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Car Forum / Dodge / Dodge Trucks / March 2005

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Surging when cold on a grade

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gary - 18 Mar 2005 13:38 GMT
I have an '03, Ram 1500 4.7L. Like the truck, but troubled by the
surging I experience after a cold start when I pull out of my drive. It
is a fairly step slope up to the county road (at 60mph). Whenever I sit
on this grade with a cold truck, it surges to the point of almost dying
out. Not very comforting when trying to pull out especially when you
realize that I have limited site distance in both directions. A little
more than 6 seconds in one direction and 5 in the other.

Is this the type of fuel pump or is it a flaw. Dealer says they can't
replicate it. Well, duh, they don't have a slope to pull out on within
the lot or even nearby.

Gary
HC - 21 Mar 2005 07:18 GMT
Gary, I dunno how much help this is gonna be but I'll tell you what
I've seen that I think is somewhat similar; on my 02 2500 with the
Cummins Diesel it would run poorly until warmed up, with poor
acceleration/power.  That problem got worse and worse but when it first
started happening it was just a limited power problem shortly after
startup and under acceleration.  Since we not only have completely
different vehicles (yours, the new body style, mine, the old body
style; yours gas, mine diesel), it wouldn't hurt to check the fuel
pressure at your fuel rail (as opposed to checking mine at the injector
pump) to see if it might be a bit low.  You could simply hook up a fuel
pressure gauge to the test port on the fuel rail and then run it out to
the windshield and duct tape it there and shut the hood and then drive
it under your specific condtions and see if the fuel pressure is in the
proper range.  I don't know where it should be on your truck but a
figure that jumps to mind is around 40-50 PSI for fuel-injected
gasoline engines (as evidenced by my 1998 Dodge 1500 360 C.I. and my
1990 Corvette 350 C.I.).  You could buy a factory service manual
(HIGHLY recommended if you plan to keep the truck for any length of
time at all, even if you normally don't mechanic on your own stuff
(just so you can kind of keep track of what the service guys are
telling you)) and find out what the correct rail pressure is (or buy a
Haynes manual, lots cheaper) or ask the service guys at the dealership
if you trust them to tell you the truth.

Another thing, and this may sound like I'm on crack but I promise I'm
not, my dad's 1998 Dodge 1500 360 C.I. (yes, the same one I mentioned
above, when I got rid of it I sold it to my dad) with 122,000 miles on
it was running like hell; at startup it would try to die and he was
having to use the foot-feed at startup, something you're not supposed
to do on a fuel injected vehicle, as I remember from the days when we
went from carburated vehicles to fuel injected vehicles).  I talked to
a mechanic friend of mine and he suggested cleaning out the throttle
body (dunno if that's the technical term for it, but it's basically
what it is; below the air cleaner there is a body that has one or more
(two on my dad's/my old truck) butterfly valves).  I used an old
toothbrush and some carb and choke cleaner (the cheap stuff from
Wal-mart and I hosed that thing down and scrubbed around the inside of
the housing, particularly hosing down the areas that looked like they
lead to sensors.  It took some effort to get it to start after that (my
buddy told me the carb and choke sprays would make the engine hard to
start the first time after I did it) but once it started it ran
beautifully and my dad claims that now it not only runs better but
seems to have more power.  There was definitely a lot of soot build up
(lots of black gunk built up) in the throttle body and I cleaned it out
pretty well; I dunno how that made a difference, maybe a dirty sensor,
maybe restricted airflow (the butterflies shut so tightly that I could
spray a puddle of carb and choke cleaner on top and it would sit there
for a bit before draining (or maybe evaporating, away)), but it made a
huge difference from what little I saw myself and what my dad tells me.

In any case, I'm not sure this'll help you but it should all be some
things that you can easily check/do yourself and not cost you any money
(other than the carb and choke cleaner and the shop manual (which I
really do think is worth its weight in gold)).

HTH.  YMMV.

Please let us know when you find the problem and again when you find
the solution.

--HC
 
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