At different times I have read that some Ram owners have stated that they never go over 2000 rpm. From as far back as I can remember I have heard that babying an engine makes the engine 'lazy'. I have myself seen on gassers driven by little old ladies only to church on Sundays where that engine is gutless. OK, one could argue that an engine under those circumstances never gets hot enough to 'decoke' etc and that is the cause of no power. But what about engines that do run for extended periods at speeds not over say, 30 mph? They can also become relatively gutless in time. So was my father and grandfather right when they said that engines (gas and diesel) need to be driven near their design limits?
I was also taught that a battery should never be placed on a concrete floor because that causes it to become discharged. To prevent this the battery should be placed on a piece of wood. True or false? If true, why?
Was going to place this under "General diesel discussion" but then realized that this subject covers all types of engines.

 

As far as the RPM thing, I won't comment on that. : :
I can tell you that placing a battery on concrete especially when it is cold will drain it. A piece of wood will work to help insulate the battery from the concrete surface.

 

Controversial Mex..... I like it.

"Old batteries didn't like sitting on concrete floors due to to leakage". I grew up with that too. It wasn't an old wives tale. But because modern battery cases are made of polypropylene or hard rubber that seal much better, I think those days are long gone.

Not sure of your definition of design limits, but I tend to agree with your father and grandfather.

 

Mexstan, I was just explaining to the son-in-law the other day what I would do to him if I caught him putting one of my batteries on the concrete.
Seriously, I was taught that case leakage was the cause of discharge, but I really do not think so. But, all of my batteries sit on 2x6,s with rubber pads whenever they are on charge in the shop. As to the engine running question, think about the times you just had to "blow out the carbon" over the years. I know that I always thought they ran better after that.
Ed

 

"Blowing out the carbon" just reminded me of something. Years ago I had a friend on the town police force. He told me that their cars that were used exclusively in town at low speeds tended to get lazy. So every now and then they would take the cars out to the country and work the snot out of them. He swears they ran better after that.

 

Just thought about something else on the carbon...I have an old 85hp Force outbourd on the boat. Last year it seemed to have very little power, so I fogged each carb until it choked with carb cleaner, and then let it sit overnight. When I started it the next day, big flakes of carbon came out of the exhaust housing, and that thing never stalled once all season after that. Guess some of the old things still hold true.
Ed

 

My grandfather has a 1978 chevy farm truck that never went over 45mph. It was even used to pull trailers of every nature associated with the farm. I have borrowed it a time or too and can attest that it is a guttless wonder. It has a 350 4speed auto. I pulled a livestock trailer to the auction once, and it seemed to work hard to get going. BUT, on the other hand, it has over 500,000 miles on the ticker

 

I worked at a Chrysler garage years ago and there was this old lady that had a big Chrysler New Yorker with a 440 engine. She would bring it in about every four months or so saying "it isn't running very well". The guy that owned the shop would take it down to the foot of the mountain and stomp that big ole thermoquad open and run it up over the mountain in second gear. The mountain was a 9 percent grade about eight miles long. He would bring it back to the shop and charge her for a tune up every time. She never ran it hard enough to burn the gunk out of it. I told her about what he was doing after I left there. ;D ;D
My old 89 Dodge diesel was like that. It would get running lazy like so I would take it up on I 295 and nail it to the floor for about 50 miles or so. It would only run 74 wide open anyway. It ran much better every time I did that.

 

I think the battery thing is an old wives tale. I have a booster battery sitting on my concrete floor. Been there for years. I charge it every now and again and mostly use it for boosting neighbors etc. It has never discharged. Always starts the cars. (I do agree the cases now are better thus saving the batteries. Back who knows when this may have been true)
I think an engine that does not get run to full potential needs a goose every now and again. My wife drives our Passat around town and when I get it I flog it good. It seems to smoke heavily the first 3 or 4 stomps but clears up after that. I feel it runs better but that may just be me.

 

A guy told me that if you use the cruise at the same speed all the time, you develop carbon rings on the cylinder wall at the top of the piston stroke that get really hard, so that when you do push it you wreck the tolerances. Made sense to me, but I work with wood.

 

[quote author=Mexstan link=board=10;threadid=19303;start=0#msg181397 date=1062878125]
"Blowing out the carbon" just reminded me of something. Years ago I had a friend on the town police force. He told me that their cars that were used exclusively in town at low speeds tended to get lazy. So every now and then they would take the cars out to the country and work the snot out of them. He swears they ran better after that. [/quote]

I'm retired from State Law Enforcement where the engines get "used" everyday. But in the early '80s I worked for a local police department in a small town. The chief insisted we take our cars to the freeway and run them 'wide open' for a minimum of 15 minutes once a week to "blow them out". All week the cars would run no more than 40 mph with most of the time much slower and an awful lot of idleing. We always got 100k out of them before changing to a new car. Seldom had any engine problems either.

I did have a high speed chase out of town one night (1:30 AM) and the car ran very well - I was glad the chief made us "keep the engines clean".

Stan

 

Used to have a 68 Chev with a 396 that the wife drove in town. I would take it out every now and then to blow out the soot. Once I waited too long and could not get it over 45 mph. Had to take it back home and clean the plugs and go out again to blow it out.

When the 97 Ram still had a catalyst, I noticed high exhaust gas temps on the first camping trip after a winter of running with no pulling, low loads, low temps. The first post winter hill would be 1000 post turbo, the second hill 900 and the third hill 800. Appears that it took a while to burn the accumulated carbon off the catalyst. The exhaust probably never got much over 400 during intown winter driving.

 

Tis true,,I owned a 96 Ram Air that my ex-wife drove to work as a school teacher, she had a light foot and by the end of every month that car idled lousy and had no guts. A spin out on the backroads cramming my foot to the firewall would bring it back to life.

 

I may add some thoughts:
When tearing into "old ladie's" engines we usualy found some buildup of residues on the valves, inside the combustion chamber and on turbodiesels lots of crud in the turbine ousing etc.
On the gassers the residue lead to pinging issues when under load. On the diesels the crud in the turbo would impede correct wastegate function. Some time at elevated temperatures would decrease the amount of the bad stuff. Sometimes the engines would fail while trying to burn them out. As BoldtsWagon noted his EGTs were quite high.We usually took those cars for a spin and used some fuel additives. At teardown you could really see the difference.

The battery myth derives from rubber case batteries that didn't like to be on concrete floors. Some chemical reaction took place between the rubber and the concret, weakening the battery case. You may have observed this behaviour with tires stored on a concrete floor for some time. Older tires left a kind of stamp on the floor.

AlpineRAM

 

I was going to mention about the chemical reaction thing on the rubber batteries but thought I was wrong. Would be the first time. :