New to Me 2003 Cummins Running HOT

[briscobones]

So I just picked up a 2003 ram 3500 with the 5.9 Cummins and 6-speed manual.
The owner who did all the performance parts was not the owner I bought it from, which makes things tough.

She runs hot! cruising at 60mph on a flat road it was running 800°F, IN THE DOWNPIPE!
First things first, I am working on getting the EGT probe into the manifold, where it belongs.

I found a boost leak, and fixed it; no real change. So then I loaded in a stock tune file. Now its running 600-700°F at 60mph. It also black smokes constantly, except at idle, but any throttle position it smokes. Even cruising at 60 you can see a light black haze out the pipe.

Known mods:
It had a smarty jr (I put in a stock tune file)
s300sx3 Turbo (p/n: 177283)
3-piece manifold (either has wrong charge pipe, or wrong boots; bad angles which caused the original leak)
Mishimoto 3.5" in/out intercooler
Some type of high flow intake elbow
4" straight piped
FASS Lift Pump

The head appears to have been removed at some point, so I have no clue if anything has been done to it.

Really just looking for a way to keep things cool and safe. Plus I need to haul a 10k trailer through the mountains soon.
I am experienced with GM gas tuning on HP Tuners, but never tuned a diesel. I have built a 12 valve in the past and understand the core concepts.
This is my DD until my GMC gets it's transfer case rebuilt, until the GMC is back together I just need this truck to last. Once I have my other truck back Ill start tearing into the ram lol

TIA

[briscobones]

This morning was the first cold start on the stock tune, noticed a decent amount of white smoke.
That injector timing, isnt it?

[Jim P]

Could be a lot of things but does sound like you got some large injectors installed on the truck

[briscobones]

Could be a lot of things but does sound like you got some large injectors installed on the truck

Thats definitely what I was thinking, and IIRC, only way to tell what size is to pull them.

[Jim P]

Just pulling them won?t tell you anything, you have to sent them in to a shop to get them flow tested, which would at the same time test for potentially bad injectors.

[briscobones]

Just pulling them won?t tell you anything, you have to sent them in to a shop to get them flow tested, which would at the same time test for potentially bad injectors.

Well crap, lol.

There any way to turn them down in the tune without knowing their size?

Edit: Like, until I can get them flow tested; should I reduce PW by 10-20%, maybe add some timing? Fiddle with it until it runs clean and cool?
Once I get my DD back I'll take in the Cummins to get the injectors flow tested. But until then, it is my only vehicle.

[Jim P]

Reducing pulsewidth across the entire table by x amount of percent isn?t how it works. If you look at how companies rate injectors, it?s x amount of percent above stock at x psi of fuel pressure. It?s not linear across the table. White smoke can be a large amount of possible things, injector or injectors sticking open, very large injectors uncompensated for, bad head gasket, bad tuning. You could just have very large injectors in the truck but who knows. If you got something like a bad head gasket or injector or injectors sticking or leaking, no amount of tuning will compensate for that.

[briscobones]

Reducing pulsewidth across the entire table by x amount of percent isn?t how it works. If you look at how companies rate injectors, it?s x amount of percent above stock at x psi of fuel pressure. It?s not linear across the table. White smoke can be a large amount of possible things, injector or injectors sticking open, very large injectors uncompensated for, bad head gasket, bad tuning. You could just have very large injectors in the truck but who knows. If you got something like a bad head gasket or injector or injectors sticking or leaking, no amount of tuning will compensate for that.

I wasnt talking about tuning for injectors, I was talking about testing for big injectors. If pulling out pulse width (and/or pulling out full) clears up white smoke and drops EGTs, that would be an indicator of big injectors. If all that did was lose power and it still white smokes and runs hot, then its probably something else.
Im watching my coolant levels to see if it's consuming coolant, I want to mess with the tune to see if it's bad tuning/big injectors, gonna leak test exhaust and charge side again today.
Im trying to do all the easy stuff first, before tearing into the engine or pulling injectors.

[Jim P]

Whatever floats your boat. This is the point where I bow out.

[BigCE]

Sounds like you have big injectors, more timing at idle will help clean them up. Your main issue is your turbo, that turbo shows as a 68mm turbine which is going to make it very lazy to spool. Not a good turbo for towing. Your going to have to decide what your priority's are for this truck. IMO if you want it to be a daily driver or tow with it often I would sell the turbo and injectors and go back to stock, or something very mild.

We put a stock 6.7 VGT on my buddies 04 Cummins with BD's controller and it made 460/900 to the wheels which was about 50hp more than the stock turbo with stock injectors. Pulls great, has good power and gets good mileage. Maybe an option for you.

[briscobones]

Sounds like you have big injectors, more timing at idle will help clean them up. Your main issue is your turbo, that turbo shows as a 68mm turbine which is going to make it very lazy to spool. Not a good turbo for towing. Your going to have to decide what your priority's are for this truck. IMO if you want it to be a daily driver or tow with it often I would sell the turbo and injectors and go back to stock, or something very mild.

We put a stock 6.7 VGT on my buddies 04 Cummins with BD's controller and it made 460/900 to the wheels which was about 50hp more than the stock turbo with stock injectors. Pulls great, has good power and gets good mileage. Maybe an option for you.

It will be a summer DD and occasional tow rig; towing 14k gooseneck at most.
When I was truck shopping, I saw a lot of compound kits and thought about doing the same. Like one of those add-a-turbo kits, but knowing it has that big 68; might look into an ats 3k/5k kit.
My house is at 5,800ft and the towing Id be doing would take me across some steep rocky mountain passes.

I've got a combustion leak tester ordered and on the way. Just to make sure it's not a head gasket. After that I'll pull an injector and see if there's a part number, if not, I'll send it into a shop and have them all pulled and flow tested.

Once I know all the parts, or replace them with better ones, I'm gonna have a guy write me a csp5 style tune for me. In the meantime, I just added timing at idle and have been playing with adding fuel at low boost to help spool the turbo. I think on the stock tune it was just getting heat-soaked trying to spool. Although it's smokey, it has been making more boost sooner and has had 100-200 degrees lower egt's

[NRunkle]

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