EGT damage

Monster Stroke · Jul 11, 2012

I understand that. I use to follow that rule of thumb. And then I started turning things up more and more and it got to be a pain to try and keep it at or below that. So I slowly started letting it run a little hotter for a little longer... and realized hey! What's all the fuss about? It runs fine at higher temps as long as you use your brain. If it's a continous grade with no relief in sight I back out a little... If it's a pretty good hill but there's a down hill or flat road in sight I just let it go cause I know she'll be fine.

I'm not disscreditting the 1,200 rule. I'm just saying that people use it as saftey blanket and there's actually a lot more room in there than people think. Just trying to open up minds a little bit, not start a war over who's exhaust is hotter lol

littleredstroker · Jul 11, 2012

Monster Stroke said:
I understand that. I use to follow that rule of thumb. And then I started turning things up more and more and it got to be a pain to try and keep it at or below that. So I slowly started letting it run a little hotter for a little longer... and realized hey! What's all the fuss about? It runs fine at higher temps as long as you use your brain. If it's a continous grade with no relief in sight I back out a little... If it's a pretty good hill but there's a down hill or flat road in sight I just let it go cause I know she'll be fine.

I'm not disscreditting the 1,200 rule. I'm just saying that people use it as saftey blanket and there's actually a lot more room in there than people think. Just trying to open up minds a little bit, not start a war over who's exhaust is hotter lol

This kinda contradicts your first reply

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Monster Stroke · Jul 11, 2012

Hows that? I still pull trailers with the pyro pegging over and over again....

fordfreak4life · Jul 11, 2012

Monster Stroke said:
Hows that? I still pull trailers with the pyro pegging over and over again....

Your only proving your ignorance by posting the above statement

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Ad8 PRODIGY · Jul 11, 2012

:whs:

DieselFreak92 · Jul 11, 2012

My one friend has seen 1700 out of this 7.3 before and is 1300+ on a regular basis and it runs like a champ. My other buddy with an 03 6.0 with 190s and a stock turbo sees 1500-2000 regularly and still runs like a champ.

cfdeng7 · Jul 11, 2012

My one friend has seen 1700 out of this 7.3 before and is 1300+ on a regular basis and it runs like a champ. My other buddy with an 03 6.0 with 190s and a stock turbo sees 1500-2000 regularly and still runs like a champ.

Just because they "run like a champ" does not mean there isn't any damage...

DieselFreak92 · Jul 11, 2012

cfdeng7 said:
Just because they "run like a champ" does not mean there isn't any damage...

Very true. I have told them both they are nuts for running those kinds of temps but some people just don't listen.

TyCorr · Jul 11, 2012

I hit 1300 today in a 140extreme tune on a hill a mile long. The truck has a 6"lift, 35x12.5r20 on 12wides, 175/100s, 38r(1.00wg housing), 4" exhaust(no ebpv or housing, full 4"), and a half assed fuel.system. It was hazing a little but otherwise clean. I could have jammed it but it would.have just smoked traffic out. I manually selected 3rd and with the conv locked in the aforementioned tune it was right at 1300°.

I actually did this just for this thread.

Another tidbit:At 70, cruise set, the egts were 700°. Same deal but in 140extreme(race) tune its 850 degrees. Egts at 55 in 80dd tune were 600°. I usually stay right about there anyway. Under 60 for sure. No tickets please!

TARM · Jul 11, 2012

Monster Stroke said:
As soon as my 7.3 is up and running again I'll show you for sure. I go through durango all the time. Hell just pulling a 4 horse stock trailer up the pass and over to Silverton gets her pretty damn hot.

I'm not lifted but running bigger tires. But I'm one of those guys with my foot to floor in just about evey situation. I don't back off when I see it start to jump up. I didn't buy and then build a big ass money pit to pull a f'ing trailer at 55-65 mph

DP tuner actually did some live tuning close to here about 2 years ago but I was all high and mighty with my custom tunes that I already had lol

My truck put down 442 hp with a hole in the passenger side up pipe at elevation, 90 degrees and my smaller 64mm turbo so I didn't really have any reason to try something different...

