a long overdue update

well I'm up and running again, took my sweet time between the "kid glove" treatment, and still being PO'd at this vehicle and situation, haven't been in a hurry to get it going (have 4 vehicles for 2 drivers so haven't been a huge sense of urgency)
got the heads back.... according to the machine shop, many intake valve guides were tight as well as the rest of the exhausts....fixed now. . engine's in, got ~300 miles on it.... so far so good, but there was 1 other issue with the setup that was a contributing factor...
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The stock original injectors from the Durango (were on the original engine when I bought the rig) were BAD.... I had taken them in for flush and test and rebuild, shortly before that engine came out when I was fighting the original cyl 6 misfire.....and came up "GOOD" under flow testing at the injection place back then''' there were issues with a couple, back then/ but I had some identical spares laying around, that I took to the injection shop, were given "the treatment" and was told they were "fine".... but in the end, they weren't// and contributed to a lot of frustration and extra cost, in getting thru this issue.
they were put onto the 1st engine that was overhauled, and which gave me the silver slurry when I did the initial "break in" oil change.... something else I had never seen. I guess the excess gas had diluted the oil in the cylinders, and thinned my oil, unknown to me at the time. remember... this 1st engine had a whole 3 HOURS, of run time, on a fresh total rebuild.

I put the injectors on the 2nd engine, the CL used engine that I only regasketed, replaced the timing chain on, and bolted the now, fresh valve-jobbed EQ heads onto it.
Not a total overhaul like the 1st engine got. But put the same set of injectors on that had come off the original, and had gone onto the rebuilt, and now onto this engine. Upon initial getting going, I could tell something still wasn't right, but was having trouble diagnosing...… a lot of " that can't be the problem... that and that and THAT were "just" replaced.... cant be bad...…" was a major mental block for me in figuring this mess out...but it was now apparent that the remaining problem was going to be a part that I had just replaced, with the initial rebuild....
I put new O2s on this thing AGAIN with this replacement engine, I wish I could tell you how many O2s I have put onto this rig since I have owned...… and the upstream was blacker than coal in no time. so now what.....and I replaced the car with a pipe "for now," so I don't burn up another... while I was putting the exhaust back on this thing from the 2nd engine replacement, I had a chunk of melted cat come out of the Y pipe that I didn't know was in there.... from the 1st replacement cat, as the original cat hadn't melted down, even though it had been giving me a PO420 before I went thru all of this mess.

I was ready to scrap both computers I have for this and buy another...…

but I thought about it some more, and "let me try 1 thing 1st"..... I had an injector rail that Id gotten from a buddy, leftovers from his project.... 360 fuel rail off an 01 Ram 1500..... but he had swapped a set of 4.7 injectors onto his original rail.... new injectors, not a lot of miles but had been sitting several years. it was "something".... and I knew that his truck had run perfectly fine with these injectors. His truck was the same year ,with the same engine as mine. so "why not" can't hurt at this point, and "success," world of difference.... "replace with known good part"..... and that was the rest of the answer.... there was a problem with those original injectors as well that I wasn't recognizing, with all the rest of the mess. It was the injectors, not the computer.

I ran it as long as I could with a straight pipe in place of the cat, and after about 170 miles I got the CEL and the dreaded PO420.... so I had to put another d@mn cat on the stupid thing to keep the light off.... I was really hoping not to..... I had the same "cheat" in place that shut the CEL and code PO420 off for the duration of the original motor and cat being in place....worked with a so/so cat but not with no cat.


have since replaced the rear leafs with brand new, all 4 shocks, all bushings in front with poly, (including sway bar, bushings in all 4 control arms, and rack mount bushings) and a fresh alignment and so far so good with this thing...… now to drive it til it rusts into nothingness...…
on the initial rebuild and such, I had been SO careful not to screw anything up, and in the end it was 2 things that I paid someone else to "make sure all is right with" that bit me in the azz.... the injectors and the new, so called "ready to run" heads, that definitely weren't "ready to run"....