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VP44 problems - Getting tired of the BS!


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I have one Wix O/F left. Now I think I should return that one. The rest are Baldwin filters any opinions on those?

Never heard or seen anything bad about them. I personally use fleetguard but know of several trucks, including some company fleets with over 100 trucks, that use baldwin filters and to my knowledge there haven't been any problems from them.
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I've not hidden my dislike of the VP44 and it's electronic 'wonderchild' properties..

I'm sorry, but I still feel like it's way more complicated of a device than it should be. It's too temperamental, too costly for even little crap (APPS), and so on.

The P-pump is horse of another color. It, too, is expensive to replace, and has it's idiosyncrasies (like racks sticking, timing complications, etc.

But it's far less complicated, and requires almost no electronics/computers to be used effectively.

My 12V 5speed p-pumped truck with only exhaust, bhaf, #10 fuel plate, 3K springs, and added boost (roughly $400 total spent on aftermarket parts) was 3 times the truck my 24V 6spd VP44 truck is, with it's Edge, exhaust, bhaf, (8-900$ worth of stuff.)

Both trucks have mid-100K on the odometer. 12V got 26-27mpg on highway (hand-calculated), 17-18mpg city. 24V is about 12-13 city, with rare occasions of 15-16 city, and (if I'm really lucky) 19 highway.

Seems to me the 24V, more "precisely controlled" VP44 should get a lot better than that, economy-wise. But it doesn't.

I hate the "DBW" operation of this setup; i prefer a more mechanical link between my foot and the throttle control.

Do I want to swap to a p-pump on the 24v? Yes

Will I? Eventually, most likely.

Why? Because I prefer the mechanical functionality, less expensive maintenance costs, nigher tolerance to crap, etc.

Does the VP44 functionality/usefulness not entice me? Some do, most don't.

Do I bash the VP44 every chance I get? No. It does what it does, and it does it decently. I just think it's a little too picky.

I'm sure I'll get a poke or two from this, but whatever. I am just not the fan of the VP44 that a bunch of others are.

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Rogan, you dont have to be a fan of the VP. It is what it is to you and thats fine. The only thing I dislike reading on these forums is completely non factual negative opinions based on situations which are known to be the cause of VP failure. People cant complain about something not doing what it was not designed to do. This also applies to most all components of a vehicle with drivetrain being on the top of the list. Who "isn't" guilty of this? Yes, the VP has had its fair share of issues but this isn't to say that most of those issues have or can be dealt with. Every now and again you'll see someone post a thread talking about all the money and work they had to go through with their GM or Ford which adds up to far more than replacing a VP every 100k miles. And thats not to say that anyone shouldn't be upset either if their VP fails or if something breaks on their vehicle.

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  • 1 month later...
  • Owner

Fleetgaurd Oil and fuel filters... Then now switching over to Donaldson Fuel filters on the AirDog 150 now...The fact NAPA doesn't list there filter spec a little clearer than they do is why I tend to back away... I know there is tons of farmers and rancher that use tha filter all the time but in the same token how many come running back with VP44 issues? Good question... :rolleyes:

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Fleetgaurd Oil and fuel filters... Then now switching over to Donaldson Fuel filters on the AirDog 150 now... The fact NAPA doesn't list there filter spec a little clearer than they do is why I tend to back away... I know there is tons of farmers and rancher that use tha filter all the time but in the same token how many come running back with VP44 issues? Good question... :rolleyes:

Where do you find Donaldson? Around here we have Carquest, Napa, Advance, Autozone, National Auto.
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I'm not a big fan of unions (auto workers comes to mind) however very rarely a union causes a buisness to fail if you look at the north american auto companies as example, look at the crap they were designing and making in the 70's and 80's, it was corperate management (CEO's and bean counter) that put the stamp of approval for car's like monza's, vega's, pinto's,mavericks that were much worse than Russian Lada's (I drove some Lada's when I was in Russia), that made it easy for the Japanese to come in and take market share. It was corp. mismanagement and unions of the 70's, 80's, and 90's that set the stage for thier bankrupcy. Everyone deserves a fair wage if they work hard and a reasonably safe work enviornment. I think the reason the corperations goes overseas is simply profit, they can make money in North America but they can make even more in Bangladesh. I don't want my nieghbor to have to work for 3 dollars a hour and breath in toxic fumes all day(it maybe me tomorrow) just for me to save 25 cents a filter, and give a nameless corp. a extra billion of profit so a select few corp. aholes can get a second 65ft yaht to go with thier 2nd 12000 sq ft mansion in the south of France. The Corp. mentality these days seems to be vacant of any morality, make short term money and to heck with the future and how it might effect the other 99%. Opps sorry for the :smart:, but Mike asked for the answer, guess it wasn't me he asked it from :lol:. just my point of view. and it might be wrong or change tomorrow. These Financial Crooks err I mean Bankers have really ticked me off the last 3 years.

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Ok first of let me vent here a second... (You've been warned!)

I got a phone call from a gent this evening upset at his truck because of hard starting and P1689 error code randomily coming. He admits he's got a Raptor fuel pump, Edge Juice and 100 HP injectors. That fine... But the admits he's selling it because he's tired of all the VP44 failures and problem.

