FICM question #10,013-

[kinnisoj]

Seems to be a heavy rash of FICM questions lately. Simple question, WHY? Why now? Winter must be....so what does the cold do to the truck that effects the ficm and what can be done to fix this?
Would plug in battery blankets with a extra blanket around the ficm make a diffrence?
A third battery? Something extra to help the system?

[a2elvis]

I could be wrong but I think it has to do with the injectors and the spool valves. With the cold heavy oil the spool valve has more resistance to move in turn putting more stress on the FICM power supply?.... Maybe??

[Snake]

I think it's a combination of things. Colder temperatures setting in, owners who are more educated and know what to look for, and components that are aging and starting to fail.

[kinnisoj]

Would the drop in Voltage in the batteries due to the cold be a cause? And would a third batt be enough to help?

[g2shuck]

cold weather really brought my bad spool valves out but my ficm is still running strong at 48 volts even though I had a alternator go bad last week

[g2shuck]

Originally Posted by kinnisoj

Would the drop in Voltage in the batteries due to the cold be a cause? And would a third batt be enough to help?

where the heck would you mount a third battery in a 6.0 without running cables all the way to the bed and building a weatherproof battery box lol

[snafu!]

A battery tender will do more good than battery blankets, battery blankets do help but it has to be really cold before they are needed, like - 30 and lower. Make sure you have good strong batteries, load test them individually.

I work in the Arctic circle and most (not all) trucks have them, but we also have a battery tender, oil pan heater,block heater and tranny pan heater. It takes a 20 amp dedicated receptacle to plug these trucks in. We have sustained temperatures of - 40 to - 50 and even dips into - 60 ambient occasionally.

[southend]

I'm takin a stab at it........failing solder joints are worse when it is cold, thats why the ficms look better when warmed up, and "good" batteries always fail when the first cold snap hits. Bad batteries kill ficms, quick, increased ampreage draw creates heat, thereby damaging the solder joints quicker. Thats my story and i'm sticking to it.....

Sent from my phone that somebody didn't help me get.

[kinnisoj]

Originally Posted by g2shuck

where the heck would you mount a third battery in a 6.0 without running cables all the way to the bed and building a weatherproof battery box lol

That is the very thing that Im looking into. So the cost of a new ficm is $400+. So Im gonna use that as my budget to see what I can do to stop my new FICM from dieing. I figure Ill go ahead and buy a BPD and I know that alot of people would say if its a BPD then I dont have to worry about it but Im not gonna risk the 4-500 ficm just on reputation.
Sometimes over kill is just enough....

[xjeeper]

Inductive heating strategy is most of it, the FICM is used to heat the injectors by holding them closed to generate heat, this uses much more amperage at low temps, and may cause the voltage in the FICM to drop below the threshold needed to fire the injectors if the FICM is already weak. I got a rollback to a non inductive heating strategy from PHP when I repaired my stock FICM a couple years back. Now with a BPD FICM I still run the non inductive heating strategy and have no cold start problems or stichtion, using synthetic oil.