DPF Delete Pipe & ECU Reflash Source

[Lambeau]

I've driven with this mod for over 30,000 miles and no matter how many times I state that it's the exhaust drifting from the tailpipes it won't matter. I'll just smile when I say "I told you so".

[bawareca]

I have the same problem. It may be incorrect installation/seating of the V-band connection, loose sensor or not good delete pipe. But it is definitely exhaust leak in the engine compartment. There is no way the exhaust gasses will go from the exhaust tips to the cabin filter on every occasion. If my windows are open most of the time) but blower is OFF there is no smell. Once I turn the AC it gets nasty if the car is stationary and no problem when it moves.

[Bumble Bee]

Originally Posted by Ozer

So im in NY and we have emissions but nothing gets put in the tailpipe to sniff anything.
My DEF tank has an error code of P205C and i dont feel like spending all that money to get a new one, im at 105k miles.
If i get this delete pipe and install it, put the sensors in and clear all codes will i pass inspection, considering everything else is good to go? The ECU needs to be coded as well correct?

Also, what happens to the DEF tanks when this delete is done, can i still keep the CAT and the muffler in? Im not looking for loud exhaust, just want to have a worry free diesel w/o all this clean burning crap.

hi, did u do it? im in NY with the same truck(Car?) just notice my EGR has a leak, and thinking about this mod,

[Ozer]

No i didnt, my tank sensors are working now so fingers crossed. I been told "Passing inspection is the least of my worries" so idk what that means, i just left it at that for now.

[Gixxerboy63]

I understand that accomplishing the DPE delete may create more black soot and smoke from the exhaust?
I also wonder if there are other benefits (or more importantly, problems) as a result of removing the system or is it all just emissions stuff that limits engine power?

[bawareca]

Yeah, soot, and worst, smell. I have everything deleted and the car goes like stink, but the smell is sometimes too much.
But you wife's new diesel is rather old, so if you dont have emissions testing in your state you may consider a full delete. It removes the problems, in return getting only the aformentioned soot(ok) and smell(sometimes hard to live with).

[Gixxerboy63]

Originally Posted by bawareca

Yeah, soot, and worst, smell. I have everything deleted and the car goes like stink, but the smell is sometimes too much.
But you wife's new diesel is rather old, so if you dont have emissions testing in your state you may consider a full delete. It removes the problems, in return getting only the aformentioned soot(ok) and smell(sometimes hard to live with).

No thanks... Its my wife's car and she already complains about the gaseous odor that eeks from my Catless DP'd and tuned X5M. The diesel has plenty torque, so if I do anything to that vehicle, it would be a tune only. If I really need more power, then I'll simply drive the M.

[bawareca]

Originally Posted by Gixxerboy63

No thanks... Its my wife's car and she already complains about the gaseous odor that eeks from my Catless DP'd and tuned X5M. The diesel has plenty torque, so if I do anything to that vehicle, it would be a tune only. If I really need more power, then I'll simply drive the M.

Totally agree. With a tune it really gets alive without any side effects. You can hit me up if interested.

[BimmerOEM]

Originally Posted by Gixxerboy63

I understand that accomplishing the DPE delete may create more black soot and smoke from the exhaust?
I also wonder if there are other benefits (or more importantly, problems) as a result of removing the system or is it all just emissions stuff that limits engine power?

Gixxerboy: Yes, deleting DPF will definitely create some amount of exhaust smoke but soot and black smoke can be minimized if you do not go for the performance increase software. If we keep your injection quantity at factory levels, you will see only slight performance increase but the smoke will be extremely minimum. By raising injection quantity along with boost, we can still attempt to keep smoke levels down but it all depends on the turbos ability to provide enough oxygen. The "issue" with our twin turbo diesel engines is the switch over from small to large turbo. During this switch over, a car with injection quantity increase will suffer from some amount of black smoke, especially during downshift/throttle blip.

Regarding hardware removal, really there is only one downside (aside from the legal aspect): longer warm-up cycle for EGR delete option.

1) DPF: By removing DPF, you are freeing up exhaust and releasing stress from a turbo. Also, on original power level tune with DPF removed, you will reduce boost oscillations and thus extending turbo life.
Cars with DPF have post injection cycles (additional diesel is being injected after main combustion to "clean" DPF. Post injection cycle has 2 drawbacks. First, the obvious one being MPG reduction as you are using up to Diesel to clean your DPF.
Second one is not well known, but very important. The post injection cycle happens during exhaust stroke when all of the burnt mixture is being released to the exhaust system. During this time, computer momentary opens up the injectors to provide small amounts of clean diesel into this mixture. The side-effect of this, surprisingly, is dirtier engine oil. The way the diesel has to be injected into the burnt exhaust mixture allows for a small amount of this clean diesel to mix with burnt soot and drip down the cylinder walls and mix with engine oil. Even though the amounts are not extreme, the dirty mixture still gets into the oil. This is why a lot of drivers do not need to add any oil to their diesel engines between oil change cycles. In many cases, the engine oil level will actually increasebetween oil changes.

2) SCR/Adblue has only one purpose on a diesel car. That is "cleaning" exhaust. Nothing more. Yes, one day this technology will be "perfected" and actually usable but the systems found on E70/E90 suffered major engineering issues and cost owners thousands to get them repaired. By removing the SCR functionality from the software code, the customer can completely remove both tanks and all of the sensors/injectors from exhaust.

