched in between two folds vs. being crimped underneath. It is a cheap, fast way of crimping to cut costs.

The ends also have a spring type of terminal style. This leads to bending, twisting and distorting out of shape. IT's not solid like other designs are.

I have had the ends splay out when trying to remove them and, speaking of removing them, MSD uses these overly huge boots that look cool but, the only thing that they are doing is trapping more heat.

In my opinion, this is the exact opposite of what you want in a plug wire.

Now, Taylor wire had the right idea with their plugs that have no boot. That's the way to go to prevent all those issues and, it's easy on / easy off just like the old style of wires that worked however, they too are using the same darn type of spiro-wound coil wire that is susceptible to EMI and RFI that I was talking about before.

Now, onto carbon wires. A good quality carbon wire is still a great value and, it works on EFI vehicles. Good quality though- not the 30 dollar sets but, something that has good EMI characteristics, good insulator on the cable and high dielectric breakdown properties of the insulator. They just work as was intended.

The problem with them is that over time, the material breaks down. When it breaks down, it causes misfires and causes the vehicle to run poorly.

I have ordered some plug wires using higher quality materials along with new design principles to achieve a longer lasting wire set that does not break down and has superior EMI / RFI properties that can be used with EFI vehicles. I hope to see that hit this week. After testing, I will let you know what I think of them.

CM

 

Your welcome and, thank you for the compliment. Much appreciated.