I know you’re not supposed to use ABS but my printer is giving me hell with PLA. Has anyone had success with ABS and what did you do?
I’m guessing you have an all metal hot end? They only print PLA faster than normal, and you have to turn up the first layer speed as well. If you go too slow the heat will actually climb up the filament, make it soft, and it will get expanded in to the extruder tube and clog.
If that doesn’t work the next best option is PET or PETG.
You seem to be describing the situation as i have read it. I ordered a few non-all metal hotends and I see some expansion down at just the tip now. I assume I just need to test the lower limit of temperature but I am so tired of pulling the hotend apart. 
I had the same problem when my old job updated the airwolf to an e3d, PLA didn’t work. One of the guys got pissed and ran it at like 200% feedRate and It actually worked perfect.