Cummins ISX

K

KW W900

CASE IH TECH
Joined
Nov 4, 2010
Messages
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I was wondering if anyone on here had any experience with the ISX engine. We are looking at geting a 2005 Kenworth W900 with a 475 HP EGR engine with right under 500,000 miles on it.


Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks, Brian
 
We have 33 379 exhd Peterbilts, we bought 30 with Cat 475,500, and 600 in 2007 and tried 3 with the Cummins ISX 475. They are real pullers for 475's with 13 speeds and 3.70 rears. The only real problems we've had from them are turbos and EGR issues. These engines seem to eat turbos like crazy. Those 3 are running in dusty conditions around a landfill, but so are 8 of the Cats and we've not replaced one turbo on those yet. I bought another Pete 389 flat-top with the ISX 475 in '08 for our lowboy fleet just because it was a smoking deal. It has had EGR and EGR cooler issues that keep occuring. I just bought another one 2 months ago, '09 Pete 389 36" flat-top with the ISX 600 and 18 spd.. It was used for heavy haul and had only 31,000mis. I now know why I got it so cheap, it's drinking water due to the EGR cooler like the others. I will buy glider kits from now on and install reman Cat engines in them. About that W900, you should be fine with the '05, they were not really problematic but I would run a history on it. If it's a smokin deal, go ahead and get it, the turbo and EGR issues are not that expensive. Steven.
 
I agree with Bull. I work for a national company who has lots of trucks with the ISX. We deal with more EGR then turbo's and I do mean a lot of EGR stuff. Keep EGR valves on stock if ya get one.
 
You can dump all the EGR crap and fix it once. Or plan on replacing at least one EGR valve and maybe one cooler each year and maybe a turbo. It can be fixed to run but it'll never turn yellow. LOL

Blocking the EGR will gain you .5mpg, deleting it from the ECM also will gain you around 1mpg. Deleting it completely costs I believe around $3k on a pre SCR engine, or about what it will cost you each year in just fixing the junk.

I just had an Acert cat reflashed to 725hp and asked about an ISX since I can't order a new cat and that's what he told me.
 
It can be fixed to run but it'll never turn yellow. LOL

Love that quote! I do believe that's better than the "If it's not a CAT, it's a dog".

The thing that kills me is that the ISX will derate with less than a gallon of coolant loss and completely shutdown with just over a gallon of coolant loss. The ISX will run several thousand miles drinking coolant before cracking the EGR cooler though. Sounds like I might know this from experience, don't it?
 
I just had an Acert cat reflashed to 725hp and asked about an ISX since I can't order a new cat and that's what he told me.[/QUOTE]

Glider kit! Go through that Acert and plant it in a new glider. Is the special ordering window for the Cat still open or has it closed? Clint at KC Pete was telling me about this back a few months ago when I was talking glider kits. I think it was something about paying the extra for the EPA charges for the engine not meeting emissions.
 
Bullrack said:
Glider kit! Go through that Acert and plant it in a new glider. Is the special ordering window for the Cat still open or has it closed? Clint at KC Pete was telling me about this back a few months ago when I was talking glider kits. I think it was something about paying the extra for the EPA charges for the engine not meeting emissions.
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Na, can't get a KW glider and Pete's are just leftover KW parts.LOL

An ISX can be fixed, even the newest Cats can have all the junk deleted at PDI. They ran a 2011 ISX at their dyno day that with just the emissions delete and 10% added fuel hit 788hp. Not too shabby for an EPA engine. Another guy went from like 3.2mpg to 6.5 by dumping all the EPA junk.

The best quote I heard was "Diesel engines are like bananas, they're not worth a sh!t until they turn yellow" I only did a stage 1 tune and I have to say, an acert that's tuned right is a mean MF'r!:evil
 
WVtrucker said:
i got an 07 acert 550 and cant get clevland bros to turn it up
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HidalgoGT said:
Call Pittsburgh Power
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Forget Pittsburgh, with an acert you need PDI. Trust me, you will not be disappointed. There is no good factory flash files for an acert since it was designed as an emissions motor. With the older models like the 5ek's or 6NZ\7CZ you could have someone (not cat) flash them to an older pre LOW-NOX file. But there isn't any for an acert so you need a modified file. With PDI you tell them what your looking for, power or fuel economy. They can add as little as 30hp over stock and as much as 1000hp with RPM. It's totally up to you. I went with power but even with that the fuel mileage should increase just due to the added timing. They can even delete all the DPF programming if yours is a DPF motor.
 
jfaulkner said:
Forget Pittsburgh, with an acert you need PDI. Trust me, you will not be disappointed. There is no good factory flash files for an acert since it was designed as an emissions motor. With the older models like the 5ek's or 6NZ\7CZ you could have someone (not cat) flash them to an older pre LOW-NOX file. But there isn't any for an acert so you need a modified file. With PDI you tell them what your looking for, power or fuel economy. They can add as little as 30hp over stock and as much as 1000hp with RPM. It's totally up to you. I went with power but even with that the fuel mileage should increase just due to the added timing. They can even delete all the DPF programming if yours is a DPF motor.
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My bad didn't really know all of this and just said who I could think of. They are local as why they came to mind. I remember when I drove there used to be a guy that would travel to several truck stops in Ohio and offer to turn trucks up and said it couldnt be caught if it was a company truck. Never did try and find out though lol.
 
