Duramax 01-05 Fluidampr

[THEFERMANATOR]

I'm looking to do the balancer on my burb here in the next couple of weeks, so I figured I'd start by seeing if you could get me one. Wasn't sure since I know you deal in the 6.2/6.5, and didn't know if they would jack the price up on a one off order. They list it as 890101 on there diesel fitment chart. And also if you could check the price for me on the bolt and washer, 300010. It will be after Christmas before I do anything unless theres a price increase coming, then I can swing it earlier(just don't like cutting things close if I don't have to).

 

[Pepperidge]

just curious...why not the aTi balancer?

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

I'm not spinning high RPM's, rapid acceleration, or big power, so I think the fluidampr would serve me better. And iirc the ati is a press fit that is very tight while the fluidampr is just a snug fit, so it would be easier going on, and easier to get off later if needs be. And I see Wagler recently switched to fluidampr for there builds, so if it's good enough for them, I'm sure it will more than do what I'm after. Then of course there's the ati costs more.

 

[Will L.]

You going to do the extra pin? That seemed to me a big issue for many...
that and a super-mega-ultra no dirt, no water in the fuel seems to be the biggest weak points for that dmax.

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

Extra pin? Are you talking about keying the crank? If so that requires a machine shop. As to fuel filtration, I'm fine there. Many thought lack of fuel filtration killed the lb7 injectors, but they were still dieing with 1 micron filters.

 

[Will L.]

No, the Empire pin kit of guide, drillbit, and pin.

You remove fan, shroud, and balancer bolt. install the guide and drill a hole halfway in crankshaft and halfway in balancer, then install pin & reassemble.
Many use it after the factory pin shears, but best is to do it before, so you have both pins taking load instead of just the one. many will Cut larger keyway while it’s already out during a rebuild, But adding 2nd pin is stronger than single keyway.

I didn’t know the 1 micron “fix” and better water separator didn’t help it. A couple friends and cousins that all run them and thats what they bank on- afaik of those 5 guys, their luck is holding out. Of course now that I mention this- laws of quantum entanglement jinx theory says the instant I typed this, 5 injectors-1 in each engine just went toasty- haha. Seriously though, that sux to hear it isn’t the magic bullet. What seems to be expected lifespan from a factory set?

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

Injectors are a crap shoot on any of them. VCO's seem to lose nozzles now with fairly low miles on the latest upgrades. The verdict is still out on the SAC's, they just havent been out long enough yet for any long term results. LB7's up to 08/09 were losing ball seats left and right, but the late 08 update pretty well took care of that, and they went back to VCO nozzle related failure. 04.5+ came stock with SAC nozzles, and they were never really an issue, BUT high return rates from ball seat wear and I believe nozzle to pintle wear also became an issue on them(but dribbling nozzles leaking to the combustion chamber haven't been a big issue on them). Many felt GM's using an 8 micron filter when Bosch speced a 3 was the problem, but just as many injectors have failed with the smaller micron filters as did with the old 8 micron's(mine included, they had just over 70K miles, had always been run with the racor style dual element filters, but the nozzles still started hanging open dribbling). Theres just no proveable pattern as there is farm trucks with over 200K miles, still running the factory sticks, and not a problem one after years of abuse and neglect running dirty diesel.

 

[Will L.]

We dont see much of the problem here, we saw over 250,000 miles in every one of our fleet dmax we had except 1. And that truck traveled up to Utah twice a week. We figured it was a driver error of feeding it gas then draining it to cover up, honestly. Here we have never have water in fuel, and no humidity to build it up in the tanks. I have read of people loosing injectors shortly after water issues, maybe something to that?
Wild guess on my part really.

I know when we first started peanut oil to fuel it reaked havoc on Diesels of all kinds- and almost nothing we could do to get rid of water once it was mixed in. Local fuel company running the test had to pay couple Million for engine swaps on city busses alone. Biggest case of water damage I ever saw.

I haven’t heard of cases of balancer issue on anyone that has 2 pins. Have you?

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

Personnally I've only heard of a couple of balancer pins breaking. I've heard of far more oil pumps spinning on the crank, or cam gears coming loose than I have balancer pins.

As to injectors, do a google search for p0087 and duramax. Almost all of those trucks have injector issues, they just don't want to believeit because the truck still runs good. The problem with 04.5+ trucks is excess fuel return while operating. They don't have the classic issues so much of injector knock, hazing at idle, or smoke. They get the p0087 under load, extended crank time when hot, or just won't start is the more common issues I encountered or read about. Lml's with piezo injectors and cp4's will grenade with just trace amounts of water getting into the system. Or cp4's just go out for the heck of it. I know I checked an lbz that hadperfect balance rated, always started great, no smoke/haze, but everytime he towed in high temps, he would get a p0087. I even ran his balance rates, corrected them, and also ran them with it ramped to 160, and it passed all the tests until he ran an enhanced return rate test, then he found 5 bad injectors. He probably would have never noticed had we not tuned it(small tunes mind you, nothing hot, but just enough to give it some more grunt to help it hold in gear). So many bad injectors go un-noticed simply because the conditions to show the problems aren't met.

 

[Will L.]

Ok, that makes sense.

And to be fair, in the fleet those trucks ran non stop. If the driver didnt say “hey look at this” we didn’t. We never got in thr driver seat during servicea the driver sat there in it while over the pit over 90% of the time and would tell us the mileage and hand over keys for safety, then we all jumped under the hood and under the truck at same time to fo a “Nascar pitstop” style complete service. So check engine could be on and we couldn’t see it. And diesel smog laws were still being played heavily here until 04 iirc, so smog and a cel light wasn’t an issue until around the time I left there.