Tow rig setup

Swaan · Aug 16, 2016

38r is a 66mm turbo , its telling you something if its surging. Dont pull hard under 1800.
When i had a 66mm turbo i had to do all my pulling above 2000 to keep egts in check.
Drop a gear and get a little more rpm and all will be fine . You need rpm to get the air flow needed.
If thats your driving style you need a smaller turbo like a 364.5

cjfarm111 · Aug 16, 2016

That's why I don't run the 38r. Only with stock sticks to stage I's does it work. That's just my opinion.

NyCowboy87 · Aug 16, 2016

Swaan said:
38r is a 66mm turbo , its telling you something if its surging. Dont pull hard under 1800.
When i had a 66mm turbo i had to do all my pulling above 2000 to keep egts in check.
Drop a gear and get a little more rpm and all will be fine . You need rpm to get the air flow needed.
If thats your driving style you need a smaller turbo like a 364.5

Yea I realize that, and that's what I had to do, however if you talk to people with a 38r they hardly ever say anything bad about it. Tunes also play a big role in it and on some hills I was a gear lower and 10mph slower just to keep egts in check. In my eyes that's unacceptable. I will continue to work to get it tuned the way I want it. I also want to make it very clear that I am not upset at the tuner or injector builder, I realize it might take a bit of tuning and tweaking to get it perfect.

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Dirtclod · Aug 16, 2016

cjfarm111 said:
That's why I don't run the 38r. Only with stock sticks to stage I's does it work. That's just my opinion.

That must be the reason some vendors don't recommend or push the sale of the 38r. At the moment with 260k on my 2000 7.3 it runs great. I've done the irate reg return with other mods. Next I'm going with a t4 setup and new turbo. The factory uppipes are looking bad and if I'm going to change all my piping I'm going this route. When injector time comes I'll be going with hybrids 230/80's. I've been researching radiators and inter coolers. When I did my engine swap I took the factory heat insulation off,flushed out the inter cooler and piping and went back with heat wrap. Pulling as hard as possible on very long grades my truck has never saw above 900 degrees egt's. I'm a believer in heat wrap but when throwing fuel like the hybrids will do it seems to me there needs to be certain things need upgrading to keep these engines running in desirable temps. You need good tuning but imo supporting mods are most important so the person doing the tuning can focus on performance.

mikeeg02 · Aug 16, 2016

NyCowboy87 said:
Forgot to give an update. Went to the show this past Saturday, had our small trailer so about 8k lbs loaded with horses. Temps were 90-95* outside, high humidity and I was very very disappointed with how it ran. I was happy with the power it had, just exhaust temps were out of control and if I let the truck start to lug down and really work hard below 1800rpm it would send this 38r well past its surge line.
I've already had some different tunes sent to me to try so maybe tonight I'll load the horses on and just go for a drive to see how this set of tunes run.

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Right at 1800 on mine, whether stock injectors or the hybrids, I have no trouble cleaning up and making power. Slight incline at 1600-1800 in OD lighter weight, is no big deal if you can quickly gain some RPM. Below 1600 you best plan on shifting unless you want to make it dark and you are heavy and on an incline.

Either way, if you are heavy and trying to gain MPH and your RPMs cant quite get to 1800 where the 38R starts to really clean up (In my opinion) you better shift. Otherwise it will either get hot, or dark, or both. You wouldnt notice it empty, because it doesnt take much to get to 1800+ from 15-1600 when empty, almost no matter what grade. When your empty on a steep grade you would notice a little smoke and then your at 1800+ and cleaning it up.

ja_cain · Aug 16, 2016

Swaan said:
38r is a 66mm turbo , its telling you something if its surging. Dont pull hard under 1800.
When i had a 66mm turbo i had to do all my pulling above 2000 to keep egts in check.
Drop a gear and get a little more rpm and all will be fine . You need rpm to get the air flow needed.
If thats your driving style you need a smaller turbo like a 364.5

In other words, the pressure ratio is too high. The turbo is trying to supply too much air for the motor to take. Moving to the 364.5 would move everything back into the good zone relative to the load an engine rpm. Does this make sense?

*Edit*
The real question is whether the motor is the restriction at this load/rpm or is it the exhaust side of the 38r?

TyCorr · Aug 16, 2016

ja_cain said:
In other words, the pressure ratio is too high. The turbo is trying to supply too much air for the motor to take. Moving to the 364.5 would move everything back into the good zone relative to the load an engine rpm. Does this make sense?

*Edit*
The real question is whether the motor is the restriction at this load/rpm or is it the exhaust side of the 38r?

Im not seeing how this can be possible. I am pushing waaaaay more fuel through it with the same charger. I drove my setup once with what Ill call bad tunes and it behaved like this. In fact it worked better unplugging the tuning and running stock strategy. But with my php tunes the truck would maybe haze a bit at 1800 but it'd come up on boost fast enough it was clean almost instantly.

