Guys

As I wander around the web, I see posts on other sites about F550's dropping or breaking valves. The posts are not by the owners but do show pictures taken at what is purported to be a Ford dealership. The damage is catastrophic. So far from what I have seen they are all in F550's.

Awhile ago I was speaking with Cheezit and he confirmed that he had seen one but it was not anything he would worry about. Have any of the techs seen any notices from Ford that there is a growing concern about this? It might be something similar to the small but nagging DEF/NOX sensor issue.

Earlier today, on another site, there was post from the Spartan tuner guys about the F550. They equated the F550 6.7 valve issues as the equal of the 08 6.4 and their radiator issues. This raised my eyebrows a little. There has been some speculation that a tuner was involved in at least one failure. I will attach the link at the end of this post. It is post #158.

I guess the best that can happen is that Paul Bruckne will see this and give us his always understandable explanation of the problem from the source.

6.7 carnage pics - Page 16 - PowerStrokeNation

Regards

 

I would be very surprised if Paul discusses this topic. Maybe I'm wrong...

 

Troy

You may be right. He has come forward with cogent explanations of certain other problems in the past. Reassurance that they know about this would be a start. Silence might be scary. Paul has been excellent about letting us know what he can tell. No one has pushed him for more info after his explanations. We realize his information limitations and respect them.

Regards

 

subscribing...some of the 6.4's had some rocker arm issues because of some plastic in there. I think to retain the rocker arms.

 

Specifications for the 6.7 in a F-550:

Torque 660 lb.-ft. @ 1,600RPM
Horsepower 300hp @ 2,800RPM

That is a considerable climbdown from the F-350 specs, which are currently:

Torque 800 lb.-ft. @ 1,600RPM

Horsepower 400hp @ 2,800RPM


HP production is almost directly related to fuel consumption (fuel needed to create the energy), so 100 hp less is effectively a sharp tune down --- an increase of 33% from 300hp base gets you 400hp, or a decrease of 25% to get you from 400 to 300 hp.

That is an engine that flows that much less fuel.

That much less heat, that much less thermal load on the components.

Notice that the part that broke is the exhaust valve --- a highly stressed (thermally) part?

In one case, mention of locked up turbo wheel and low oil (consistent with severe overheating)...

The damage is consistent with engine being tuned / tweaked to produce far in excess of its designed power --- 300 hp on its intended duty cycle.

If you pushed the stock engine software that far, I would have expected the software to kick in once it senses severe overload (EOT, EGT?, ECT, Fuel flow, Turbo boost, and all the other parameters it monitors) and defueled the engine.

The fact that it went on to valve melting point --- leads to prime suspect / concern being a tune / mod that turned off the safety features.

To me, that reads tuner.

Now it is possible for a few bad valves, but 2 bad valves (in different cylinder banks) in one engine?

Low probability.... not impossible... but...

------------

Let's start asking some tough questions.

The basic engine is nearly identical mechanically except for a different turbo (I think), and considerably different software / tuning.

The real difference is that this F-550 engine is required to put out its rated HP for probably 50-70% of its time, vs. the F-350 model which has a car like duty cycle of maybe 25-45% of the time.

It is almost inevitable that someone with a 550 will feel "cheated" and try some easy home brew mods --- namely by using the F-350 software.

I somehow am rather skeptical at the loud claims of innocence, like the poster who claimed that their 550 is just used for normal highway driving a few hours a day.

Come on, why would anyone buy a 550 to cruise the highway?

The real question is now that Ford have the scoop / dirt on the mods and failures that can be attributed to modding and tuning, and what they intend to do about it.

It does not surprise me that under near medium duty loads, the engine is close to being topped out.

This was, after all, designed as a light truck engine first, and a medium duty engine second --- unlike the 6.0 that was designed the other way around.

If I were with FMC, I would be taking a hard line on any mods, and let them who mod pay for their busted engines.

Paul have been nothing but up front and honest and forthright about the issues with the 6.7 that are bona fide.

If Paul remains silent on this issue, then I would take the silence to indicate that FMC expects to end up in court --- and he is told to remain silent as Ford probably refused the warranty claim.

That may be another reason why you have not heard from the owners.... who know what they did.


A reason that Ford did not want the engine back is because they can see from the software dump that it was a tune that is at fault... and not their engine.




PS.. this also affirms for me my longstanding belief that a 6.x liter diesel cannot reliably put out much more than 300hp / 500-600ft. lbs of torque without severely compromising duty cycle and service life.

That is why the 6.0 had a B50 life (in the IH version) of 350-375k miles with power just a bit below that range.

 

A simple " Guys, we do not think you have anything to be concerned about" will say all I need to hear.

 

I'm not aware of any systemic issues with the valve train. There have been a handful of reports of glow plug tips breaking. I did track down the thread I'm assuming you're referring too with the images of the exhaust valve and the "hammered" cylinder #8 I believe. From the image, the damage seems consistent for a glow plug tip failure. As for the exhaust valve face, more than likely a stress issue as a result of a hardening anomaly which would have occurred during the manufacturing process of the valve itself. I know engineering continues to monitor all failure types for trends.

I will say that there have been very few engine failures in total. Last I checked the number was less than 1 repair per thousand vehicles, which is quite excellent when bench-marked.

