Hey guys. A lot of you know me.

If you have any questions about the new Cummins Heavy Duty engines or 2010 emissions in general, I can probably help you out with some of your questions.

Justin

 

When are you going to bring back the N-14? As soon as they went red they started down the same path as their yellow counterpart. They love being on the back of my tow trucks.

 

Just as soon as the EPA gets rid of all the recent emissions standards that EVERYONE must follow....so never...

 

No kidding, thanks for the clarification.

 

N14 was a great engine-- still is.

If you can find one of the last years of the run (01-02, I think) they will never die. That design was so mature by that point that Cummins had the lowest warranty cost on that engine of any they ever made.

This is doubly true for the lower 375 and 400hp ratings. You will NEVER kill those engines

 

I have several of them and they have proven to be the best engine we have ever had in any of our equipment. An occasional injector is the only issue we have had. 780k on our 01 Freightliner classic, never been opened up.

Hopefully you will engineer that type of reliability into the 2010 my power plants.

 

On these new engines that will need Urea injection for emmisions how much will they use? Are we talking a once of Urea per gallon of diesel?

 

Not at all.

Urea consumption depends on engine operating conditions. So called "DEF" (urea) is injected in proportion to NOx output of the engine. NOx is higher when the engine runs lean and loads are lighter.

I think I've heard that 5% is the high end for urea consumption rate, but 2%-3% is more common.

So I'd figure a 1:20 urea:fuel consumption ratio-- and that's the high side.

So if you run dual 200 gallon tanks, a 20gallon tank of urea should be more than enough.


The nice thing about this low rate is that it allows you to buy urea in bulk and store it at the dispatch location, which saves money over buying it out on the road.

Nonetheless, Flying J, Love's, etc all have Urea plans for it to be in place well before the first SCR trucks are on the road. I think Flying J already has it in many locations.

Justin

 

One local tractor dealer now has urea available in 55 gallon drums. I havent heard of the price per gallon. I am going to replace a couple tractors this fall just to avoid this for a few more year.

Thanks for the info

 

I was just talking to the guy in charge of the fleet of '07 379's (475ISX's)we work on. He's been lookin at new trucks, they usually put abt 350k on their trucks and get new ones. He was sayin somethin about getting 2000 miles out of one fillup of urea. And the urea will do away with the EGR's, correct? Also everyone is worried abt trucks shutting down when they run out, I've heard they will go into a sort of "limp mode" for a while first, right?

 

Just a heads up: UREA DOES *NOT* GET RID OF EGR.

Not on a Cummins. Not on a DD15. Not on anyone's engine. EVERY 2010 EPA emissions engine has EGR-- no matter who's making it. You simply can't meet emissions with reasonable cost without it. I suppose you could theoretically meet emissions without using EGR, but the urea consumption would go WAY up, and the overall performance and cost to operate would be much worse, too. Urea isn't cost effective at 15% or 20% like it is at 3%.

Each manufacturer is implementing the details slightly differently, but the EPA swings a big stick on that, so you'll see a "limp mode" requirement that forces the engine to it's cleanest emissions level when urea runs out. This means it will limits engine tq, so plan on cruising at 20mph in low gear or something like that if you run out of urea.

Fortunately, urea consumption is so low that even a modestly sized 20-30gal tank seems to hold plenty to make a long run without having to fill up.

Urea consumption is related to fuel economy in that if you tune the engine for better MPG, it will have higher NOx output which means more urea must be consumed to neutralize that. This means your urea consumption partially offsets the additional MPG.

Cummins is tuning its 2010 engines for the lowest possible cost of operation by balancing urea consumption and MPG. I have no idea what exact assumptions they have made in tuning (the calibrations are very secret and I'd not have access to them unless I was developing them). But I *can* tell you that making the ISX the lowest cost to operate was a HUGE priority.

Pete 379s are beautiful trucks-- maybe the last of the old style conventionals.

JH

 

i have to say the ISX has one of the most amazing fuel systems out there. they didnt change it from the older engines did they?(4solenoids on the left side of the motor

 

I just got back from DD15 training, trainer was just in Detriot, so they blew sunshine up his you know what. They told the trainer there plan is to get rid of egr. Would sure be nice not having the intake side of the engine all sootee. But I cant say alot about the isx, only worked on 2 ever, since cummins & freightliner went there ways. The DD/MBE engines sure get black crap on the intake side.

 

I suspect any engine running EGR is going to have soot all over the intake.

The EGR is cooled, but it sure as heck isn't filtered. The exhaust and intake sides of these engines are going to be hard to tell apart!

Having seen their innards, I now understand why they soot builds up when you aren't working the engine. Heck, they sooty even when worked pretty well. Only when you REALLY load it down and get it toasty will it burn the soot off-- and even then, only inside.

While the intake and exhaust will look ugly, the important parts to keep clean will look good-- the piston ring top land, piston bowls, valves and seats, etc.


I highly doubt complete EGR removal is the direction they will head. NOx output goes WAY up and so does urea consumption. This means you'll also have to take out a lot of timing on the engine and this hurts mpg.

Still, I'm pretty impressed by the DD15. The 1100 rpm tq peak really raises the bar, imo. Most engines are around 1200rpm, and this mere 100 rpm makes a noticeable difference in low end grunt.

Imagine! A DD with low end! We've come a long way.

JH

JH

 

Thats really cool to have a real engineer on here that is a gear head @ heart. Also open minded to look @ other companys products, & to see the good ideas they have. Im sure not a big fan of egr, or how dirty the intake side of the engine gets. Maybe a filter like yo suggested, just another thing to have to fix, lol. Its good to see big Cummins back into Freightliners/Western Stars as paccar sure has been leading sales in our area since they sell lots of cummins. We used to sell over 95% cat in both our truck lines, then the cat brought out the twins, ddec went on the rise. Now cant give a cat away. Hohn do know when the isx is going common rail? When I took the midrange training, trainer hinted @ the isx going that way to. Or was he bsing us? Thanks for you info as always.