On one of the other gens forums (forgot which one) someone had asked about cylinder testing and one of the respondents mentioned getting a digital temp reading on each exhaust port for temp comparisons to see how efficient the spray pattern was burning. Seemed reasonable so my test indicated #1 as twenty degrees cooler than the others (199ish compared to the 220s on the others). Has anyone done this? Is it accurate? Do you get similar numbers?

 

Individual probes for each exhaust port is pretty common in large marine and stationary applications. Usually one gauge unit and a selector switch. End cylinders tend to run cooler in light/no-load situations.... simply because they only have one neighbour.

The best way to get meaningful data is to log the EGTs on each cylinder under a constant load i.e. dyno or long hill climb.

 

The Coast Guard trains us that anything greater than 50f difference between cylinders and you have an injector issue... Is that right? I don't know but it seems fairly legitimate to me..

 

Thanks lockgessner. Sounds reasonable to me. My nephew is a diesel engineer for the Navy. I'll have to confirm with him.

 

Do you have an issue, like uneven idle?

 

Nothing obvious. Just seems like a little less power and it has 300k on the injectors.

 

It would be worth the while to pull em out and have a diesel shop check and adjust them. The IP might be wearing a tad and need some adjustment to compensate. Anyway, a shop with knowledge and a few instruments trumps guessing and throwing parts at it.