If I had tunes Id go film it right now.

jeremiahmercier · Aug 16, 2016

TyCorr said:
Im not seeing how this can be possible. I am pushing waaaaay more fuel through it with the same charger. I drove my setup once with what Ill call bad tunes and it behaved like this. In fact it worked better unplugging the tuning and running stock strategy. But with my php tunes the truck would maybe haze a bit at 1800 but it'd come up on boost fast enough it was clean almost instantly.

If I had tunes Id go film it right now.

What tunes were bad? PM if necessary

06-6.0l, CCLB 4X4, studded, reworked heads, egr gone, cab reroute, blue spring mod, 6.4 banjos, updated dummy plugs, stand pipe, and stc fitting; New oil cooler, New ipr, New icp, atlas 40 FICM, powermax turbo, and Geerhead tunes, 325/65R18

NyCowboy87 · Aug 16, 2016

Drove the truck empty today to work and back, new programs are waaaay better as far as smoke. From what I can tell with the way if fuels down low, I shouldn't have any surging issues. I did everything possible to try and make it surge and run high egts and I had zero issues. Of course the truth will come out when I load the trailer and drive it.

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ja_cain · Aug 16, 2016

NyCowboy87 said:
Drove the truck empty today to work and back, new programs are waaaay better as far as smoke. From what I can tell with the way if fuels down low, I shouldn't have any surging issues. I did everything possible to try and make it surge and run high egts and I had zero issues. Of course the truth will come out when I load the trailer and drive it.

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Can't wait to see the results once you get her loaded.

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mandkole · Aug 16, 2016

That's just it, those are two totally different conditions. Best of luck, but let that 7.3 breathe a little with some rpm. 2500 is not going to hurt anything-- but rather will help it.

ja_cain · Aug 16, 2016

mandkole said:
That's just it, those are two totally different conditions. Best of luck, but let that 7.3 breathe a little with some rpm. 2500 is not going to hurt anything-- but rather will help it.

More air, means more convective cooling.

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NyCowboy87 · Aug 16, 2016

mandkole said:
That's just it, those are two totally different conditions. Best of luck, but let that 7.3 breathe a little with some rpm. 2500 is not going to hurt anything-- but rather will help it.

Trust me I'm not afraid to spin some rpm's. Problem was before it would get hot no matter what unless you completely took the load off the engine (drop yet another gear) and back way out of the throttle.

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psduser1 · Aug 16, 2016

It sounds like a tune issue to me also. After reading this thread, I tried to push my turbo into a surge situation, just to see. Hundred % nozzles, 38r, and zf6, similar to your setup.
Fourth gear, 20mph, 900-1000 rpm, with zero surge.
Empty, not loaded.
Give it some throttle, and rpms come up slowly, till the turbo/hpop get rolling around 15-1600 rpms.

TyCorr · Aug 16, 2016

psduser1 said:
It sounds like a tune issue to me also. After reading this thread, I tried to push my turbo into a surge situation, just to see. Hundred % nozzles, 38r, and zf6, similar to your setup.
Fourth gear, 20mph, 900-1000 rpm, with zero surge.
Empty, not loaded.
Give it some throttle, and rpms come up slowly, till the turbo/hpop get rolling around 15-1600 rpms.

Then watch out, we're moving some fuel!

psduser1 · Aug 16, 2016

TyCorr said:
Then watch out, we're moving some fuel!

Lol.

Dirtclod · Aug 16, 2016

This is a good thread. There's a lot mensioned here that I haven't thought of. Thanks for starting this NY cowboy. I'm sure you'll get this straight these guys on here know there s€<t.

Swaan · Aug 17, 2016

psduser1 said:
It sounds like a tune issue to me also. After reading this thread, I tried to push my turbo into a surge situation, just to see. Hundred % nozzles, 38r, and zf6, similar to your setup.
Fourth gear, 20mph, 900-1000 rpm, with zero surge.
Empty, not loaded.
Give it some throttle, and rpms come up slowly, till the turbo/hpop get rolling around 15-1600 rpms.

Youll never get it to surge doing that.
You have to be towing some decent wieght in a good pull.
Let the hill drag the rpm down with your foot on the floor still. When rpm gets down to the lower end of the scale like 1500 rpm it will surge if compessor is to big for the engine to digest.
But you have to have alot of heat and drive on the turbine to push it into a surge situation.
A rolling low rpm dig isnt going to do that.

Dirtclod · Aug 17, 2016

Ok tell me what this is. When I'm towing heavy and turbo is spoiled up to 22 lbs then shifts to drive the turbo makes a racket. I suppose this is "bark"? What exactly is the reason for this?

psduser1 · Aug 17, 2016

Swaan said:
Youll never get it to surge doing that.
You have to be towing some decent wieght in a good pull.
Let the hill drag the rpm down with your foot on the floor still. When rpm gets down to the lower end of the scale like 1500 rpm it will surge if compessor is to big for the engine to digest.
But you have to have alot of heat and drive on the turbine to push it into a surge situation.
A rolling low rpm dig isnt going to do that.

Oh yes, I know. Just sharing an experience.
I've had plenty of weight out back, right now I'm just putting on a lot of highway miles empty.