3) EGR... Good old EGR. Yes, EGR has one real benefit, with that being faster warm-up cycles. With that benefit, we get a lot of side-effects. EGR introduces DIRTY exhaust and soot into your intakes. Though it isn't an extreme amount, it's still enough to cause carbon and soot buildup on your intake ports and swirl flaps.

A side note on the benefit of EGR; Having EGR lowers EGTs due to the fact that burnt exhaust gas introduced by the EGR system into the combustion chamber occupies space, instead of allowing more clean air/diesel. This lowers combustion temperatures, thus lowering EGTs.

Here is one inside tip that not many tuners will tell you: A performance software installed on a car with all original hardware WILL shorten turbo and DPF life. The higher the power gains, the more it will shorten the life of those two parts. This is due to the fact that with higher diesel injection you are pressurizing the already restrictive exhaust even more. This creates more turbulence and oscillations, damaging the turbo. Higher injection will introduce more soot into the DPF, clogging it up faster until the point at which the regeneration process can no longer clean it well enough.

As you can see, there are some benefits of the emissions systems, but they are outweighed by the issues they create. A properly created software tune can compensate for the removed benefits of emissions systems and really bring your car to life. We can build a custom tune for any of our customers, being it like "Lambeau" who wanted everything removed or for anyone who just wants the performance increase with original hardware or partial hardware delete.

[bawareca]

Originally Posted by BimmerOEM

....

Good points and clean explanation. I will just chime in with a few more facts.
Diesel soot, or black smoke:
As most of us know it is a product of a too rich of a mixture, or too much fuel(diesel in our case) in the air fuel mixture. Here is a very interesting question: Why Bosch and BMW spent millions of dollars and hundreds thousands of man hours to create a highly sophisticated engine management system with a myriad of sensors and surgical precision to control the engine torque and the mixture is still rich? Why OEMs or tuners with immense experience cannot just make the mixture not reach(stoichometric) and just get rid of the black smoke? Here is the answer: this is the way the diesel works. In a modern gasoline engine a tuner will just raise the boost and the power will go up and other parameters will be adjusted automatically by the ECU. If you take a stock engine and increase the duty cycle of the boost control solenoid(s), guess what will happen? Nothing!!! Ok, probably nothing really useful. Because of the low energy (volume and temperature) of the exhaust diesel gases you need more of them to spool the turbo(s), especially in a low load situation or transition from no boost (cruising) to boost (medium and high loads). So the only way to put some energy into the exhaust is to inject more diesel. And guess what, it starts to smoke! It will be really heavy(still depending on the power level) until some boost starts to build, but will be present all the way to the redline if the power is really high. Again, it is not smoking because of the power it makes, it smokes to make this power Obviously, if a DPF is installed in the exhaust the smoke will be absorbed, but the engine power will be limited due to the exhaust backpressure. A lot of it. As Alex said, the smoke will be high around 3700 RPM, the switchover point for the turbos. Of course with good knowledge and experience the "dip" in the boost can be ironed out and made almost invisible, but these are details.
On the point that a so called "Stage 1" tune will cause DPF, EGR or other problems:
Overall DPFs have been around for almost 2 decades and the systems are pretty much perfected. When everything in the engine is intact and all systems work a stock engine will regulate and regenerate "itself" for a millions of miles without a human intervention. The computer measures the DPF differential pressure (pressure drop across the DPF) and calculated the soot load accumulated. Once it reaches a certain amount, a flag for regeneration is set, but it may not occur immediately. It may take some time until certain conditions are met(engine speed, vehicle speed, engine temp, exhaust temp, etc). Also there is so called passive regeneration which occurs at high load conditions when the temp in the exhaust is increased by the hot exhaust gases and some of the soot will burn. If there are mechanical, sensor or other electric problems all goes to hell, but this is not what we are talking about now.
Obviously with increased power (stage 1) soot load on the overall system will be increased. With stage 1 I mean any tune that will raise the power by changing the calibration parameters only and not any hardware changes. But there are numerous reasons why it COULD be done safely: there is a very wide safety margin built-in the system from the factory. As if the car is owned by old lady in Maine and she drives 2 trips of 10 miles each in heavy traffic every day. This will put the system at immense soot load, but it will still probably hold 20-30 k miles before it finally quits. And if there is only one moderate highway trip a month it may hold on for a very long time. We may need infinite improbability drive to calculate the chance of this lady installing a "stage 1" tune. And even if this happens in a galaxy far, far away, this tune will do absolutely nothing for her. Because it works only at medium and high loads which she never reaches. For a conscious owner and car enthusiast a well developed tune will only bring upsides and not any real downsides. The regeneration cycles may occur more often, but as long as they are triggered and executed following the normal procedure that is not a problem at all. The DPF doesnt "wear" going thru the normal cycles of collecting and burning the soot. With more power and more spirited driving obviously more "passive" regeneration will occur, so that will help too.
Now, removing the EGR and leaving the DPF intact may open a whole new can of worms and will probably lead to destroying or totally plugging the DPF.
I have more than 20 k miles on my car with TRF stage 1 in the development cycles and my really aggressive driving and no problem ever happened. We also have a few other cars running it for a some time and no problems were reported by far.