But for those of you calling bs on the load size I pull, you're wrong. I gross well over 30k all the time. I have a 40' 4 horse all steel living quarters trailer. And I mean that's nothing. Just my 14' tandem axle dump trailer full of gravel tips the scale at 31k... even our 40' flatbed weighs a little over 9k empty

Is your truck a auto or manual trans? Is it built/clutch or stock?

How often have you had to rebuild your rear end and get new rears or have you not had any issues?

Posted By: bigwheel

I have a question about all these ppl pulling these big campers on stock trucks. Most of them don’t have egt gauges but they are foot to the floor going up these passes. I do know an old rancher that has a stock 2000 that pulls a 30 foot horse trailer with 6 horses all over Colorado. The truck has over 300K and never has had a problem. I just wonder how they do it for such a log time.

Because the injectors turbo are all limited by the various systems and tuning. They never see those temps. You can put your foot into all day long and never get the EGT up to stupid levels. They just really limit the fuel, have the turbos set to only so much boost staying very close to 1:1 ratios. Its not until you start to do custom stuff and turn fuel up over what you have air for that you have egt issues. Then if you get your upgrades and tuning inline so EGTS are fine you still have more power than the driveline can handle. Take a look at the size of the axles and driveline setup trans axles etc... for trucks meant to be pulling 30-40K and many only have peak HP of 300-400. It makes our trucks systems look like toys. They are made to handle all that power for long periods of time not just little blasts of a few seconds maybe a few mins but hour and hours.

A stock 7.3 is putting out say 175-200HP at the wheels and what 450-500 FT tq that is half of what even a mildly built engine is putting out.

Monster Stroke · Jul 12, 2012

TARM said:
Is your truck a auto or manual trans? Is it built/clutch or stock?

How often have you had to rebuild your rear end and get new rears or have you not had any issues?

Built Auto. No rear end issues. Still the stock 3.73's

Jason · Jul 12, 2012

While were partly on the topic of drivetrain heat (per Tarm)...ibtoasted a set of u-joints a year or two back. I was pulling a 32' triple axle enclosed car trailer (it was a heavy bastard about 9k lbs empty. My truck is 7600lbs with a 1/4 tank of fuel and me in it. I had a corvette in the trailer, and was headed to Lubbock Texas, and there was a series (probably 10 miles) of real hard pulls...i mean foot through the floorboard to maintain speed, and even then you were losing speed. Anyhow, I blew through there about 70, and was running the truck hard, no egt issues wot in Matt's tow tune, coolant, trans etc all looked good. I get up to Lubbock and drop the car off, start geading home and have a wicked shudder. Limp it back home, drop my driveshaft, and my endcaps are welded to the u-joints. Bearings toasted, just tore all that to hell....in a tune making maybe 275 at the tires?? Everything else stayed clol, but the constant foot to the floor with that weight behind me did take its toll. Just flod for thought, and i have towed much heavier than that on flatter ground with no issues. Ive grossed 32k with a triple axle 32ft gooseneck cow trailer.

TARM · Jul 13, 2012

Yep that is what I am talking about.

I would love to see what Monsters rear end fluid and bearings look like.

The other thing I do not get. For those that run high egts and yet say hey everything is still running fine. No issues. Or Monster as you stated: "I started low and went up more and more but did not see anything bad so I kept on going hotter till I just do not care anymore." What exactly did you expect to see to tell you Ok now I need to back down a bit? The only way you know is after you have burned a hole clean thru your piston and now have dead hole. Its not like you get a rough idle and replace a sensor or burn a o-ring off an injector. You either destroy part of your bottom end or there is nothing. It also is not something that just happens over night. It takes time.

Its much like saying I do not need stronger than stock valve springs even though I am running double the tq and triple the boost and drive pressure. Everything is running fine. But when the blown engine is taken apart there is all kinds of contact marks on the piston faces. Something show up as catastrophic failure up tile then everything seems fine.

Lets tally this all up:

Countless runs of EGTS pegging a 1600 EGT gauge for 10-15 mins at a time. So what the hell lets just say 2000 degrees LOL Constant driving @ over 1200 for hours on end as that is still inside the gauge sweep limits.