What I've come to determine is that when a failure does occur, for pretty much any consumer product, is that the information is basically sensationalize as it spreads across the internet. This tends to amplify the reality, people respond based on assumption, emotion, skepticism, or belief vs. factual data. Kind of like media hype, which so often reminds me of Don Henley's song "Dirty Laundry".

I'll take another look at the data this week and see if there's anything worth sharing.

-Paul

 

Based on past history and knowledge of how FMC is likely to act, I don't think you are going to get much more than silence officially from FMC.

Paul tended to focus on cases where,

- There is a recognition within Ford that they have a problem affecting a significant number of units

- That the problem is not unique (a one off fluke)

- Problem is not caused by owner abuse / mods

- And where no lawsuits are obviously on the horizon.

If it is owner abuse / mods and the owner do not go away with tail between legs and pay up, it is lawsuit time --- most likely with owner alleging defects and Ford with its trump card of mods quietly hidden until it is time to show them.

I do not believe under these circumstances, FMC would allow anything to be said until it is time to show their hand.


Update after Paul's comment --- well, if it is a "one off" issue like a tip breaking / valve face hardening bad...

But if it involves a case of tuners, mods,.... nothing will likely be said.

 

A failure rate of 1 per 1,000 after nearly 1 year (ballparking the average mileage and total mileage) and the volumes put out is pretty god.

One way to think about the problem is to use industrial diesel engine measures:

Most industrial engines are speced for a combination of hours used and amount of fuel consumed to determine, a) next maintenance interval, b) overhaul time.

On a F-550 carrying a load, it may be rated for a lot less power, but bet you that the amount of fuel used (not mileage) is say, 1/3 or greater than the same engine in a F-350, holding hours constant and ignoring mileage.

That is a good rough approximation of how much harder the engine is working.

A crude calculation of fuel used X average combustion efficiency will also give you the amount of heat that the motor had to either convert to mechanical movement / or dissipated as thermal energy.

Then you can get specific as to how hot the hottest parts must have got, and how close to their thermal limits they were...

A telltale to me is always to look to see if the failure are concentrated in the hottest cylinders / hot spots in the block.

Often (but not always) the hottest ones are toward the rear of the engine and often, one side is hotter than the other.

If the failure tends to be concentrated on those particular cylinders, then it is likely that a thermal limit is breached.

On the other hand, if the valve failures are scattered (with a more random pattern), then look to general thermal overload...

Oh yes, check for sample defects all the meanwhile... by examining the failed parts and crossing it with incoming part (at the engine plant) QC.

 

We have a 550 in the shop now same type of failer. damaged 3 valves and one broken glowplug. the thread the rickatic has refered to is the 5th one that I know to be out there. Im guessing there is a small handfull of effecfted trucks and dont belive this to be wide spread.
I agree that the damage "looks" like....
"more than likely a stress issue as a result of a hardening anomaly which would have occurred during the manufacturing process".

If I find more info Ill post it up.

 

That is some good stuff there. I think we all know some of this but they way you some it all up is helpful.

 

the Issue with that gear is at the shop level theres just not enugh of the valve left to make a perfect call. that valve needs to have some person in a white lab coat and some tools that cost a bunch more then I make in a year.

 

A reputable and honest manufacturer (aka Ford) always would look at the part and presume it is their "opps" first and rule out the potential causes one by one.

That is, a bad part (e.g. hardening, manufacturing issue), bad assembly, etc.

Then design...

The difference with the good old days where we had a fairly long cycle between field failures and the engineers actually seeing the problem and correcting and now is that the loop is that much shorter.

In a pinch, engineers can be dispatched in 24 hours to see the part in the field.

WAY before that, the data from the ECM is downloaded the moment the truck gets into the dealer.

Right off there, there is enough "dirt" on how the motor was used to make a quick determination if the owner was doing funny things.

To me, the cases that are interesting are the ones where the ECM reports perfectly normal, sedentary use, and yet the part failed !

That is the ones I am all over....

 

You might have added, "failure does occur", for any reason including abuse and mods...

In the good old days, the founder of FMC dealt with it by "never explain, never complain".

In the internet age, if a major company do not deal with these fires --- they can trash a product's reputation --- however unjustly deserved and no matter what the facts are.

The fact is, tuners are available today for the 6.7 diesel that does things almost certain to break the motor (e.g. claimed increase of 150hp over stock).

There is just no way that the 6.7 have a safety margin of 150 hp over stock built in and still maintain any semblance of reliability.

Presumably the outfit that sells the 6.7 tuner has at least one customer (themselves) so we know that there is at least one 6.7 out there that has voided their warranty.

There are still people out there that think they can remove the tuner and leave no trace!

 

Gear...

You always have some great technical stuff to share...

There was a thread a while back about the introduction of a new tuner for the 6.7. Paul chimed in with a classic line; and I paraphrase:

There are safeguards built into the programming to protect vital parts from failure due to excess power...I wonder what will break first

Keep in mind I paraphrased the quote but you get the drift...

I am grateful that Paul gives up his time here to help us better understand the intricacies of a sophisticated piece of equipment. Thanks for the help

Cheezit and the other techs are a huge help here as well. Thanks to them as well.

Regards