Here is my question, are injectors failing due to the factory fuel filter letting contaminents pass into the injection system or is is because the injectors are of a faulty design? My injectors just failed on my 02, but I find it highly coincedental that after a bad batch of fuel in the fall, that I have had to replace 3 fuel filters in 1500 miles, I keep draining the bottom of the fuel filter and finding several ounces of cloudy fuel. This leads me to believe that I picked up some water. I went as far as to pump out all of the fuel in the tank sucking it through a water trap and placing it in a clean barrel. Then I added some 911 into the tank to counteract any remaining water, added some clean fuel back ito the tank and pumped it out again. While I am getting only very small amounts of water from the bottom of the fuel filter, the cloudy fuel concerns me. I regularly run power service in my fuel, is the additive mixing with the water and making the water molecules small enough to pass through the fuel filter, thus causing damage to the injectors?

I am getting ready to install secondary fuel filters on both of my trucks, but my big concern is that one bad batch of fuel can cause long term ill effects on the injection system. My personal belief is that keeping water from entering the injection system is of utmost importance. With that in mind the best way to know if you have water collecting in the fuel filter is to have a clear bowl on the bottom that is easily visible so water can be removed as it collects. My factory water in fuel indicator has never gone off.

The other thing that I see happening on several occasions is immediate injector failure after replacement. If bad fuel caused the first failure and the tank isn't fully cleaned out, the same problem can happen with the next set of injectors. This supports the idea that the factory fuel filter doesn't do a good job of stopping contaminants from entering the engine.

After looking at filtering capabilities of the nictane system versus the stock system, has the comparision been made with the newest version of fuel filter that gm is installing.

Very good points in your post. A test needs to be run to verify the effectiveness of the factory style fuel filter alone. Then the effectiveness of the secondary filter/ factory filter combo. I guess you would have to have some purdy fancy equipment to see how much particulate made its way through the filter(s), water could be easy to see though. The only downside to having multiple filters i can see is the added cost of maintenance but that beats having to pay big $ for injectors or a CP3 if your warrantee is up or voided.

I had injectors replaced at ~80K-miles, and I have had additional fuel filtration since the truck was 6 weeks old.

Seems to me only one of the injector failure modes would come from improper fuel filtering, check ball seat erosion. The dirt particles would get between the check ball and its seat and gouge the seat when the check ball slams back down on it. A cracked injector body would be more like a manufacturing or assembly problem.

There was a poll on this a couple years ago and it didnt' show any significant difference between with or without for injector failures.

Since the factory started replacing sets of 8 when the injector fails, they claim to have made several upgrades to the remanufactured injectors. Does anyone have any knowlegde of exactly what they upgraded?

We can discount cracked injector bodies, but what about other things that cause failures.

I am trying to decide if I should buy a set of brand new take out injectors to keep on the shelf for the wifes 01 or if I should just wait and buy remans when the time comes.

some have had injector failures with secondary fuel filter, this tends to make me thing that there is a design flaw in the material, A secondary filter system is a must since most fuel is pretty nasty.

My next question would be that someone should do a test to see how effective any of the filter systems are a preventing a dose of bad fuel with a large amount of water from entering the injection system. Most of the tests I have seen, only address particles. My opinion is that water is a bigger culprit. I believe people that see multiple injector failures probably have contaminated fuel that keeps destroying injectors. Posibly it should be required to drop the fuel tank and clean it whenever injectors fail.

Better yet, how hard would it be to install a drain plug in the bottom of the fuel tank. That way water could be occasionally drained from the tank.

Here is my question, are injectors failing due to the factory fuel filter letting contaminents pass into the injection system or is is because the injectors are of a faulty design?

Faulty design. Plain and simple. Filtration is essential for all diesel injection systems, but design flaws are documented heavily on this particular injector.

My next question would be that someone should do a test to see how effective any of the filter systems are a preventing a dose of bad fuel with a large amount of water from entering the injection system.


There are currently no "water block" filters offered for our trucks. a Racor is not really a true water block either. This type of filter is generally too restrictive for the fuel pump arrangement on these trucks without the addition of a "boost" pump before the filter.

Since the factory started replacing sets of 8 when the injector fails, they claim to have made several upgrades to the remanufactured injectors. Does anyone have any knowlegde of exactly what they upgraded?


There have been two documented changes to the LB7 injectors since the warranty policy came out. The ones you can buy currently have been tested to be better than all previous incarnations.

My opinion is that water is a bigger culprit.

Aside from the lubricating aspect, does water have any other obvious damaging effects on injectors? Ive been reading a little about the group in Israel that has supposedly found a way to permanently bind water with fuel and claim some pretty fantastic advantages with this idea.

Test have been run on the various secondary fuel systems. Several members including me have sent fuel samples in for analysis. All this was very well documented back in 03-04 time frame. Try searching. Later! Frank

remember survey on filtration, did not see defference with/without added filter, think larger filters help with more surface area and water seperation due to slower plow rate in filter element. think lot of problem may have been bad casting of injector bodies and non-spec(softer) nozzle materials that did not hold up underpressure. think under pressure that water may flashoff and errode ball seat, also. coalescing filters are $$$ and would be best with matusa pump constantly recirculating back to tank and feeding pump after, filters don't last long though with water present, 5PPM can kick off and lock out(shut down) filter. FIREFIGHTER_503 Detroit Diesel had a system, hot tank setup, that mixed 30% water with 70% fuel that was blended in tank on engine and recirced thru fuel rail. that was in early 80's almost had it on ship i was on. a fuel is sold in california that has chemical( think it is a despersant "dawn dish soap") to keep fuel/water blended together. i would not use in any HPCR systems.