Running Gross WELL OVER 30K ALL THE TIME and taking what 6%-10% grades @ 70-85mph with your foot to the floor with a engine putting out 450+HP.

There is only one guy I can think of that might agree with you I will let everyone figure out who in this thread I am speaking of LOL

Maximum Safe EGTs

Strokersace · Jul 13, 2012

Could it be... LVTitan is Monster's older brother?????

golfer · Jul 13, 2012

I'm just going to throw this out there regarding EGT worries.

In our experience, high EGTs (1500-1600+) are not an issue unless the engine is operated at that temperature for 20-30s or more...and even then...it often takes years before the piston finally fractures. I can't count the number of 'stock' engine's that have gone down the track every week or twice a week during the season...for years before there is any sign of a problem...so with the time actually on the track...figure 8-10s of spoolup..another 8-15s on the track...and another couple of sec of coasting/cooldown where temps would still be above 1500...

The pistons don't 'melt' from high EGTs...if you melt a piston (in such a way that it looks like melted wax), you most likely had a leaking injector nozzle that would have been dribbling fuel onto the piston through all 4 strokes of the engine...never allowing the piston to cool off, due to the constant flame in the cylinder. The common rail injectors/nozzles that fail...will typically melt a piston.

The normal piston failure, related to high EGTs, usually manifests itself as a fracture from the piston top to the piston pin...ie...it 'splits' in line with the piston pin. The fracture is not from 'melting' but from thermal expansion and contraction to the aluminum, which work hardens and simply fatigues.

If you go plop a piston into your oven, and turn the oven to a 'cool' 500deg...and leave it in there for 20-30 minutes...the piston will actually swell over fifteen thousandths of an inch.

Piston to bore clearance is usually in the 5.5-7 thousandth range for stock engines...so while the EGT's may be 2-3-4x the heat in that oven experiment...I've never seen a piston swell so much in a performance engine to 'grow' enough to scuff on the cylinder walls...

which means that the piston cooling jets are doing a damn fine job of pulling the heat from (the top of) the piston, and transferring that heat to the engine oil...so...high OIL temps are almost as important as high "EGTs" if you're concerned about piston/cylinder bore life/clearances.

We aren't 'conservative' with regard to EGTs...as in "stay below x degrees" (a peak temperature)...it's the TIME at that temperature which should be monitored more closely than the temp number itself.

the higher the temp...the shorter the engine needs to remain at that temp to live a long/healthy life.

I'm not condoning nor discounting anyone that says "x" degrees is bad...it's just that without a time at x degrees parameter...a lot of folks might be scared into driving around at 172rwhp for the rest of their life, LOL...

Cat_rebel · Jul 13, 2012

So is this bad?

golfer · Jul 13, 2012

not necessarily

Arisley · Jul 13, 2012

Depends on how long it has been like that.

Course you also have to figure in the source of that picture. And coming from Cat, that means your gauge is broken Cat, your truck doesn't have the balls to get that hot.

OSCS · Jul 13, 2012

Cat_rebel said:
So is this bad?

LOL I'm pretty sure he's effin with you guys

TARM · Jul 13, 2012

Golfer,

That was very helpful. So the heat creates surface stress cracks. I have heard many are started at the lip of the bowl hence why so many radius it. Have you found this to be true as well? It makes sense to me as a focus point along with its shape and edge as a point that would heat up very quickly and an area that gets the least benefit from the cooling jets as far as I can figure.

I have always been one to say a bit on the conservative side. I guess seeing pictures of spider cracked pistons or those with full holes thru them got me worried. As many are pegging their EGT gauges going down the track I took a better safe then sorry approach. As it was hard to know how many miles some of these engines had been run this way etc...

But running a engine such as is being stated in this thread. For 10-15 mins @ temps over 1600 degrees at a time and many of these cycles over the hours of each driving trip with constant egts over 1200 degrees. All for 10s of thousands of miles. Would not this kind of use damage pistons rather quickly (as in 10-30K miles driven like this)? This seems like night and day to what you are stating is likely OK or is this kind of use really not that bad?