OT Dodge Cummins fuel system

Maybe air is getting in from a loose connection ? That would be first thing I would check followed be a cracked flare . Luck Ken Cutt

I would look all your fuel supply and especially the injector lines over very carefully for a pinhole leak. It only takes a small drop of fuel to let all the pressure off of the injector lines. If you haven't changed the fuel filter in awhile now would be a good time to do it, or have it done. I would also check your shut off solenoid. Make sure it is functioning as it should, if it isn't actuating properly this could be why you are getting a start and die condition. My International truck has a DTA-466 in it and had been a plow truck for a few years. I went ahead and ordered all new injector lines and will just change them all at one time. I will experiece some slow starts from time to time but never a start and die. From experience I can tell you that you don't want to get out somewhere and then have to bleed your injector lines because they got air in them. Most diesels will not push much air out of the injector lines and will have to be bleed to get the injector to pop off.

tim

Harold,

This situation happened to my brothers 1995 Dodge PU. It turns out Dodge made a few shortcuts when they wired the diesel. One of the small wires to the right side battery positive post (if your standing in front of the truck) is for the fuel solenoid relay. When you turn the key the selenoid must have power to kick open the fuel shutoff. In his case the corrosion in the wire provided just enough resistance that it would need some jarring (ie a long starting cycle) to finally trip the relay. Why Dodge didn't wire this to the fuse box located just a foot away from the battery is beyond me.

Also on a related note, there is a upgrade kit on EBAY for the starter solenoid. Large diameter copper contact ring to replace the cheesy one supplied by Dodge.

With both items fixed it starts and runs like a champ. The '95 has a mechnical fuel ramp instead of a electronic brain box so he put in a steeper ramp, wired the waste gate shut on the turbo and put 4" exhaust on all the way from the headers back. It runs great! In the Arizona mountains towing a 30' box trailer full of motorcycles it will climb the hills at 65mph at 30" of boost. Any more boost and the torque eats the transmission. (He has gone through 3 of those in 100K miles.)

Last thing I'd check would be leaky lines. We haven't run into those yet.

Hey Bart,

The Dodge RAM owners manuals say that you must not tow in Overdrive. Eats transmissions.

Take care.

Brian Laws>Harold,

Chuckle!

I guess the year would be helpful! It's a '94. Don't know what I was thinking when I left that out.

Harold

Brian,

The "stock" diesel is limited to 11lbs of boost, we use 30lbs of boost on a aftermarket turbo gauge to know when to "let off" the gas pedal when towing. This was after we learned what the tranny would withstand from experience.

Oh well. It was always the tranny, not the Overdrive converter that was shot. Too much torque, too much heat for too long. We always did make sure to "ease" into the locking Overdrive so as not to beat up the lockup parts.

Next truck will have a standard tranny. Unfortunately all new trucks have electonic control of fuel and wastegate.

Bart

Sh*t! - I'd check with Cummins and make sure you aren't going to blow out the bottom end and/or launch the heads into LEO by running

30" of boost with the fuel turned up. I know they use the same engine in pretty heavy trucks, but there /is/ still a limit to how much abuse the block, crank and rods will take. And a rebuild can't be cheap.

If it's safe to run that much boost, I'd still get the wastegate recalibrated for the maximum safe pressure and hook it back up - if something goes wrong and the boost manages to get past 30" and up into "grenade" territory...

And the next time the transmission barfs, I'd see if you can get an Allison that fits. They'll take a lot more torque.

(Been there by proxy - My brother found out that a stock Powerglide might handle a stock 265 or 289 2bbl fine, but it won't live long behind a 327 4bbl Vette motor with a mild cam...)

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Bruce,

We LIKE boost! My brother also has a '59 Ford Stationwagon with twin T-4's, intercooled, EFI port injected Ford 460 that we "let off" at 20psi boost. He just ran a 12.8 at Firebird Intl Raceway last night with it. He was "pedaling" it out of the hole to keep traction.

I'm in the process of building a 200HP Subaru 2.2L with a T-3 turbo for a airplane motor. Have to "downrate" it as it will need 200HP continuous to pull 200mph not just for 13 seconds like a drag car.

We've done Nitrous on a '63 Scout drag truck (10.90's 1/4), Turbos on the Dodge PU, and '59 Ford. Now if we have some spare cash I'd love to try a supercharger but their hard to hide under a hood.

