Good F350 fuel economy?

[2000mc]

...which is why they went with the def option

[96Midori]

Wow good luck OP!

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by TheGrimMechanic

I don't disagree with the original principles of the EPA. It's my opinion that what has happened over the years is that the EPA has been turned into a political tool and doesn't have the best interests of the country as one of its core values. I agree that there is some success' but recently it's gone overboard in some areas. My complaint don't entirely center on the EPA itself but also the rules it creates and leave up to the states to define or enforce or the unreasonable burdens placed on manufacturers and even the general consumer. Here are a few examples (albeit not related to the original intent of this post);. . .

Some of what you say is true, and some of it is just opinion and much if it is just wrong. But, your discussion is thoughtful and fruitful and is worth the time to read and digest. The readership hits attest to that, so please do not see my answers as being derogatory or undermining. I think you will agree we want the same thing - economical trucks that are clean and simply fun to drive. You approach the emissions problem from your point of view, whereas I see it as an opportunity for a business model that is growing beyond the AQMD region.

I will start with the rail industry. It has been discussed on this and other forums as to how efficient it is to move goods via rail. 450 Ton miles per gallon are just a starting point. No ship, plane or truck even comes close. Thus, it was not seen as one of the "low hanging fruit" targets. But, now it is. In the next few years, you will see fewer heavy polluting engines as the new and rebuilt engines will have increasingly stringent emission controls. The funny thing is, with almost 30 million people in the affected zone, the millions of tiny lawn mowers and weed whackers which have disproportionate emissions output for their size roughly equal the emissions output of the large rail heads which pass through Southern California. Due to the longevity of some of these devices and also the fact that there is no reasonable way to "test" for compliance, all the EPA can do is require all new devices to comply with the simple strictures of sealed fuel systems and tighter factory tuning for less emissions and allow , via attrition, the reduction of emissions from this source over a couple decade span! The emission improvements the rail companies will employ between 2015 and 2025 will see emissions output from rail engines drop below that of small motor sources in all criteria pollutants other than the controversial CO2. The increasing use of battery electric motors to replace the internal combustion engines that dominate the small engine industry may help alleviate the problem as long as Ecomodders leave some batteries for the lawn care guys.


And heavy duty trucks such as yours and mine and all the way up to Class 8 tractors were outnumbered roughly 100 to 1 by light duty vehicles, thus they were left alone for decades. By the mid 90's, cars were so clean that the output of one heavy duty truck roughly equaled the emissions from 200 cars. As light cars have become cleaner, this disparity has grown, and so heavy trucks came under scrutiny.

Emission controls for diesels is in its infancy.

Diesel Particulate Filters (DPF) work and they work well. However, some problems with light duty drive cycles have given them a bad name. We have a 2008 Dodge Cummins 6.7 L diesel which has a DPF as a company truck. It has never needed a DPF cleanout as it's sole use is to tow a 20,000 pound trailer. The DPF constantly runs hot enough to purge itself without the purge cycle light going on. A lady on YouTube has the same vehicle and is getting names for a class action suit against Dodge and Cummins for selling a faulty vehicle. She is a soccer mom who never does any heavy towing. Her DPF is constantly running cool and cannot even initiate a purge cycle so the DPF clogs up and she is constantly at the dealer getting cleanouts. So, are DPF's faulty? Well, as Oil Pan 4 pointed out in another post, drive cycles has a lot to do with system effectiveness.

As to EGR ( Exhaust Gas Recirculation ) in diesel engines, the technology is mature, but the use by several manufacturers of EGR only diesel engines gave it a bad name. Again, our Dodge Cummins uses cooled EGR and a DPF to control particulates and NOx. As I pointed out above, if the DPF is run consistently hot enough, you can get 100-200K miles from it before clean out or replacement. Our truck is at 249K miles and is only down because an experimental engine is going into it - and it has never needed a DPF service. Much of it has to do with over all service of the truck. The injectors are inspected once a year as a precaution during top end adjustments. Drippy injectors cause poor economy and clog a DPF quickly. While that is done, we also have the EGR and turbo cleaned up and tested. Poor boost causes over fueling conditions and smokey engine output which quickly clogs the DPF. Now, the problem becomes the EGR. EGR causes an increase in particulates under certain load conditions even though it reduces NOx. This increase in particulates results in a loss of efficiency and power. There is no other way to say it, but "it bites".

