08 International CE 300 - Maxxforce DT acceleration / power issues

[SurfingDog-SKO]

I am going to preface this by saying: I have heard it a hundred times that Maxxforce is junk. I get it. EGR bad. DFP bad. I agree! No DEF on this rig.

Anyways; my bus has 85k miles, 3300 hours, and I have ZERO maintenance records on this beast. I have zero knowledge on diesels or rigs of this size but I am very motivated and interested in learning. I DIY'd my way to engine swapping, supercharging, self tuning my 90's Mustang, and I came directly from playing World of Warcraft daily for years with zero car knowledge 6 years ago. Now this is my next project to learn!

At purchase a month or so ago it did great on a 2 1/2 hour drive back home. It sat for roughly a month until driving it to get it plated, registered etc yesterday. It was an hour drive away from home. Checked over everything well before leaving and everything looked great except the batteries were completely dead for who knows how long. I charged the batteries and got her fired up. I went down the road, made a stop, and after I left from that stop it had a loss of power. No lights, no icons, no sounds. It would struggle going up hills and I thought initially it was a transmission issue but I learned it was definitely power loss related. Up hills I'd go from 55 to 40mph even with the pedal to the floor.

After I made it to my destination I parked for roughly 15 minutes and fired her back up. Noticed the hot exhaust temp lamp on that's to the direct right of the LCD panel. Fired it up 30 minutes later and no more exhaust lamp. I drove across the lot and noticed it was struggling at low speeds / pedal. Cutting in and out and struggling to gain power. Did not seem like an ECU limit by any means because once I pressed the pedal down further it'd "kick in" and take off. I don't remember when but an exhaust cloud with an exclamation mark lamp turned on which lead me to find it was emissions related. Had to get it to op temp to do a parked regen (thus learned what parked regen was lol) so I went down the road to get it warmed up quicker since idle wasn't getting it much past 150F and the parked regen button would flash when pressed OR held for 3-5 seconds.

As I took off up the road it had the "stage 3" lamps light up with an audible alarm going off while I came to a stop at a red light. I tried to get over to see if it'd regen and to get out of the road but it went away after about 5 seconds. Continued driving around on back empty roads to get the temps up and it never would regen nor did the issues clear up. I decided to take off back home an hour drive back home from many recommendations to keep it higher RPM that it'd maybe clear up since regen lasts 20-30 minutes at 1500-ish or so RPM but I believe regen will specifically dump more fuel in for hotter EGR's correct?

Once I made it back home it seemed almost to clear up from low load / accelerations but top end power is still down. I made it back home just fine and noticed the "stage 1" emissions lamp was gone. Decided to climb underneath to visually check everything out around the DPF and everything looks clean, plugged in, etc. Pulled codes and have one active one which I am unsure how to look up: SA 33 SPN 520916 FMI 13. If I am right it's something EGR valve related? Any help will be greatly appreciated. I had a fuel filter replacement needed pop up on the LCD panel last time I drove a month ago but it's not reappeared. Going to replace it and look over everything on the engine top to bottom. Going to assume about everything needs to be serviced so I can become familiar and both record it.

 

[nikitis]

101 times. Maxxforce is junk without hardening the block and removing emissions however you can't legally remove them.

With jokes aside. The likelihood your bus was sold was due to some regeneration issues it was having and was too much trouble replace for the prior fleet owner as is often the case. Regeneration takes place when the DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter) is clogged. A "Regeneration Cycle" takes place by burning extremely hot to try to burn out all of the particulates which ends up putting it all out in the air anyway thus defeating the purpose, but some morons in government at the EPA think it's better to do it all in one place vs slowly everywhere else, but it's all still going to the same place, the enviornment. It only adds a cost burden to you who has to eventually replace the DPF which contains expensive rare earth metals so it costs way more than it should need to cost as a result.

There are great reasons we tell you to avoid them if you can. However, we will be seeing more and more of these because the "Good Buses" are getting less and less so us old timers should get used to this kind of conversation and explanations to new comers learning about this stuff because more and more will be buying these newer buses with emissions. If your bus is not "Regenerating" properly you will need to find a muffer shop and they can remove the DPF and should have equipment which can do a deep clean to make it like new if it's not beyond saving already. This is likely going to be your cheapest option to remedy the DPF Regeneration issue. If the issue still persists, then you may have bigger problems with the system malfunctioning for the regeneration process, and it's likely gonna take a dealership to deal with it and is costly.

No one here is well versed beyond what I just told you in repair of these emissions systems as we avoid them and don't deal with them.

While it's great you don't have DEF, that just means you don't have to buy the the piss and put it into your bus to run. DEF contains high amounts of Urea which comes from Urine. The government thinks it's funny that they've mandated us to purchase piss to put into our diesels. Sort of a government inside joke. So at least you can avoid that, however your DPF is just a giant cork in your emissions system which gets thicker as time goes on, and regeneration cycles are required to sort of uncork the exhaust. Backstopping your exhaust pressure too much will cause loss of power, and it wears out your engine tremendously. Your engine could potentially go 1 million miles if it didn't have this DPF, or EGR.

EGR is when exhaust gas is redirected back into the intake thus polluting your engine further in attempts to burn the pollutant in the engine which also wears it out much faster turning a million mile engine into a 200-300k engine or less. Making it eat it's own crap essentially.

Now don't direct anger at us, but at the EPA. It would be a good time to lobby with the current adminsitration to have all of these items removed as they are costing trucking companies and bus fleets untold amounts of money and it's difficult to operate as a result.

