hey guys, my truck is having another issue now. i had changed the catalytic converter a few weeks ago, and had added fuel injector cleaner about the same time. anyway, it has gotten about 180 miles on a 35 gallon tank of fuel for the last 2 tanks (i dont drive the truck much anymore because of this). also when it sits for longer than a few hours, it spits some black crap out of the exhaust on to the ground. it doesn't look like oil splatters too much, its almost like flakes of black junk...i'll try to get a picture soon. i was wondering if this could be carbon or anything from the fuel injector cleaner, since the truck has 158,000 miles, but its been doing it for like 3 weeks now, seems like a long time?

i looked underneath, it doesn't look like its leaking fuel while its running, but it has an odd smell, almost like raw fuel and exhaust combined. remember is a brand new magnaflow that i had just put on, and correctly.

the check engine light has been on since i got the car.

also, it runs fine, doesn't feel like theres a problem while driving. as soon as i come to idle for a moment or two i start getting that smell though.

thanks for any help/thoughts guys!

 

Running really rich. You could have bad injectors or the computer is sending a wrong signal to them. Faulty O2 sensors are known to cause some performance issues also, but I don't think that bad. A pic of the mysterious flakes might help.

 

You say you dont run it much anymore cause of the fuel so the smell could be the "new" wearing off of the cat. Did you have a scan done? Go to any of your local auto stores and they can run the codes for you.

 

i agree with greenmachine. you will get a new burn smell from the cat but that usually goes away after a couple of days. You really should get that code pulled so you can troubleshoot.

 

Yeah, get the codes ran. Possibly the "flakes" and crap coming out of your pipe might have plugged up the O2 sensors. There is also the possibility that one of the sensors didn't get hooked back up correctly......

 

my old 93 jimmy did that.. ran rough.. blew out black chunks and smoked and stunk.. turned out to be a blown head gasket.. might wanna get that checked with that many miles

 

new syptom... when its warmed up, it'll put out some black smoke at slightly off-idle....man this sucks

 

well the black smoke means its burning too ritch did you check out your o2 sencers?

just so you know:
black smoke =burning too ritch
blue smoke=burning oil
white smoke=burinin coolent

 

im 99.9 percent sure its a head gasket. blew out black chunks on the ground (carbon).. whole inside of the tailpipe is black.. smoked at idle and going down the road.. but does yours have a funky smell to it?? or did it run alittle rough at idle but fine when giving it gas?? my old truck did that and i changed out the fuel filter.. new cat.. o2 sensor.. injector cleaner.. carberater cleaner.. EVERYTHING! but it turned out to be a blown head gasket.. i guess made oil leak into it.

 

damn... 20dodgeram01, it is exactly like that. everything you said. it is just slightly rough at idle, but seems fine otherwise. can i ask you how much it cost to get that fixed?

do you guys think that running with the cat clogged up for a about a week could have killed the head gasket? it still idled just a bit rough when i got the truck, but it seems a tad bit worse since the cat situation. and thats when it started killing gas.

thanks again to everyone that responded, i appreciate the info and your time.