Bring in Diesel Emissions Fluid (DEF) which is nothing more than anhydrous ammonia. It does not work by itself. It works in conjunction with a NOx trap. Nitrogen oxides are held by the trap's matrix until it is purged by conversion (reduction) of the NOx via decomposition of the ammonia into N2 and hydrogen and the hydrogen's reduction of the NOx to N2 and water. The inclusion of this system to a diesel engine allows you to now tune your engine for higher efficiency with less EGR along with a reduction in particulates. This means fewer purge cycles for the DPF and better fuel economy. However, you now have to deal with the costs and bother of another fluid.

So where can we go from here? Old Mechanic has repeatedly brought up the work of Transonic Combustion and their advanced injection system. Such a system will allow diesel combustion with little to no particulate production as well as such rapid combustion that NOx formation is minimized. All of this results in cleaner exhaust before any after-treatment is needed as well as improved power and economy.

As I have said, I don't fear emission controls, I relish it. Emissions tell me my engine is wasting energy in producing pollutants. By building an engine that minimizes pollutants internally, I can have an engine that is both more powerful and economical.

[Xist]

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

Emissions tell me my engine is wasting energy in producing pollutants. By building an engine that minimizes pollutants internally, I can have an engine that is both more powerful and economical.

I like that!

[user removed]

The emissions era started with US auto manufacturers trying to add components to control emissions, like air injection, egr, pcv, and catalysts. In 1973 the driveability issues were soo bad they caused a lot of accidents with cars stalling and hesitating instead of accelerating. It was soo bad at the Chevy dealership, where I worked, we just let the car run for 3 minutes before even trying to put in gear and pull it into the shop, and those were brand new cars, not yet sold to retail customers.

3 months after the Chevy Vega was introduced our shop was replacing 40 engines a month. GM tried to blame it on prestone antifreeze. How many people drain the coolant out of a one month old car and add prestone antifreeze? The original small block introduced in 1955 burned so much oil (like a quart in 200 miles) that GM told their dealerships to "pour bon ami down the carburetor with the engine running to accelerate ring to bore wear". My grandmothers 1961 Olds, with chrome moly rings took 20k miles for the rings to properly seat when it stopped burning oil. Only us old farts remember that.

In the mid 70s Honda came out with their cvcc engine and Datsun (Nissan) came out with fuel injection in the 1975 Z cars (others before that), The 55 Mercedes Gullwing was direct injection as well as the DB 601 engine in the ME 109, dating back before WW2. Neither the Honda or Nissan had a catalyst and the 75-6 Z cars did not have egr, one of the first applications of DFCO even though the injection system, built under license from Bosch, was simulatneous, not sequential. I truly despised the emission controls of that era with the exception of Hondas and Nissans solutions.

As emission controls got tighter year after year it came to the point where true innovation like Hondas lean burn system could not pass NOX regulations, even though their CO2 emissions were at the same levels as modern hybrids. I never understood the rationale that allowed a 9 MPG gas hog to pass emissions while a VX was forced from the market due to the slightly too high NOX, which could have been cured if development had not been stifled by regulations that simply made no sense to me.

Today emission controls are fairly thoroughly integrated into the basic design of engines, but there are still significant improvements, of which transonic is one (my opinion), that hold the promise for finally building a "clean" engine that is clean by design and not by adding a bunch of crap to treat combustion by products. It only took 40 years, but recently the EPA actually revealed that air pollution in the eastern US has been significantly reduced, and the prevailing winds mean emissions from across the US eventually reach the east coast.

The issue was no really conscientous collaboration between unions, manufacturers and govt regulators and the cost was astronomical.

regards
mech

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

The funny thing is, with almost 30 million people in the affected zone, the millions of tiny lawn mowers and weed whackers which have disproportionate emissions output for their size roughly equal the emissions output of the large rail heads which pass through Southern California.

Not to mention scooters and to a lesser extent motorcycles. Can't understand why you can still buy a scooter that smells like a lawnmower.

Diesel Particulate Filters (DPF) work and they work well.

If you like nanoparticles that bypass your lungs and go straight into your blood stream. At least with black smoke you can turn the a/c to recycle or hold your breath.

A lady on YouTube has the same vehicle and is getting names for a class action suit against Dodge and Cummins for selling a faulty vehicle. She is a soccer mom who never does any heavy towing. Her DPF is constantly running cool and cannot even initiate a purge cycle so the DPF clogs up and she is constantly at the dealer getting cleanouts. So, are DPF's faulty? Well, as Oil Pan 4 pointed out in another post, drive cycles has a lot to do with system effectiveness.