 

[Omnibot2000]

The short answer, EGR send a metered exhaust into the engine as it does not have oxygen in it. At idle and low engine loads exhaust gas is drawn in to help reduce NOx gases. NOx is created by having very high combustion temps. EGR gases reduces these combustion temps.

The side effect of EGR which was figured out after it was implemented; it created soot. The DPF was introduced to reduce the soot created from EGR operation. SCR was introduced just to drive the NOx gases down further.

DEF has urea in it, It is synthetically made and deionized water is added. THERE IS NO URINE IN THE DEF YOU BUY AT THE STORE.

OP did not mention what MAXforce he has. Maxforce is a brand. Not the type of engine. Is it a Maxforce DT, Maxforce 7?

I want to say your code is related to a driver

Regardless. Maxforce with just EGR is not that bad of an engine. Anything more, steer clear.

Your code SA 33 SPN 520916 FMI 13 is related to the body control module I believe(SA 33) but they can differ, this is just off the top of my head and I can be wrong here. SPN 520916 is the type of fault, FMI 13 is the way you diagnose the fault/type of fault.

You will need a wiring diagram and a trouble shooting tree and description of the code.

 

[Dbacks2k4]

Regardless. Maxforce with just EGR is not that bad of an engine. Anything more, steer clear.

I'm pretty sure the first Maxxforces rolled off the line for Model Year 2008 with DPF and there was no Maxxforce with "just EGR" - at least for the MaxxforceDT, I was fortunate to only ever own one of those and never owned a MF7.

The 2005-2007 were DT466e with EGR, but they were still painted blue and did not carry the Maxxforce badge. That's what most of my fleet was and my skoolie is, 2006 with EGR. Easy to delete the EGR because the only sensor and tie-in to the ECM was on the EGR valve. If one were to weld the both ends of the EGR cooler shut then it was as good as deleted, the EGR valve could open and close all it wanted keeping the ECM happy but there'd be no change to exhaust flow. So when those tiny coolant vanes in the EGR cooler inevitably failed, it didn't matter, the entire thing could fill with coolant but keep passing through and not drain into the exhaust causing an overheat situation. I, of course, never did that because it would be illegal as **** despite looking stock to the casual observer

 

[Omnibot2000]

I'm pretty sure the first Maxxforces rolled off the line for Model Year 2008 with DPF and there was no Maxxforce with "just EGR" - at least for the MaxxforceDT, I was fortunate to only ever own one of those and never owned a MF7.

You are correct. I was thinking Dt466e and Maxforce DT in general. I should have been more clear.


I ALSO CANT STAND THIS NEW DESIGN ON THIS SITE. IT SUCKS.

 

[SurfingDog-SKO]

Yes sorry, maxxforce DT I am 99% sure of. Date of manufacture was July 2008, but I believe the key and title state it's a 2009.

I guess I will use this thread to ask the following;

1. Best place to buy things such as oil filter, fuel filter, etc?
2. Where can I buy the side door compartment locks at? The one that holds the fuse panel shut is broken and flies open going down the road.

 

[Omnibot2000]

Look for a bluebird dealer if it's a bluebird

I'm assuming your talking about the left exterior door.

 

[Dbacks2k4]

1. Best place to buy things such as oil filter, fuel filter, etc?
2. Where can I buy the side door compartment locks at? The one that holds the fuse panel shut is broken and flies open going down the road.

I always used RepairLinkShop to access Navistar OnCommand to find part numbers, then did some shopping online. You can also get a quote from an International dealer (without ordering) that should have part numbers. OnCommand was nice because you could drill into part numbers that were "bundles" and get individual component part numbers and sometimes buy them all individually for less than the bundle.

This was a guide for getting into OnCommand, no idea if it still works or not....

Navistar OnCommand Parts Database

I've been banging my head on this one for a while. Usually when I need parts I have to email my local International dealer with my VIN, wait for them to try to find what I'm looking for, get me a quote (that's usually ridiculously marked up) then go look online for interchange part numbers, then...

www.skoolie.net

Some sellers on eBay had a good amount of "new old stock" that I could get OEM parts for significantly less than the dealer. For turbos and injectors I bought a lot of stuff from Highway Heavy Parts .com. Filters I usually got from a local big rig shop near me called Sadler PowerTrain. Oil and fluids I usually got from Blain's Farm & Fleet, the exception being Allison TransSynd transmission fluid, that I always got from my local Allison dealer. Expensive as all get out, but my mechanic said to trust nothing else.

It was always an exercise of balancing convenience vs best price, especially when my mechanic was on the clock hourly and we needed something right then and there.

 

[SurfingDog-SKO]

Got my hands on a scanner so I can read codes and force regen once I get her warmed up and pulled over somewhere.

Codes were;

• SPN 111 / FMI 1 - Coolant Level
• SPN 102 / FMI 0 - Boost Pressure
• SPN 94 / FMI 1 - Fuel Delivery Pressure
• SPN 102 / FMI 4 - Boost Pressure
• SPN 3251 / FMI 4 - Aftertreatment 1 DPF Differential Pressure

They were all inactive and I cleared the codes so that when I drive tomorrow I can check them afterwards to see what comes up. Turbo VGT is freely moving with key on. Hosing looks solid. Might take off a few going into the turbo just to view the dirtiness level

Coolant level is low in the tank, there's a slight coolant leak on the passenger side from something that I'll be crawling under tomorrow to inspect further upon. Oil looks fine, nice and black. No gray. Level is good. Same with transmission being at the correct level.

I'm wondering if I interrupted an active regen which leads me to believe I should force / do a manual parked regen just in case.