N.Johnson

Here's the thing about running a cummins easy, babying it as someone said. Since the cummins turbo diesel is a very efficient engine, or any diesel for that matter the in cylinder temps run cooler than a gas engine. Light skinny pedal pressure will still get you down the road. But when you look at your egt gauge if you have one, you'll notice that driving easy for mileage as I have done and still do my egt's can stay below 550 and boost 5-8 psi. Most of the easy driving coasting along, the egt's are 350 -400. What happens with my engine after a while my injectors knock/tick and power when I want it is down? Why...because the in cylinder temps have been so cool, that the fuel leaves a varnish/carbon deposit on the tips. Think of a cold burning fire place that coats a chimney with creosote/tar deposits, kind of the same thing. Your injectors are a very tight tolerance delivering high pressure fuel multiple times per stroke at a precise spray angle. Another thing to consider is the ecm/pcm module learns how you drive and fuels the motor. Drive the cummins medium duty industrial engine without exercise once and a while is like putting a race horse in the back forty and forgetting about it. DOH.......what the heck was my point. Note to self don't drink and post

woodrep

Sippin' the Canadian distillates are we?

banyon

My last Ford was at 330,000 miles when I sold it.(7.3) It still runs like new. Maybe my idea of babying it isn`t the same as some-maybe I`m harder on it than I think. Just think if I had run it hard!

rjm022

banyon-powerstroke and duramax engines are both light duty diesel engines. the cummins engine is medium duty!. open her up and drive her hard a couple of times a month!!!

HOHN

I'm with the crowd that says babying it worse than working it.

First, look at all the mega-mile Cummins trucks we've seen with 800K or more miles-- all were worked very hard, spending most of their lives yanking a trailer.

Second, Cummins had a TSB about trucks that are idled extensively in arctic conditions, and how the resulting valve deposits would cause bent pushrods ("push tubes" in Cummins parlance). The solution was running the engine at progressively higher RPM, ending with 2 minutes at 3K rpm!

Cummins seems to think that low EGT is actually as dangerous if not more so than high EGT. Of course, it depends on how high..

Another interesting factoid is the cylinder wear and operating temps are inversely related. In other words, the hotter the cylinder runs, the less it will wear--- right up to the point of seizure.

So trucks that are loaded and running hotter will experience less cylinder wear for a given amount of mileage.


As for the earlier comment about hitching to the sled, I'm not sure the poster realized just how right he is. An occasional dose of seriously hard work is a great thing for your Cummins engine.

jh

erf2006

ok so how about daily driving short distances and not getting up to op temps for 5 days a week then using it hard for the other 1 to 2? is this going to shorten the life of the motor or cause problems down the road?

woodrep

I've got to weigh in on this one. I have read about alot of guys talking about getting better mileage after draggin' a load around. This past week I had to pull a flatbed with a small tractor for my pops since he has an f150 with a ton of miles. I pulled the load about 100 miles that day, used alot of fuel cause of the hills etc. Ironically, on the next tank of fuel my mpgs jumed up 1.5 mpgs netting 18 which is spectacular over the 16.5 driving miss daisy that I had been getting. I do believe that these trucks need to flex the muscles occasionally for top performance after my experience. JMO


Wood