2001 5.4L - JL #6 lower, sct tune, psp cai, flowmaster muffler, 94k miles

history: purchased a few years ago stock. within 1 month, se light, dealer said teflon coating coming off rotors in blower. recommended they replace intercooler and blower. had dealership pay for new ic, cleaned everything, put back orig blower. running fine.

upgrades. ran 1/4 at gainesville, fl. noticed not running as well as other Ls with same upgrades for some reason, not sure why. just shrugged off.

had 2 plugs shoot out of truck since ive owned it, both times the truck was driven a few miles to get it home. smelled of gas.

9-10 months ago, started shifting funny. poor performance at wot. high revs but truck didnt pull. checked tranny fluid levels and they were low. noticed minor dent in tranny oil pan. poor shifting stopped, but still not great performance.

ran a bmw on i295 doing about 150mph for a solid couple minutes, being retarded. got home, at low speeds truck was running super rough. thought i just burnt a plug.

replaced stock plugs with tr6s. 2-3 stock plugs had melted tips. truck still runs like crap. has trouble starting sometimes, will turn over but doesn't start. headlights/instrument cluster flicker when sitting at a red light. exhaust sounds like crap when wot.

also noticed what sounded like glass breaking coming from near the cats. possible poor burning of gas mucking up the cats? i dunno. tempted to just drop it off at dealership, say fix everything, and pull down my pants.

 

Dont take it to the dealer

It sounds like you might have melted the cores or fractured the cores out of the cats - if the cores are turned they could be blocking the exhaust ...

Headlights and cluster flickering sounds like a ground strap issue or low idle.

As far as the other issues - it sounds like you knew you had problems and still decided to beat on it ....

 

Burnt valves maybe

Do a full compression test
Check your codes

#2 on that Don't beat on your motor

 

compression test. i melted 2 plugs on my last L and the tips broke off and bent a valve.

 

yeah, that makes sense.

i'll run a compression test and see what happens.

i hope its just a bad cop or something simple. $$ repairs suck.

 

You take a right by the old Miller farm go about 10 min then left at that split oak tree then drive down that lane sorry I couldn't help my self

 

haha!

 

Did they give you the old IC? No doubt it only needed a cleaning. Did they clean off the rest of the teflon that was supposedly coming off? If so, your internal clearances have increased and your blower is now less effective/efficient.

You need to find a good independent mechanic...

 

The part highlighted in bold is the only useful information, ignore the rest as it is useless drivel.

 

PSP will only be a short drive away very soon for you!

 

So, an update...

Decided to put the factory tune back in thru my SCT flash device, see if the SE light was bypassed in the tune by HP Performance.

Factory tune, cranked, truck starts, then dies. Tried about 3x. Can't get truck to stay running, even with a little throttle, and smells really badly of gas. Once it dies, SE light comes on.

Had to put custom tune back in just so I could drive it to work today. I'll be checking to see which codes its throwing, so stay tuned for that.

But given what info I've got thus far, I'm thinking maybe I melted an o2? The truck should still run on factory tune, I would think. Only upgrade was a 6# lower, which shouldn't matter at idle.

I've noticed if I just barely give it throttle, there's definite lag in response from the truck, feels like something's holding it back almost. Give it more throttle, and it finally responds.

Trying to put the factory airbox back on, hopefully it'll help with intake air temps. That $200 psp cai was a waste, sucking in hot engine bay air, and I wish I could post a picture of the bracket PSP provides to secure the filter assembly. Some cheap, thin metal thing that wobbles. Looks so cheap. I'm sure the wobble wouldn't be too bad if I bought a solid intake plenium, but on the factory tubing its horrible. Anyways... I digress.