HidalgoGT said:
My bad didn't really know all of this and just said who I could think of. They are local as why they came to mind. I remember when I drove there used to be a guy that would travel to several truck stops in Ohio and offer to turn trucks up and said it couldnt be caught if it was a company truck. Never did try and find out though lol.
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Oh no big deal I'm not saying Pittsburgh isn't a good shop but I've known several guys that had their power box and non of them kept them very long. Extremely hard on stuff, they would run really hot and surge. And the biggest issue with any of these new engines is the EPA programming. Simply adding fuel doesn't do much but add heat because the timing is so retarded. My only regret with my '06 MXS Acert C15 is not doing the reflash sooner. And with an ISX you have to delete the EGR junk or your fuel mileage and power will suffer. Along with the yearly EGR valve replacement and most likely an EGR cooler also.

There's guys that have all the factory Cat flash files but there isn't any good factory Acert files. A lot of guys can change injector codes or FTS-FLS settings but there are very few that can mess with timing and fuel tables. I don't know of anyone that messes with Cummins files other than companies like PDI, Bullydog, or Boost Engineering.
 
jfaulkner said:
Oh no big deal I'm not saying Pittsburgh isn't a good shop but I've known several guys that had their power box and non of them kept them very long. Extremely hard on stuff, they would run really hot and surge. And the biggest issue with any of these new engines is the EPA programming. Simply adding fuel doesn't do much but add heat because the timing is so retarded. My only regret with my '06 MXS Acert C15 is not doing the reflash sooner. And with an ISX you have to delete the EGR junk or your fuel mileage and power will suffer. Along with the yearly EGR valve replacement and most likely an EGR cooler also.

There's guys that have all the factory Cat flash files but there isn't any good factory Acert files. A lot of guys can change injector codes or FTS-FLS settings but there are very few that can mess with timing and fuel tables. I don't know of anyone that messes with Cummins files other than companies like PDI, Bullydog, or Boost Engineering.
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We got a brand new frieghtlioner m2 with the 6.7 in it and a 6spd. They only rated it at 200hp and the truck is probaly round 16k. My boss tried with lil effort but they told him a lil over 2k to turn it up cause the 6psd would not handle it. It has all the emissions crap on it minus DEF. Poor thing suffers so bad smallest hill has it down in 4th. Could be why it only has 6k miles on it and its almost 2 years old. No one likes taken it anywhere.
 
Well, when we had choices between Cat and Cummins, we could play the area reps against each other for the not-so-public tunes on a 3 truck or more deal. Those days are long gone now unfortunately. There are guys within Cummins MidSouth that know what they are doing with higher hp Cummins, reason I know is a friend was ordering a new Pete in '07 and his best friend was ordering a new IH 9900i. The Pete was ordered with the 625 Cat and the IH was ordered with the ISX 565, but when the IH arrrived the Cummins rep made an appt. for it to visit Cummins MidSouth in Morgan City, La. It came back running damn good and way better than any ISX should run. He probably could have left it alone compared to the pig the Cat 625 was. The guy with the Cat just had PDI work it over and they both still haul grain together. Bad deal is that the ISX will still walk all over that Cat on the big hills, and I have yellow paint running through my blood so that hurts to say!
 
Oh HidalgoGT, that is par for the dealerships to say. The tranny will handle any power increase you can throw at it, the clutch might not like for long, but that's easily remedied too. There are plenty of programmers out there that will turn that pig into a roadrunner. Steven.
 
As previously stated the ISX motors eat turbos, egr valves, and coolers like a kid eats candy. We only run 10 in our fleet and there is one going to kenworth for warranty stuff atleast once every 4-6 weeks. Most of them are low mile (Less then 150k) ALL of them have went in atleast once.
 
The trucking company i work for has 30 379 Peterbilts ranging from 2004-2009. There are 12 2008-09 trucks that have the new ISX motors. There is one sitting at the cummins shop at all times. We have had 3 with cracked heads, 6 turbo failures and so many egr coolers that we keep 3 on the parts shelf in stock at all times. All of these motors have less then 250k miles on them and are well maintained.
 
judas, i have no idea why you guys are having so much trouble with the ISX, the company i used to work for has 40 trucks with ISX engines ranging from 2000 to 2008 set from 525 to 600 hp and they have had troubles with the egr valves in all of them but only 9 of the trucks have needed new turbos.....
 
there is a new design for the egr cooler out from cummins that can be replaced under warranty right now...but once again it probably wont help unless you completely remove them like stated...ive replaced my fair share of coolers, valves, and turbos on these things also had one blow a turbo about 2 months ago and ran off to about 6 grand for like 20 minutes the driver said...$$$$$
 
The ISX just like the very last on-highway Cat can be great engines.........As long as you junk ALL of the epa crap. I believe it costs about $4k to strip the DPF off a cat. The cummins cost all depends on what year, it's about $8k to completely strip a SCR ISX (includes a new exhaust manifold and turbo and all the ECM deletes)

I remember when the Acert first came out and people thought the twin chargers would be a nightmare and extremely expensive to replace. Ends up costing the same as a new ISX VGT.
 
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