Hey Everyone!

First off I just wanted to say I’m new to this site as a member but i have been a viewer for years. It has been an awesome resource. Thanks to everyone for posting.

Ok now down to business. . . .

I am a mechanically inclined person but i want to make sure and cover all of my bases before I take it to the crazy dealers.

My truck has the "600" series diesel, when i bought the truck it was rock stock, with the exception of the 5" exhaust. (Which they put on a brand new OEM catalytic converter the day after I got it because my state required it) and at the time either I didn't notice it or didn't care because I was in the new truck love mode. But the truck puts out what I would call an excessive amount of black smoke. not in the sense of huge amounts at once (before boost) but more of it will put out a black haze when I am (conservatively I.E- Less than 20% throttle) driving up even a small incline. Even after cleaning it I will have a black ring out my exhaust and caked on my lower bumper, there will even by black spots of diesel on my tailgate within a couple days. When I wash my truck with a power sprayer I will shoot water up the tail pipe and the backwash comes out black as night.

It is starting to get frustrating because I know its fuel just being dumped out of my tail pipe (say good-bye hard earned money!) and whenever I tow anything the side of the trailer will have diesel all down the side of it by the time I get where I’m going. Not as "cool" as you would think.

After I bought the truck I lifted it myself and this just exaggerated the problem, I then bought the edge chip and when I put that one it actually decreased it a bit when I put the low boost fuel adjust to 1 (Which makes me wonder if i dont have conflicting software). I rarely run it outside of "mileage" mode.

I went through and knocked out all of the small things first. I checked and actually ended up swapping the air filter to a high flow so I know it is getting enough air. I then went through and re-did the valve timing thinking there might have been an intake valve out of whack. I have ran a full bottle of PS injector cleaner at double strength through it plus about a bottle and have of PS additive. I even went as far as cutting my gas 10:1 with K1 Kerosene to really clean out the injector, and to be honest it all helped but it is still smoking more than I want.

The only two things left that I can come up with is A: a leaky/malfunctioning injector(s) or B: the computer is being told to dump more fuel from somewhere that I haven’t figured out yet (possibly a ECM flash? If you even can on these trucks). I just wanted to get any ideas anyone might have before i take it in to the dealer to run there diagnostics (cylinder isolation test and software tests) and get reamed! (I'm not a huge dealership fan if you haven’t noticed ). Thanks!

 

First of all, the dealer should be your last resort on anything Cummins related. Try calling around to the Cummins approved dealers in your area, to try to find one who works on the "B" series motor, some shops won't touch them.
A simple tailpipe extension may solve the soot problem all over the truck and trailer.
I know of a very good shop in Denver, if you're close to there.
Now I'm going to suggest something that I know I'll get flamed for. Do some research on the HHO generators. They are supposed to clean up the exhaust immensely, whle improving mileage by assuring a complete burn of the fuel. I'm in the process of getting one to try myself. Beware, there are a lot of "snake oil salesman" in this area. PM me if you want to know what I found out.

 

If you get to a cummins dealer have them check your program for the engine computer , they can tell by hooking up to the engine with there lab top.
if it has been changed, for more horse power, how is the fuel milage on the truck.

 

Im not really looking for a tailpipe extension, I'm more looking to fix the problem not hide it ya know? As far as the HHO generators thats a possiblitity. Before i bought this truck i had a 97' Ram 1500 with the 5.2 gasser. I had a homemade HHO on that and it actually worked out really well. . . The main problem i ran into was stopping the water from freezing in the winter. I'll look into that thanks!!

 

I was figuring that was a possiblity. . . my hand calculated mileage is about 11! but the truck computer is reading it at around 17.8, so there are some definate computer conflicts.

 

You said you bought this truck used, right?

My first guess is that it has some kind of tuning on. An '03 common rail will barely let out a puff, even from a dead stop, if it has stock tuning.

If it's blackening the side of the truck, it's tuned. If it was a stuck / malfunctioning injector, you'd be seeing white smoke.

Your best bet is to take it to the dealer, have them hook the DRBIII to it and check to see if it's running stock tuning. If not, have them flash it back to stock and it should take care of your problem.

Now, my next question is this...how do you drive it everyday? Is it a daily driver / commuter / grocery getter or does it spend it's time hooked to a trailer?

Here's why I ask. You can dump all the PS / Stanadyne / Amsoil injector cleaner in that thing you want and it won't do squat if you don't get the EGT's and boost numbers up high enough for an extended period to burn the buildup carbon off the exhaust valves and turbine vanes.

What I suggest is this (after you get it flashed to stock). Go to Home Depot and rent the trailer that has the backhoe on it. Tell them to lock it up, you don't want to drive the backhoe and that you just want to tow it for a few hours. They'll look at ya funny, but screw 'em.

Now, take that trailer and DRIVE THE NUTS OFF THE TRUCK. Lotsa hills, lotsa boost, lotsa EGT's. Let it clean that crap out.

I GUARANTEE the truck will run 100% better.

 

Yes i bought the truck used. It is for the most part a daily driver, except just about every (to every other) weekend during the summer i hook it up to my 26ft toy hauler and throw 2 quads and 2 dirtbikes then drag that up to the sand dunes. Its a 75 mile trip both ways through the mountains so my truck gets a fairly good workout.

As far as the computer goes, I called up Cutrubus Auto (which is the closest "authorized" dodge dealer near me) and the service tech there told me that there is no way that he can see if it has aftermarket tuning on the truck but he could flash it back to stock and it "might" fix the problem but i have to take off my Edge and not use it anymore. And he wants to charge me $80. Does this sound odd to anyone else?

 

If the "tech" can't tell it's been tuned, he ain't worth a crap. When he hooks the DRBIII up to it, it's gonna say which flash version is on the truck. If it's not factory software, the DRBIII won't recognize it.

It's not gonna come up on the screen like, "Danger, Will Robinson! DANGER!", but the signs are there. Actually sometimes it will come up as unrecognized software.

Hell, all he has to do is look for the last time it was flashed. He can see how long ago it was done, how many miles it's been since, etc.

He can also look at max speeds, max boost pressures, max RPM, duty cycles, % of time at certain load percentages, etc.

The signs are there, he just has to know what he's looking for.

 

Ok so in other words its probley worth my time to find someone else to do the job right?

And second i know this is kind of a newbie question but. . . With my Edge w/attitude i will take it off before i go get in flashed (I know how they love to blame everything on them) But as soon as it is done if I reinstall the system is that going to be defeating the purpose? I know its a piggy back system but Im not sure if it is purely fly-by-wire (ran completely from the edge box) or if it downloads information into the on-board?

If needs be i can just sell it and add mechanical guages (much more accurate anyways) but if it will have some benefit i would like to keep it (especially because i've only bought it three months ago).

 

Even though the Edge is a stand alone module, it still leaves a few tell tale signs that it's there.

1 - It occassionally sets a soft code for Invalid SKM Key. This is a pretty common one on stand alone modules.

2 - The biggest give away is the load % on the DBR or StarScan. When I have my Edge running, part of the fooling it does is tell the ECM that engine is under less load than it really is. According to ECM, my truck has never seen more than 60% load or throttle.
3 - There needs to be a spot drilled and tapped for the EGT probe. Can't really hide that.