Duramax help

Oley55

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Need some help. A few days ago my 13’ duramax dropped a service emission code and was counting down to limp. Dealer wants $1100 for nox sensor. Today I let it run for an hour and the message cleared. Few hours later I started it again and emision message was back. Let run for an hour and it cleared again. Not sure what to think. Im a relatively new diesel owner so any help is appreciated.
I tow tandem a lot debating on just getting it tuned as well.
 


watson

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Had a problem like that on mine and it ended up being an injector wiring harness. All the stealerships told me it was injectors, fuel rail, sensors etc etc and needing big $. Took it to the local repair shop and he knew exactly what the issue was and total bill was under $500. He said the harnesses really acts up as the weather gets cold. It's worth asking about anyway
 

LBrandt

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Most parts stores will run a code reader for free. Just an idea.
 

Velva_zv21

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If it was me and I didn't need it for towing rite now I would continue to drive it around town and only in town and see what happens, maybe the light goes out and stays that way or it comes on and you have to limp it home. Either way you have some time to figure out what's going on before cabin fever season is over. Depending on how many miles are on it now and how long you want to keep the truck I'd get it deleted if your goin to keep for awhile, the sooner the better.... as far as delete options and programs I'd go with "Efi live " for your year of truck for programmer with the dsp5 switch. Really you have allot of options to choose from though. At least yours will be cheap to delete. My 19 duramax will cost me rite now around 7 grand to delete if I did it. And I would go with calibrated power tunes for ECM and TCM . He has allot of you tube videos that are full of really good info and he knows his stuff.... I'd recommend mbrp exhaust cause I've ran ther exhaust before on my old diesel and never had a problem with it.... good luck, do some research, and keep me posted
 

Oley55

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Thanks Velva! I talked to a Protech in minot Friday he’s going to send me some options for a delete/turner/exhaust.. EFI live seems to be a popular programmer my buddy recommended the same. Might be the best option I’ve gone through 2 DEF heaters and now this.

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Most parts stores will run a code reader for free. Just an idea.

The dealer ran it for me said NOX sensor. I’m just surprised it sets and clears.
Thought I still had warranty remaining otherwise would have skipped dealer.
 


eyexer

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Thanks Velva! I talked to a Protech in minot Friday he’s going to send me some options for a delete/turner/exhaust.. EFI live seems to be a popular programmer my buddy recommended the same. Might be the best option I’ve gone through 2 DEF heaters and now this.

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The dealer ran it for me said NOX sensor. I’m just surprised it sets and clears.
Thought I still had warranty remaining otherwise would have skipped dealer.
the wire to the sensor is probably bad. could be rubbing on and off on something. you could change it in ten minutes I'd guess. Probably get online and start looking for one.
 

Rizzo

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Thing is with nox sensors is the exhaust temp has to typically get above 300 degrees and the doser pump has to turn on before they start giving a reading. If it's really cold and the def in the tank and lines aren't thawed you will have a fault for high nox output. Extended idle in this condition doesn't help the problem either. You have an inlet nox sensor which is post turbo before the doc and outlet nox sensor which is after the scr catalyst. With the absence of def being dosed into the scr catalyst it won't see a reduction in nox and turn on the light. A poor grade of def can also cause the same issue. Nox sensors are a smart sensor and are very expensive, if the sensor module fails the engine ecm will recognize this and it is very cut and dry what the failure is at that point. If the fault has to do with a nox reading it is most likely related to the scr system not functioning correctly. As I said with the cold temps we have been having it wouldn't surprise me if you have a frozen line or tank. If you can park it inside a heated garage overnight that would eliminate that as a possible issue.
 

Oley55

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Thanks for the help all. I Skipped the repair and let it warm up to above 0 and no more emision warning.
 

buckhunter24_7

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Exhaust/delete kit, efi live = probably one of the best trucks ever built and I'm a Ford guy. I don't know of anyone that didn't have problems with the emissions stuff.
 

BRK

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EFI Live is one of the best and Rizzo nailed it. These types of temps and DEF don't mix and driving it around town isn't the answer. These things were meant to pull. The harder you work it, the cleaner the EGR, DPF, and turbo will stay...
 


Skeeter

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EFI live and dps5 switch is the ticket. I did egr and dpf delete with turbo back 4 inch straight pipe. Once you install efi live you have no safety parameters in your engine. I use an edge insight cts2 to monitor my engine. Boost and egt’s can Be your worst enemy if you dont use your head and monitor them. I can hit 1200 degrees in a few seconds if I’m not careful. My fuel mileage increased and the power increase is substantially noticeable. I pull on setting one and daily drive on setting 3 seems to work the best for my LMM.
 

BRK

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I had the Insight CTS 2 in my Cummins prior to selling. It wasn't even deleted but I loved what that thing told me about the engine, pretty phenomenal piece of electronics. If you're going to spend the money on full deletes and tunes you may as well do head studs as well.
 

SDMF

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Question for the "Delete" folks. Let's say I decide to delete my '11 6.7L Ford. Can I have a tune that essentially safely duplicates what the engine is currently doing? It's not that I couldn't or wouldn't monitor something like an Insight, but, I wouldn't want to HAVE TO monitor constantly. Over the course of the 140K Mi I haven't ever felt like I needed more HP/TQ, of course I've never towed more than about 8K-9K # and not very often. My 4K # boat/motor/trailer is the heaviest thing I normally tow.

What I'd want out of a tuner/delete is reduced complexity with a secondary benefit perhaps being enhanced reliability/longevity, with roughly the same performance. Doable or is it a situation where I'm fixing something that's not broken?
 

Velva_zv21

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^^^^^ you sure can.... its called a stock tune and if you want more power just turn a dial or reprogram your truck if you can't do it on the fly..... as far as the monitor goes it just suction cups to your windshield or you can get a pillar mount for it.... if you don't want to look at it you can take it down and throw it in center console... but for me the 3 most important things you want to look at is boost, egts and fuel pressure.

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For the LML guys for a stock motor with a programmer you don't want to see egt's higher than 1900, if you hit 2,000 your melting stuff and for boost is 45lbs, higher than that your motor will be trying to donate parts to the highway lol
 

BRK

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Agree with Velva.... I liked the fuel rail pressure during the winter months, especially the beginning of winter if cold weather snuck up on me and I hadn't transitioned to #1 yet. The turbo is cool to monitor and I noticed mine was nearly shut down during a REGEN, but EGTs was the most important for me. What I learned even with a stock truck is when the truck was doing a REGEN on the DPF at highway speed I would consistently stay well over 1100 EGTs and if I remember up to 1350 EGTs, it's been a couple years tho. My RAM it had built in sensors before and after the DPF, plus one more somewhere so it wasn't necessary to mount a probe unless I wanted to know what the EGT was coming straight off the manifold.
 


Captain Ahab

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Too bad diesels had to become so complicated. If I got one, a delete would sound very appealing.
 

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