See

for the Scout and for the '59 Ford.

Just "ate" the C-6 on the '59 and had it replaced (under warrantee!!) just this Monday. Same story, too much torque, fried clutch plates and shift bands. It's really tough to find people that can build a serious Ford tranny. Now its a manual automatic to reduce the slip between gears. (You must pull into 1st, 2nd or third like a manual, it does not shift between gears.)

Bart

Hey Bart,

What's the difference between Turbo-charged, and super-charged? Is it just semantics, or degree, or method of powering? I'm not a real car buff, but I've wondered.

Take care.

Brian Laws>Bruce,

Well, there can be a difference. Technically turbocharging is a sub-set of supercharging, but some people use 'supercharging' to refer to the other way to do it.

Technically, 'supercharging' refers to any method for cramming more air into the cylinders by increasing the effective atmospheric pressure by means of a compressor.

There are two ways to do this. Originally it was done with a compressor driven off the engine by a belt or shaft. Worked, but it robbed power from the engine and was a little complicated to boot.

Later, with better materials, they developed systems that used a turbine in the exhaust gas stream to drive the compressor. This is turbocharging and while it's material science hell, it's mechanically much simpler and (usually) less trouble-prone.

The new usage seems to be to call any mechanical supercharger a 'supercharger' and distinguish that from a turbocharger.

Almost everything you see today is turbocharged.

--RC

That which does not kill us makes us stronger. --Friedrich Nietzsche Never get your philosophy from some guy who ended up in the looney bin. -- Wiz Zumwalt

Bart sez: "I'm in the process of building a 200HP Subaru 2.2L with a T-3 turbo

So, Bart. What are we to read into the above statement? Are you A&P certified to "build" (build is extreme oxymnoron) a airplane motor? Pull

200mph ("continuously", sp) - what does that mean? Downrating could have a lot to do with weight differences, airframe shapes, etc. and bunch of stuff you have conveniently left out. Put a wheel on the prop shaft, let it down and see if it will "pull 200mph" going around in circles.

Bob Swinney

(Disclaimer - I am not an A&P Mechanic or a Pilot, but I know when to leave it to the experts, and this is sure as hell one of those times.)

You'd damn well /better/ be downrating that Subie motor, because an aircraft motor has to be stone cold reliable over any other attribute

- if it pukes a piston, especially on a single, you can't just pull over to the curb and call for a tow truck. If you don't keep moving forward at all times, you start doing an imitation of a rock...

This is why people keep buying 80-year-old aircraft engine designs from Lycoming and Continental. Sure they're big, and loud, and very fuel inefficient, and they're obscenely expensive because of having a foundry-to-scrapheap pedigree for every internal component - but they've been redesigned and refined over the years to be as reliable as a hammer. And a one-piece forged Estwing hammer at that, no wooden handle to break.

Building hot motors and self-engineered mods on street driven cars is fun, but using the same slap-dash philosophy for building an aircraft is likely to get somebody (maybe you) killed. You have to use parts and designs that have been properly engineered, assemble them in a deliberate manner, and get other people to check over and verify every inch of your work to make sure nothing is missed. And you can't just way overbuild things to be safe, because there is a weight issue.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm sensing a WAY too low caution level here. And you have to go into this kind of stuff with your eyes wide open, or someone will be placing two gold pieces on your closed eyelids to pay off Charon for the River Styx boat ride... ;-)

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OK, I got some serious questions for you. I have a Hummer with the

6.5 GM turbo diesel. Rated 200HP with 11 lb of boost and pulling an 8k lb truck. This vehicle does not come with a boast gauge or EGT, but I have added both (westach). On an extented grade the EGT will go to about 1300 F. There are numerous "chips" out there for more power but I feel that I'm already pushing it pretty hard based on the EGT. The GM 4L80E tranny also died at 26K miles. Torque converter went out!

So what is the Max safe EGT? Also No intercooler on this engine.

chuck

Well said, Bruce! As an aside, I would add:

Dabbling in automobile engine modification is an outlet for the overzealous and undereducated. Sort of like taking up smoking, it is a venue in which the young and restless can try to prove they are as good as everyone else. It would be interesting to see a report on how many of these "wrench wranglers" ever evolve into anything else (of merit) in the engineering world.