The problem is that if you want/ need a certain type of vehicle, nowadays you're being forced to buy diesel and diesel usually means a DPF. Most SUV's are turning to diesel only as are small pickups and all vans. My van is used only in the city, there isn't even a road that I can drive on fast enough to complete a regen on. One time I ended up doing 200km one night just to complete a regen. Overall I drove about an extra 5% just doing regens every 250km or so. Since discovering DPF cleaner actually works, which I need to add to every other tank, the problem is solved, but if you just buy DPF cleaner at the parts store (rather than the truck sized 5L bottle), it's awfully expensive. More over, the handbook for any DPF car I've ever seen makes no mention of DPF cleaner (except of course PSA which come with an onboard DPF cleaner tank), only to 'pull onto a motorway and drive the car at 2000rpm until the light goes out' (about 20mins)! How wasteful is that? Especially if you need to do that every 250kms, and I did my best to keep EGT's up where possible.

I fully expected DPF issues buying my TDi, but nobody makes a midsize petrol van anymore, excepting Toyota's archaic Hi-ace.

Also, as cars get more aerodynamic and get taller gears, legal highways speeds are no longer enough to keep DPFs hot enough to do passive regens in the latest euro diesel sedans.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

They could ban diesel engines. Then tractor trailers would be getting like 2 or 3mpg.
Fuel consumption on hard working heavy movers would go from barely reasonable with diesel to catastrophic with gasoline.

Kenworth continued making petrol engined tractors into the 60's I believe, in mountain states these were preferred to diesels for their superior performance. No idea what the economy was like though

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile

Kenworth continued making petrol engined tractors into the 60's I believe, in mountain states these were preferred to diesels for their superior performance. No idea what the economy was like though

Back then the diesels were mostly non turbo and suffered horribly at higher elevation, couple that with extreme cold starts and gas would have been the better option.
With cold thin air I bet fuel economy could approach 2mpg.

[Christ]

My strongest complaint against the way the EPA monitors emissions is that it's based on emissions per volume, instead of emissions per mile.

Presumably, most people don't let their car idle through an entire tank of fuel, and further, they're more than likely going to be driving at least for the heavy majority of their fuel use... ergo, it makes more sense to determine a vehicle's emissions per mile figure, rather than strictly monitoring it's emissions under no load while idling and revving in a closed environment.

Further to that, while I do understand that the particular focus in on very few emissions types, I do /not/ understand why it's acceptable to waste fuel in order to reduce certain types of emissions... this just increases the other levels of emissions as well as overall consumption, part of what's helping to increase prices on fuel at the pump.

Fundamentally, fuel economy should always be the first and foremost among the battles. The less fuel you are using, the less emissions you have [although some levels of certain emissions may be higher than a vehicle using more fuel]. This, to me, says that we're going about the emissions battle incorrectly... cars that clearly are /capable/ of achieving 30-35 MPG are currently getting 20's... the difference between the two sets of mileage numbers, I'm sure would offset any additional emissions over the course of distance traveled, whereas at least part of the reason for the vehicle to currently get less than optimal mileage is because the test system is based on emissions per volume of spent exhaust, regardless of how far the vehicle might have traveled to produce that volume.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by Christ

My strongest complaint against the way the EPA monitors emissions is that it's based on emissions per volume, instead of emissions per mile.

Presumably, most people don't let their car idle through an entire tank of fuel, and further, they're more than likely going to be driving at least for the heavy majority of their fuel use... ergo, it makes more sense to determine a vehicle's emissions per mile figure, rather than strictly monitoring it's emissions under no load while idling and revving in a closed environment.

Further to that, while I do understand that the particular focus in on very few emissions types, I do /not/ understand why it's acceptable to waste fuel in order to reduce certain types of emissions... this just increases the other levels of emissions as well as overall consumption, part of what's helping to increase prices on fuel at the pump.

Fundamentally, fuel economy should always be the first and foremost among the battles. The less fuel you are using, the less emissions you have [although some levels of certain emissions may be higher than a vehicle using more fuel]. This, to me, says that we're going about the emissions battle incorrectly... cars that clearly are /capable/ of achieving 30-35 MPG are currently getting 20's... the difference between the two sets of mileage numbers, I'm sure would offset any additional emissions over the course of distance traveled, whereas at least part of the reason for the vehicle to currently get less than optimal mileage is because the test system is based on emissions per volume of spent exhaust, regardless of how far the vehicle might have traveled to produce that volume.

I too fail to understand the illogic behind it being ok to burn more, for drill, pump, transport, refine and transport 25% to 50% more fuel.

I guess it only makes sense if you are on the selling and tax collection end of the deal.