This question isn't of great importance, just curiosity. For as long as I can remember, whenever we saw a truck heading down the street blowing out black smoke, we always said, "Either that engine is in trouble or it's a diesel." My question is what did the engineers do that eliminated that black smoke, which used to be characteristic of a diesel?

I love my 2003 HO, and, of course, don't have the smoke. Just wondered how it was eliminated.

 

Better fuel? Better oil? Federal standards??

 

Nothing happened to it; I see tons of big Kenworth etc dump trucks moving dirt out of the new Capital Visitors Center in DC every day, and they're blowing all kinds of black smoke out the stacks.

Federal Standards? At the Capital? Nahhhhh...

 

the developmental progress of the diesel is predominantly motivated by Federal emissions standards. really. smoke is particulate exhaust that represents "un" or "incompletely" burned fuel. there are a number of things they've done to reduce particulates, but chief among them is more precise control of fuel delivery. natrually the smoke gods want smoke reduced so they craft emissions standards to force the mfgs into building cleaner burning engines.

Just for comparison's sake, my stock 02 would smoke just a teensy bit (hardly enough to notice) but the turbo lag was a dog because the ECM limited fuel delivery by controlling the VP44. With VP44 pumps you have one fuel charge who's size and duration depends on the injector pop-off pressure and the VP44's ability to squirt fuel under high pressure at a certain time.

My 04 doesn't smoke at all, and is more powerful and certainly has a better spool up performance, partly due to the smaller turbocharger of course. but now instead of 1 large fuel charge there are two charges. with HPCR you get the opportunity for smaller injectors fired more than once, and with longer durations. so you get a more complete burn.

so now I've told you more than I know about the subject

 

In short - more complete combustion - period. However they will still smoke. I'd been babying my 04 a bit as it was breaking in, and really let er rip tonight, full throttle from a stoplight, with a ford powerstroke behind me no less, and left him in a very thick cloud....they still have it in em every once in a while apparently!

 

Some tech line dude from Edge told me that the 03's and up have a better fuel atomization which consequently lends itself to a more efficient fuel burn and thus little to no smoke. He even went as far as to tell me that the Edge EZ actually makes the fuel atomization even greater due to the increased fuel pressure that the box causes....even more of an efficient burn. Smoke is for all intents and purposes wasted power or hard earned $$$ out the pipe.

 

higher pressures and smaller injectors with longer durations is the trend since the VP44 was introduced. Even The HO ETH engine, when compared to the SO ETC 2nd gens reflect this (smaller injectors and higher fuel pressures).

So the way Edge is claiming to improve this is via increased rail pressure, and this claim does make some sense. However, raising rail pressure is something I'm not all together comfortable with yet. these boxes, in my opinion, don't have enough miles under the belt yet to see how or if the rail durability is affected.

I favor the timing and duration approach, as upposed to pressure and view the Edge box as a rush to market with an easy solution.