Bob Swinney

I don't own a Cummings-powered rig and know very little about them; however, a son has a 2001 Dodge with a Cummings engine. He claims this rig has a low pressure fuel pump with a reputation of causing trouble. His suffered from loss of power and he suspected it to be the problem. After a few go-arounds with dealerships he finally found one that replaced the pump. It must have been the problem because I don't hear anything about it, now.

Your symptoms are altogether different, but this pump thing is something to keep in mind.

Have you tried logging on to any Dodge discussion groups on the Web? I believe that is where my son got his information.

Keep us informed, Harold. You've tweaked out interest.

Best regards,

Orrin

The temperature limited component is the turbine. A banks turbo I installed on an '84 NA 6.2 GM diesel in a pickup was limited to 1200 degrees. F. That was a Garrett turbo. The 6.5 has, if I remember correctly, an IHI turbo. Ishikawajima Harima Industries. I'd do a search for them and ask what the max. sustained turb. temp is. You did put the thermocouple in front of the turbine inlet, right? That's the only correct place for it. If it's at the turbine outlet, it will cause the indicator to be approx. 200 degrees low. On my '93 3/4 ton Chevy pickup, with the same engine as your hummer, I drilled and tapped into the cast iron boss directly before the turbine for the thermocouple. I've seen the results of overheating turbines and the resultant destruction. I believe you're probably right at the limit at 1300 degrees.

Garrett Fulton

Bob, You don't need to be an A & P to build a airplane or a airplane motor.

200HP is downrated for a Soob, 230HP is stock now on a 2.0L motor and their "endurance" racers and rally cars put 450 to the ground. (With serious boost and stock bottom ends!)

Airplane motors pull power continously, unlike a car engine. With a car you slap the pedal to the floor and 10 seconds later return to just above an idle to maintain the speed you just built. In a airplane so much power is used to provide for the lift and so much additional power is used to go faster. In the sky you can keep the pedaled floored (or the lever at full) for the entire flight if you wanted to and that could be for hours at a time.

Biggest changes for aircraft use are much larger cooling systems and larger oil capacities and cooling. A prop speed reduction unit divides the rpm in 1/2 and increases the torque. (Most props don't like going over 3000rpm)

This will be much more limited than our car projects as far as pushing the engine for power. We haven't yet spit a motor (tranny's do cry uncle though, we don't build those ourselves.) in any of our projects so we aren't really at the "edge" with what we are doing anyways.

Take a look at my web pages below and you'll see the serious attention to detail and design of the Soob engine project. I'm one of the "doers" vs the "talkers" as you can see in the links I have provided in the previous email and the ones just below.

Bart

Bart D. Hull snipped-for-privacy@inficad.com Tempe, Arizona

Check

my Subaru Engine Conversion Check Tango II I'm building.

Remove -nospam to reply via email.

Robert Sw> Bart sez: "I'm in the process of building a 200HP Subaru 2.2L with a T-3 > turbo

Bruce, I disagree with the statement about the old Lycs and Conts. I have seen so many failures with these engines that would NEVER be allowed with a modern auto engine. Heads cracking at the valve guides all the way to the exhaust ports, lead fouling plugs, single failure fuel systems, carbs based on old tractor designs, cranks that have failures within the first 200 hours use (even if the engines are babied)

Honda is now working with Lycoming to bring a new engine to market for the airplanes as well as Bombardier (a 330 HP V6), and a few others on the European continent. Experience with auto (and motorcycle) engines have given these companies the experience to make a stronger, more powerful, more resilient, engine for future airplanes.

The next problem is how to get the FAA to allow these engines to be fitted to the present small aircraft fleet. You can put a LS1 in a '56 Chevy and drive it on the street but you can't put anything but the original engine in a airplane without a approval from the FAA and they are VERY few and far between.

I'm not too low on the caution level. I've done the homework and have gotten far enough to see the end of the project in sight. Just getting a bit excited, but still cautious.

Bart

Bob,

Lots of Detroit's legendary car designers had a background in "wrench wrangling". If you work on a modern car it is evident that the college rocket scientists that are designing them should be made to turn wrenches on them.

Bart

P.S. I'm a college grad with an advanced degree and still like work> Well said, Bruce! As an aside, I would add: