Mike, I have been having an occasional problem with my truck starting. It seems to start and the the tach drops off to zero and the truck dies. There is a squeal and sometimes what sounds like a small backfire. I had to drive through some seriously high water a while back, but the starter problems did not begin until the weather got cool. All this leads me to believe that the bendix is corroded or hanging up. The only reason I am bugging you is to double check and eliminate the chip as a possibility. This morning it did it again and I pulled in to a nearby Stop and Rob as the engine died. I started the truck and punched the accelerator a couple of times to see if I could shake the bendix loose and I would swear I went all the way to 6000RPM's without the rev limiter kicking in. Anyway it seemed to solve the problem and the engine came down to a nice normal 800RPM's. I have never seen it get above @ 5400 before and it scared me a little. Anyway, I am pretty sure it is not the chip, I just need your thoughts to help me nail down the culprit.
Thanks,
Rick

 

lilricky2,

How high was the water? You could have contaminated a number of sensors that would cause the symptoms you describe. If you contact Mike T directly by phone he can give you detailed procedures to confirm/eliminate the chip as the problem. Once he has done that let us know and we can try and help you find the problem.

Regards

Jean Marc Chartier

 

JMC, it was during the tropical storm Allison. It was seeping in through the bottom of the door sill deep. I was trying to get to the airport after my Grandmother passed away and desperation had set in. There were riceburners drowned everywhere and in weaving in and out of them I had to ease through water that came easily up to the doors. I have changed fluids but now I seem to have developed this rather unexpected problem. I will try to get in touch with Mike, I need to talk to him about electric fans anyway.
Thanks,
Rick

 

lilricky2,

FYI, I play in the Water and Mud. I never allow the water to rise above the air intake as this will cause major engine damage if water is injested. One thing I have done is disconnect every single connector in the engine compartment and examine for corrosion and then applied dielectric grease to the contacts and reconnected them.

Regards

Jean Marc Chartier

 

Hi Rick,

No, I don't see this having anything to do with the chip.

I also very seriously doubt that your engine has ever turned anything like 6000 rpm in it's life, as both of your rev limiters are *well* below that mark, the Superchip always retains the rev limiters to protect the engine.

Unless the water damaged the crankshaft position sensor or something else that somehow makes the PCM think the engine isn't turning as many rpms as it really is (which I've *never* seen happen & would also result in other obvious symptoms), your engine can't ever turn 6000 rpm, as that is well above your rev limiters.

You've had an obvious high water event & the culprit lies elsewhere. The water may have gotten into a harness sheathing, into various connectors, etc., as JMC mentioned.

By the way, under no load, like when you're in Neutral, Park, or have a clutch pressed in, your engine is protected not only by the absolute rev linmiter, but also by an even lower no-load rev limiter, which is usually not more than about 4500 rpm or so. Sounds to me like you were just revving it up multiples times & you just made the tach needle bounce getting on & off the gas pedal like that when you were revving the motor. It's easy to make the tach needle bounce to a much higher reading.

Instead of revving it up like that, if this continues I'd take it in for service to have it properly diagnosed & repaired.

Good luck!

 

Thanks Mike, JMC, I'll go through and inspect the wiring. Sounds like a good Saturday morning job. I enjoy tinkering with the truck. Mike, I discussed your electric fan system with the young woman on the phone yesterday(I'm sorry but I can't remember what she said her name was) and I told her that ultimately I would like to install a Procharger. She said she would have someone let me know if your setup could be used as pushers. I wached the episode of Trucks this past Saturday and the ductwork is run through the stock fan shroud. The ATI guys in the supercharger forum said they run pushers with no problems. I would like to go ahead and get the fans installed, I just don't want to have to do it twice.
Rick

 

Rick,

I have the kit that Mike sells on my truck. They can be made to push by reversing the wires on the fan motor.

JMC

 

Hi Rick,

Thanks for calling & sorry I missed your call!

I have returned your calls, but I think we're playing some phone tag right now between our respective schedules. This week has me busier than usual as I've had some appointments & it's been a bit hectic getting ready to get down to Florida this Saturday for our 2003 Lightning R&D sessions, my apologies!

Yes, our fans are indeed fully reversible as JMC kindly mentioned, and unlike many other units, you will not loose any of their cfm flow capacity, the fans will move the same amount of air turning in either direction. This kit can be installed to work like that, and that probably will need to be done due to ATI's routing of the intercooler tubes.

Hopefully we'll get a chance to go over this in a bit more detail when we can finally talk to each other over the phone!

Talk to you soon,