20F this morning. My truck wasn't plugged in. I don't have the grid heaters hooked up. That is right: no grid heaters.

It cranked for 5 seconds and fired. It ran a little bit rough and smoked a little bit for 10 seconds or so. Then ran good. Slight blue smoke when idling cold with no grid heater.

This is so much better than a Powerstroke. A Powerstroke won't start below freezing without glow plugs. And when they do start in the cold, they run terrible. No throttle response. Terribly noisy. Smoky. Yuck.

The Cummins runs great when cold. Excellent.

 

for what reason would you not have grid heaters hooked up?

 

Too busy to work on truck ! I did the swap this summer and didn't finish everything because I wanted to see how everything worked first, in case I had to redo things. And I've been swamped with work stuff ever since. I'll get back to working on my truck after Christmas.

 

i your block heater is working i would make sure it was plugged in on cold mornings.

 

My grid heaters are hooked up but I never wait for them. They're just not needed unles it's high altitude and/or really cold. The only time my 1st gen would not fire right up was in 9 degrees F at 6000ft elevation. The 3rd gen starts fine at 20 degrees and 5000 ft.

Wetspirit

 

my truck did not run so great 14,000+ feet on top of mt evans. it was already warm too. it poured out blue smoke, and there was no turbo whistle at all.

 

It did it again.

No grid heater, not plugged in. 25F. 8 AM. Turned the key on and let it sit for a bit, just because I'm used to waiting for glow plugs. Turned the key and it started immediately. It almost starts better when cold than hot. About the same anyway. It smokes a bit for 10 or 15 seconds and then runs pretty clean. I don't leave it idle. I put it in gear and start driving gently.

I suspect you guys with poor starting trucks have poor CP3s or leaking injectors. I suspect if you watched your rail pressure that it is low, either from lack of fuel to the CP3, a worn CP3, a leaking rail over pressure valve or leaking injectors.

Whatever the reason, my engine starts excellent. I am very impressed with the Cummins. For those that don't know, PSDs are terrible winter starters. They will start, but they run like crap until they get fully warmed up.

I've been running a good lift pump system on my engine from day 1. See my posts for a discussion. I think the Dodge lift pump system (and maybe others) is starving the CP3 and causing it to wear prematurely.

My truck idles nicer than most too. My timing is also advanced via the tone wheel mod.

I highly recommend the tone wheel mod. It cleaned up my idle this summer and I suspect that is why my truck idles nice now. I think the stock timing is too late at idle and maybe elsewhere on these engines and the injectors get fouled.

The Cummins takes longer to warm up than the PSD. Mind you I don't have anything over the radiator and I did on the PSD. The Cummins is also a lot better on fuel, so maybe that has something to do with it.

I am very happy with my Cummins swap. I was smiling ear to ear today.

I've got about 5000 miles on it now. I haven't touched anything since I put it in.

 

Superduty I think that the toner mod makes it start better as well.This is my third winter with my truck and the first with the toner mod and I think it starts better now. I have 111000 kilometers on mine (69000miles) and it still has the original lift pump. I have an auxillery fuel tank that the bulk of my fuel goes into, from there it flows through a Raycore filter and into the original tank . I run 2 micron elements in the Raycore in the summer and 10 micron in the winter.(The fuel does not flow through 2 micron filters below 0 degrees F).I think that is what made my pump live what do you think ?.
Jim O