Cetane

I think we are about there. That is pretty much what killed everyone's midrange diesel. When you look at the cost of the aftertreatment and the added maintenance along with the decreased fuel economy gap, it just didnt make sense. Things are going to get better though. Technology will improve and components will get cheaper. I think you will always have a diesel in an HD truck but as other options start to emerge I am not sure if diesel will ever gain a foothold anywhere else. Ecoboost, HEV/PHEV/BEV and maybe some form of hydrogen will probably end up being the dominant technologies for the next 20 years. Unfortunately, the conditions which made a diesel so efficient in the past are the same things that make it so difficult to clean up. Thats not going to change. Hopefully technology will...

Jim, I wasnt picking on you. I have seen similar comments on this and other forums. Just trying to give you guys a heads up.

Guys, SCR and DPF are technologies that were developed to combat two different things. Equipping a truck with an SCR does not mean the vehicle will not have a DPF(or EGR). The problem with Jim's statement is that it assumes that the system is always very efficient. That is not the case, the system has to be at operating temp for NOx conversion to be at the point where the it can provide enough conversion to pass the emission tests. While this happens fairly quickly on the standard emission tests, we dont build vehicles that are only clean in that narrow operating range. If you have somebody that only drives in stop-and-go traffic, it will never be warm enough to work well. On the opposite side, if you are consistently towing a very heavy trailer you may be over the optimum conversion efficiency window. In those cases you will need alot of EGR and other tricks to get low tailpipe emissions. Dont be fooled, everybody's next gen diesels are going to run EGR and lots of it. Not only are the emissions standards extremely tough to meet, but you also want to provide your customers with very low urea consumption.

That is absolutely not the case with us. The heavy truck industry might be able to get away with it but we cant. The standards are just too tight to chance slipping a bunch of NOx.

I am not familiar with exactly how the system will respond to "other" fluids being introduced into the system. I am more curious how it will handle some moron filling it up with gasoline or diesel fuel.

That kind of information is what your upcoming comprehensive training program is for

The system monitors NOx efficiency. You cant just fill it with whatever you want.

There are new up pipes without an EGR takeoff.

Even though they arent from my personal experience these pictures are too good to pass up....... Fabrication Failures

Those are pressure transducers for us to use in conjunction with the production sensor package. They will not be there on the version you guys will have the pleasure of working on.

Sounds like someone got a late April Fools joke...........

The calibrations are loaded into the database that IDS pulls from. IDS will pull the update just like a normal vehicle.

Aaron, In most cases HVBOM only knows what the factory builds. The mod centers are not Ford facilities. They are an offsite purchased service. The trucks that are designated high sulfur go to the mod center for the retrofit. When they are delivered to the facility they are regular production 50-state trucks. The only thing that makes them hi-sulfur at that point is the window sticker. The mod center removes the exhaust and egr, flashes the ECU and ships it to the end user.

They normally go to the mod center after production where all the emissions equipment is removed. Part of the process is to reflash the ECU with a derated "non-regen" cal. I believe it carries the same rating as a F450. If it was a mod center vehicle it should have the ITEC tag removed from the valve cover, along with the emissions and noise labels removed from the drivers door. New underhood and fuel door stickers should be in place as well. HVBOM and asbuilt will probably show regular production part numbers because it leaves the factory that way.

GM and Dodge have both delayed their light duty engines. Supposedly until the '11MY at the earliest.

If you use photoshop you can lighten up the pictures and get a better look at the top end. Still not much to see. I doubt you are going to think it is easier to work on, I dont....

http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2009/03/spied-new-ford-scorpion-diesel-underhood-photos.html

Last week was another big "headcount" reduction. Not sure how many service engineering people were cut but we lost another 10% in my building. That was the second big cut in the past year. Times are tough for everybody in this industry.....

You may want to check out the Banks website and see exactly what they have available for the 6.4. Maybe the previous owner drilled a hole somewhere not easily visible. Also are you able to smoke/pressure check the intake and exhaust to see if there are any leaks. Boost pressure loss will make it smoky and an exhaust leak will trigger the dpf leak strategy which will increase regen frequency. Finally is there any evidence of a crimped downpipe or post-dpf restriction? I know 2.5psi doesnt sound like a lot but under the right conditions it will trigger a regen.

Keith, You are confusing two different models. The Transit Connect is the small minivan built off of the c-platform that the FORD NA website refers to. The regular Transit is more of a full size van, it comes in a huge variety of configurations in both gas and diesel much like the Sprinter. Any of the Ford European websites should have a full description.

Yep, it should take about 5 seconds before the ECU disables the engine.

I took a quick look at the logic and it looks like with the fuel pump relay going bad it trips the crash module in the PCM, disabling the starter. The same thing should happen if you trip the inertia switch. Good catch....

These are a couple decent explanations.... http://www.motortrend.com/features/editorial/112_0705_technologue/ http://www.meca.org/galleries/default-file/MECA%20Diesel%20White%20Paper%2012-07-07%20final.pdf One big thing that Motor Trend conveniently skips over is the DeSOx mode which is described in the MECA paper.

Geez, I dont log in for a couple days and this gets right into my area. First off the DOC/DPF combo doesnt have any direct effect on NOx. Actually if you didnt care about smoke the NOx would be lower because you could run more EGR and retarded timing. The success of the SCR doesnt have anything to do with the Honda system. Honda is running an LNT(the other NOx reducing technology) because its cheaper than urea/SCR on the smaller engines(amongst some other reasons). The problem with LNT is that it hasnt been proven to be effective over the long term and it has a more limited temperature range. Maybe Honda has solved the problem but I havent seen any evidence of it. Urea/SCR is used on larger engines because it is more robust, cheaper and more effective in the ranges that the typical truck owner will operate in. It isnt that we were out-engineered, both systems were tested, one works and the other doesnt.

I havent heard of anyone doing this. Maybe FCSD or warranty personnel would benefit from taking a look just to determine possible failure modes but other than that I dont know what there would be to get out of it. We are actually pretty careful not to get caught up with the aftermarket or do anything with their hardware just to be sure no one gets the impression we are "working" with them. For what its worth, it would take less than ten minutes to flash the aftermarket cal onto the ECU and determine the all differences between it and a production hex file. And most of that would just be the time it takes to flash. I would be more interested in how they break down the stock code to determine the correct location for changes.