my old 91 never really had any problem when it was cold... it would lope a little bit if it was REALLY cold, but no biggie...

but the 97 has the 370's, the timing is advanced, and it was COLD this morning... overnight low was like 15* or so... that's pretty dang cold for Dallas... I didn't drive the truck at ALL yesterday, so it was good and cold... chilled to the bone...

wasn't plugged in, nice layer of snow over everything, etc.

cycled the grid heaters once, gave it about half throttle, and busted it off... man it was fighting me like crazy... white smoking and romping... couldn't get it to hold steady even at 1200rpm... let my foot off and it promptly died...

cycled the heaters again, busted it off, and I was able to hold it at ~800 w/ just a light lope to the idle... held it at about 1000 till the oil pressure came all the way up, and drove off like it was any other day.

when it's 30-40 out, it'll lope the slightest bit if I don't manually hold the idle up, but only for a few seconds, but this was the HARDEST start I've ever encountered!! never had one that wouldn't stay alive without any throttle.

shoulda seen the smoke show comin' out of the stacks, I was crackin' up...

Forrest

 

Sounds like you got it worse down there in Dallas than we did here in Central Ok. Are you plugging up tonight as I hear it will be even colder than last night. Stay warm....Rick

 

If you advance the timing, the cold starts will improve and smoke less. I'm a little north and west of you and mine starts pretty good . Very little smoke.

 

That sounds like SOP for the '96 Ford medium duty at work. If somebody forgets to plug in the old pig below 20 degrees, it takes about 1/2 throttle to get it lit, and you gotta hold it there until it starts to rev up. White smoke that will cut your eyes out. No grid heaters on that truck, though.

 

too lazy to plug in... we don't really get that cold down here often, so I sortof take a sick pleasure in the romps and white smoke... probably not gonna plug it in tonight either!

 

i think that should be the other way around... if you retard the timing, you will have more heat in the cylinder to ignite the fuel... many inline hydromechanical inline injection pumps have a starting retard notch in the plunger in the pumping element that retards the timing at low engine speeds [>400 like when cranking]

 

yeah, the more you advance the timing, the harder it is to start/idle/etc.

late timing = low RPM

early timing = high RPM

that's why we advance the timing to get better performance on the big end.

Forrest

 

When my New 98.5 ram went back to the dealer for a TSB recall, it only had less than 500 miles on it, but back to the dealer it went, in Feb,99. We had some real cold days then, about 5-10 out. I had to leave the truck overnight, and came back around 11 AM to get my truck. Well, I started to wait for the truck to be brought out in front fo me, but after 15 min, I decided to look for it. There it was, in the back lot, with 4 people around it, hood up, jumper cables to the batteries, and cranking away. I blew my stack, and yelled to who was the ==== in charge. One of them stated he was the head mechanic, and they were having trouble starting my truck. They had run both batteries way down trying to start it. and I was fumeing. I then told them to get out of MY truck, I shut off everything for about 2 min, turned the key, waited to start light to go off, then cranked it over, It started right up, but if we were going to kill bugs, it sure layed down a collum of smoke for about 5 min. Nedless to say they never saw my truck again, as I went to a different dealer for further service.

_______________________
98,5 Ram 2500 HD S/B TD, Line X LT 265/75 R16 E Steeltech Tires
98 Sunnybrook Fiver 27RKFS Unit

 

15° he he, I'd hate to see what happened if it was really cold.

 

That is really cold.

 

yea you think thats cold hah

 

you guys can keep your -30*

15* is too cold for me...

it should be 65-75* all the time

Forrest