WHOA! Stop the train... This is where I'm getting really tired of people giving the VP44 a bad name now pay attention.

Now I asked him of his source of fuel. His response is he's running red dye fuel from a farm tank because its free.

Then ask him of the the fuel filter he's running. His response is a cheap wix/napa filter.

So now whining about VP44 failures but he's feeding it dirty watered down fuel and using cheap filters and wonder why the VP44 are not lasting. :rolleyes:VP44 injection pump are a great pump and work very very well only if you feed them right...

[*]Fuel lubricity of <450 HFRR (He admits in using 2 cycle oil :thumb1:)

[*]Fuel pressure of >14 PSI (Raptor pump and no lower than 16 PSI :thumb1:)

[*]Filters of <10 Microns

[*]Little to no water (We all know farm fuels get water from time to time from sitting in the weather :rolleyes:)

So what I'm finding out is people are abusing the pumps by cheating and then blame the pump for the poor quality of fuel and filters used. I'm really getting sick and tired of all the VP44 bashing... :mad:

Just curious about your opinion on the quality of dyed fuel? Here we run a ton of it through all our equipment through-out a year and have had no issues whatsoever with it in years. I know in some provinces they just add dye to regular clear fuel so it's really the same stuff. Or??

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  • Owner

Here in Idaho on road diesel and off road diesel come from the same tap... Ones got dye and the other doesn't... But like some make people that are trying to cheat I got a buddy in New Meadows, ID (Relentless70) that has be trying to use heating oil in his truck and he's filtering it down through 2 filter before pouring in the tank but now the engine fuel filter is still plugging up premature on him... :doh:Another guy I know in LA state he's been using off road diesel now for years but already been through a VP44, few lift pumps, and many fuel filters. Everytime he using the off road fuel it just plugs up his airdog filters but once again he's using a goldenrod filter on the drag tank so it filter before putting into the fuel tank but still the issue...

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  • 1 month later...

Actually Rogan, you make some excellant points. The VP44 is great idea though a bit complex and have proved somewhat fragile. The VP44 was not designed because of a deficency in the P pump. It was done to smog the Cummins. The parameters were emissions related, not efficiency. Had efficiency been the goal, they should have done better. For some reason, we are stuck with add-ons to "fool" the VP44. Better, but not a complete re-design. Unless we understand why the VP44 was designed... we're not going to understand it's issues.

I've not hidden my dislike of the VP44 and it's electronic 'wonderchild' properties..

I'm sorry, but I still feel like it's way more complicated of a device than it should be. It's too temperamental, too costly for even little crap (APPS), and so on.

The P-pump is horse of another color. It, too, is expensive to replace, and has it's idiosyncrasies (like racks sticking, timing complications, etc.

But it's far less complicated, and requires almost no electronics/computers to be used effectively.

My 12V 5speed p-pumped truck with only exhaust, bhaf, #10 fuel plate, 3K springs, and added boost (roughly $400 total spent on aftermarket parts) was 3 times the truck my 24V 6spd VP44 truck is, with it's Edge, exhaust, bhaf, (8-900$ worth of stuff.)

Both trucks have mid-100K on the odometer. 12V got 26-27mpg on highway (hand-calculated), 17-18mpg city. 24V is about 12-13 city, with rare occasions of 15-16 city, and (if I'm really lucky) 19 highway.

Seems to me the 24V, more "precisely controlled" VP44 should get a lot better than that, economy-wise. But it doesn't.

I hate the "DBW" operation of this setup; i prefer a more mechanical link between my foot and the throttle control.

Do I want to swap to a p-pump on the 24v? Yes

Will I? Eventually, most likely.

Why? Because I prefer the mechanical functionality, less expensive maintenance costs, nigher tolerance to crap, etc.

Does the VP44 functionality/usefulness not entice me? Some do, most don't.

Do I bash the VP44 every chance I get? No. It does what it does, and it does it decently. I just think it's a little too picky.

I'm sure I'll get a poke or two from this, but whatever. I am just not the fan of the VP44 that a bunch of others are.

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Actually Rogan, you make some excellant points. The VP44 is great idea though a bit complex and have proved somewhat fragile. The VP44 was not designed because of a deficency in the P pump. It was done to smog the Cummins. The parameters were emissions related, not efficiency. Had efficiency been the goal, they should have done better. For some reason, we are stuck with add-ons to "fool" the VP44. Better, but not a complete re-design. Unless we understand why the VP44 was designed... we're not going to understand it's issues.

flagmanruss, I'm not sure what you mean by saying add-ons to "fool" the VP. How are we fooling the VP? Do we "need" a complete redesign? Adding up all the upgrades the VP has had over the past 10 years, I'd say that's pretty close to a complete redesign. Do we not understand why the VP was designed? I think we do.....but I'm also sure that the animosity from the thousands of people whom had to replace their VP will try to say otherwise. Yes, the VP was a poor excuse for a reliable injection pump when it was first mounted to the Cummins but no one can ignore the fact that it was also combined with a poor excuse for a fuel pump/system which made it even worse. So in saying that, guys with replacement VP's who also run an aftermarket fuel pump tend to not have issues other than the computer which unfortunately still contain lead free solder. If there's anything that will make the VP a more reliable injection pump would be lead in the solder. But that's an argument for the environmentalists.
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