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A little late to the party

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I know it's a little late but I finally made a 7.3L injector kill box. I've had the main harness connectors stashed away for years but never had the motivation to do anything with them. Every time one of these pigs came through the door missing I wished I'd made it.

The truth is I was raised on the power balance test. I really take for granted how invaluable it is and every time I work on a 7.3 it's like my favorite tool has been taken away. It's really one of the reasons I dread doing 7.3 driveabilty, that and the lack of familiarity.

 

What finally pushed me over the edge was the truck I'm working on now.  225k miles, customer just did injectors, cups, glow plugs and UVC harnesses. The truck starts and runs somewhat okay but fuel smokes pretty badly for the first few minutes of a cold start.  The oil is a few quarts low but it's not in the fuel, it's leaking out of the crankcase breather on the left valvecover.  It puffs out the oil fill cap like a train but I can't get it to register crankcase pressure on the fancy rotunda gauge bar.  The blowby to me is suspicious but the damn injectors are from Pensacola diesel so they can't be ruled good either.  #8 flags on the contribution test every time but that also isn't any useful information. When I started this truck yesterday I thought I'd be looking at an injector issue I wouldn't be able to pinpoint. 

 

So I had a look at the compressor wheel and it's also extremely suspicious as it's quite dusted.  Sold the customer a compression test which I did late today.  #8 is 150 psi, all the rest are between 180-220.  I even double checked it with another gauge because I'm used to seeing high 300s on other diesels. 

 

As for the kill box it's not perfect but should manage okay for what I need right now.  I may extend and flatten the harness to reach in the cab at a later date.  I'd say I've got about $100 in materials in it, about half I paid for myself.  There's over 50 wire splices involved and 48ft of wire just to extend the box out 3 feet from the harness.  I am most concerned about the switches.  They should be up to the task but I don't know for sure yet.  I know the IDM puts out a pretty high voltage but I'm not sure how much. 

 

Also I'd estimate it took about 6 hours to make, I ran out of tape today I'll finish that part up tomorrow. 

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They are rated for household applications and so far so good. Tried it on the truck with low compression today, worked flawlessly.

 

Killing 2 and 5 made the least difference in the way the truck idled.

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The truck is an 01, I pulled up perdels but none of them were up. All zero percent which I thought was odd.

It was either not warmed up, above idle, or had a DTC stopping Perdels.  They can't all be zero.

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Yup they are regular toggle switches that cut power to the injector.

Bruce the truck had a P1212,1211,P1272 and a wastegate performance code. I figured possibly the P1212 had not cleared from when the truck had injectors put in it but otherwise the truck started fine and ICP voltage was reading correctly the whole time I had it. The P1272 #2 high to low side open failed on the KOEO injector self test every time until I plugged in my own IDM, then it cleared and self test was a pass.

It also may have not been warmed up enough when I checked PERDELs. I really can't remember.

Here is the kill box all taped up. The 90 degree connector that goes into the engine harness runs toward the firewall when plugged in to avoid the intake duct and cac hoses.

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