Problem: no power, white smoke, now wont start

[kamaleon]

Hey guys, todays been a day from hell for me;

Drove from Texas to Atlanta, engine started to loose power progressively until it completelly died 250miles away from home. Had it towed the rest of the way.

The skinny;
I was on vegie mode when i noticed the truck didnt ahve the 'normal' power it normally had when i tried to pass a car, truck couldnt go past 70mph at 11psi. I though the vegie filter might be getting plugged so i witched to diesel and the my top speed dropped to 55mph and 5psi boost. switched back to vegie and the truck slowly climbed back to 70mph and 11psi boost.. i was puzzled! On inclines and bridges the truck would slow down as well and of course recovered on the downhill.

Stopped a few exits down the highway to check on the truck; oil level ok, coolant level ok as well, no drips no smells, it 'looked' ok. Dropped a bottle of 'sea foam injector cleaner' thinking injector might be dirty?!? It started fine but soon started to spudder and died, cranked again and started but definatelly felt very slow acceleration, truck barely had power to move on diesel and a bit more power on vegie. Once on the highway the top speed was no more than 60mph on flat plains and 45mph on hills forced to downshift a gear.


Stopped again at a rest area about half hour later, this time was very very hard to get it started and would smoke white while starting, eventually started but had barely any power, max speed now was 45mph and about 30 on first uphill, the last 10 miles or so i switched to diesel as it was clear the truck wouldnt make it to atlanta in that state and was going to take the next exit. It had no power to complete the second hill and pulled over, it was iddling very rough and rpms would not move when the go pedal was pressed while iddling, it eventualy died off.

It would smoke white/grey while trying to start, it would start for a second or two only on the max setting of the chip, sputter and then die.

Called the tow truck and brought it home..

Plan for the morning:

* Im going to change fluids and filters tomorrow but i know the culprit is somewhere else... any clues???
* Scan for codes even though there is no SES light.

can anyone point what else to check?

ps.. sorry for the long post

[Rob]

good place to start with is the filters...

[kamaleon]

changed fuel filter, cleaned bowl tried a few times and it then sent two codes out.
P0603 and P1660

I'll start searching but would appreciate your inputs about these two codes.

[kamaleon]

Found this but cant really follow/understand fully what/were it is.

(P0603) = CONTINUOUS DTC P0603 INDICATES PCM HAS EXPERIENCED A POWER INTERRUPT IN KAM CIRCUIT. [KAM == Keep Alive Memory]

(P1660 OR P1661) = INDICATES THAT OUTPUT CIRCUIT CHECK IS HIGH OR LOW.POSSIBLE CAUSES ARE:HIGH SYSTEM
VOLTAGE, VREF CIRCUIT FAULT;

[Ryan Rønning]

P0603 is an Internal Control Module Keep Alive memory (KAM) Error. What I don't know is what the problem actully is, and what the remedy is.

[kamaleon]

i found a description to the codes too but might im not that 'mecanic literated'. been searching and most sites i find info on pretty much say the same description. Others reffer to idm,pcm, map sensor. Can someone translate it and put it in common English?

[Randee Bowknee]

My truck had some of the same symptoms today and a member brought over his laptop and ran a program that did buzz tests and contribution tests and it came up with: #8 injector failed contribution test

[Randee Bowknee]

did it seem as if your truck was misfiring?

[kamaleon]

i think so, i know it wasnt running right, very rough the last few hundred miles.. i need to get that test done too..

[kamaleon]

by teh way can you elaborate on describing buzz test and contribution, what does it mean?