226k mile 2500HD 6.0l

[FlyingTexan]

Bought the truck with 224k miles on it. Has 226k now. Spent its previous life delivering gooseneck trailers. 2014 2500HD 6.0l. Has a tick when it starts but once it warms up it runs good. Bought a $23 borescope camera off amazon and dropped it down the oil intake. Looks pretty good. Doing a flush right now with BG EPR. It’s just in my nature. Plan on keeping it forever as a trailer hauler. Bought it for $8600. Running a couple bottles of gumout regane high mileage through it. Hoping it’s just some slightly dirty injectors and a tank with two bottles of gumout will help. Going to have it’s oil changed now even though it only has 2k miles it’s been a year and hoping the flush gets anything else out.

Question: Would putting premium fuel in it help? It sits for months at a time and I’ve just been putting regular gas in it. I picked up a couple jugs of lucas oil “injector cleaner and gas treatment” to start keeping in its tank while it sits.

 

[JavierH19]

Could be an exhaust leak, sometimes they go away once it warms up. As for fuel you're better off running ethanol free as ethanol likes to varnish more and higher octane can help in reducing octane loss over time. I'm still on the original injectors and fuel pump on my 341k 6.0 yukon and I always run 87 and don't care for fuel additives. https://www.pure-gas.org/

 

[ripcord]

Premium is only going to lighten your wallet as your startup tick is not detonation or preignition.

If you buy Top Tier fuel, you can be sure that regular gas has the same amount of cleaning/detergent additives as premium.

 

[Rand]

dont additiveize it to death like some bitog members... GHT pops to mind.

+1 on exhaust leak the 2020 ram would blow stinky you could smell it up front from the exhaust manifold leak.
but after 15-30s it would be quiet.

 

[burbguy82]

Nice find, under the valve cover looks squeaky clean, previous owner must have kept up with it and ran the engine like it should have been, hard. I would eun a bottle of something with PEAcin it and call it good.

Maybe clean the MAF with the right cleaner, and clean off the throttle plate. just a good thing ro do from time to time.

I have had many 6.0s they are great. Still have one today btw.

 

[FlyingTexan]

Nice find, under the valve cover looks squeaky clean, previous owner must have kept up with it and ran the engine like it should have been, hard. I would eun a bottle of something with PEAcin it and call it good.

Maybe clean the MAF with the right cleaner, and clean off the throttle plate. just a good thing ro do from time to time.

I have had many 6.0s they are great. Still have one today btw.

wouldn't the gumout regane with PEA take care of the throttle body?

 

[burbguy82]

wouldn't the gumout regane with PEA take care of the throttle body?

no....no fuel is anywhere near the butterfly

it is not that hard, i usually just get a rag spray it with a bit of carb cleaner, and wipe it out. It has helped in the past with smoothing the idle out.

 

[RoadDukie]

wouldn't the gumout regane with PEA take care of the throttle body?

Negative.

The PEA is delivered via the fuel injectors which is well downstream of the throttle body.

 

[FlyingTexan]

So today went to tow the boat to add fresh gas and it just doesn’t have the power it should. It’s a 6.0l with a 4.10 rear and with maybe 6,000lbs it takes putting the pedal the the floor to ever see 65mph.

Now driving around our Bay Area it purrs along just fine. But I went out and did a 0 to 60 and it was 10.64 sec which looking at an article from 2014 it did 5.9sec new. The inside seems clean, the oil looked good, it idles fine. I can’t seem to find any ethanol free gas where I’m at even though one station was on the list it didn’t have it.

I know it’s older but would a properly maintained motor really lose power? I figured they’d just grenade in time maybe but didn’t expect this level of performance loss. On my reader the FUEL CAT HTR AND EVAP lights are blinking.

I just erased the codes and with it idling I’m now getting P0430 with the same warnings. Temps, oil pressure, everything looks good. It didn’t have these issues a year ago. Shifts very smooth. Just lack of power. It can get the job done as-is since I generally only tow the boat at most about 5miles to get fuel for it. Thoughts?

 

[BC1]

That 158 is a rich code. What were the other 7 codes? The 430 is a cat code.

 

[FlyingTexan]

That 158 is a rich code. What were the other 7 codes? The 430 is a cat code.

They weren't from this they were previous codes from other uses. Different vehicle. I just bought four o2 sensors to replace them all. Hopefully that fixes everything right up.

 

[ripcord]

They weren't from this they were previous codes from other uses. Different vehicle. I just bought four o2 sensors to replace them all. Hopefully that fixes everything right up.

You may have a plugged cat. That would explain your poor performance.

 

[JavierH19]

You may have a plugged cat. That would explain your poor performance.

+1 A 6.0 with 4.10 gears absolutely should not be struggling with a sub 7k load. I towed around the same with my yukon and it could easily cruise at highway speeds.

 

[JavierH19]

Depending on what county in Texas you live in you may not need to pass emissions and can just delete the cat altogether.

 

[FlyingTexan]

Depending on what county in Texas you live in you may not need to pass emissions and can just delete the cat altogether.

It's not in a county that has emissions. What's the process of deleting it? Wouldn't that still mess with the O2 sensors? Do you just pull them and drill them out?

 

[FlyingTexan]

You may have a plugged cat. That would explain your poor performance.

Ok. So what's my remedy there? Anyone to clean them out?

 

[ripcord]

It's not in a county that has emissions. What's the process of deleting it? Wouldn't that still mess with the O2 sensors? Do you just pull them and drill them out?

Unless you don't care about seeing the check engine on permanently, you don't want to do a cat delete.

 

[JavierH19]

It's not in a county that has emissions. What's the process of deleting it? Wouldn't that still mess with the O2 sensors? Do you just pull them and drill them out?

Most just gut the cat and tune the o2. Any competent muffler shop should be able to tune the o2 sensors on an old Chevy.

 

[FlyingTexan]

Unless you don't care about seeing the check engine on permanently, you don't want to do a cat delete.

I'm trying to understand more what it really does. Do they have a useful lifespan and eventually die? You mentioned it being plugged. I just bought 4 O2 sensors to replace tomorrow. What happens when a CAT is plugged? Is the computer taking the O2 differences between the two and using that to calculate fuel to air ratio? Would a failed cat restrict airflow and cause performance issues?

 

[ripcord]

I'm trying to understand more what it really does. Do they have a useful lifespan and eventually die? You mentioned it being plugged. I just bought 4 O2 sensors to replace tomorrow. What happens when a CAT is plugged? Is the computer taking the O2 differences between the two and using that to calculate fuel to air ratio? Would a failed cat restrict airflow and cause performance issues?

Hopefully the O2 sensors fix you up, but I suspect that they won't fix everything. Cats can get gradually plugged up with combustion byproducts over time and don't have an indefinite lifespan. When that happens, the engine (which is basically a big air pump) has to work a lot harder to breath and this hurts power a lot. In a healthy exhaust system, you have less than 1 psi of back pressure at idle, but with a plugged cat it might be 10 psi or more.

On how the O2 signals are used by the ECU, the pre-cat sensors are used to help compute how much fuel to add or subtract. The post-cat sensors are typically used just to check to see if the catalytic converter is working properly. If you delete the cat(s), the secondary O2 sensors will never give values in the correct range so the ECU will throw codes.