You are funny man, how many days a month are you in a bad mood anyway?


LSD was required to have a HFFR score less than 520 microns.

 

I dont think its that bad, I usally drink Bud Light but after a few of those the High Life tastes just fine. It just helps save a few bucks here and there.

 

Quietly snickering over here...

 

So are you calling Walter Groff and his team of engineers morons? Check out their credentials. SWRI is a huge organization with many highly educated fols, Engineers, PHD's you name it. I'de be happy to be associated with that team you call morons.

<TABLE dir=ltr cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=24></TD><!--msnavigation--><TD vAlign=top><TABLE width=720 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>

Walter P. Groff, Acting Vice President
Bruce Bykowski, Assistant Vice President
Magdi K. Khair, Institute Engineer
Thomas W. Ryan III, Institute Engineer
Franz J. Laimboeck, Program Director</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

 

Yes but nobody in that "study" has gone out and tested what we are getting at the pump. If so, their "worst case scenario" might not look as bad.

 

I did say the "study" by dieselplace is for morons to look up to. It is so poorly done, and I don't care who had a hand in it, it is worthless. Just because it was run by some institute with a few big shots doesn't mean that it is golden.

Look in the "study" report under Methods: An independent research firm in Texas was hired to do the laboratory work. What does this mean to you? Well, to me, it means they sent the samples to the laboratory and got the results. All it tells me is that the results are done by a credible laboratory. The "analysis" and "conclusions", if we can even call them that is derived by somebody else. So yes, I agree that the numbers they came up with are authentic. However, the rest of the study is rubbish.

 

That is from the preliminary report posted by Diesplace. Southwest Research Labs conducted the tests. SWR also noted in their report that:

There have been many documented cases of randomly tested samples of diesel fuel. These tests prove that often times the fuel we purchase is not adequately treated and may therefore contribute to accelerated wear of our fuel delivery systems. For this reason it may be prudent to use an after market diesel fuel additive to ENSURE adequate lubrication of the fuel delivery system.


I'd love to hang around and chat some more, but this Domestic Engineer has to finish some Oil Analysis and go pick up the kids from school since my wife is at war.

 

Sothwest Reasearch sure has some documented cases, and sometimes the added lubricity did not make it into the fuel at the pump.


"There have been many documented
cases of randomly tested samples of diesel fuel. These tests prove that often
times the fuel we purchase is not adequately treated and may therefore
contribute to accelerated wear of our fuel delivery systems. For this reason it may
be prudent to use an after market diesel fuel additive to ENSURE adequate
lubrication of the fuel delivery system."

 

Rich has pointed out what I was going to say. You have no way of knowing whether the lubricity additive has made it into the fuel or not. It's the responsibility of the local supplier to put it in, and there are no regulatory bodies checking to be sure it's happening. Who's going to commission and pay for lubricity testing for all the different fuel suppliers at a local level? I don't see it happening...ever. Also, there's almost no way of knowing what kind or brand, much less how much lubricity additive they put in there. Remember that putting the additive in there is costing the fuel suppliers money now, so the cheaper they can get away with it, the better for their bottom line. Whether that means buying a cheap additive, barely putting any in there, or both, how are we to know?

I know you say that we don't see a bunch of trucks on the side of the road broken down, but my experience is different. On a nearly daily basis I am speaking with people who deal with big trucks, whether it be a repair shop that services these trucks or a company that has a fleet of trucks. Every one of them has cited problems with injectors since the switch to ULSD. Many times it's not leaving the truck stranded on the road, but it has required injector repair and replacement.

My personal experience has been similar. I didn't used to put an additive in all the time either, and when the switch to ULSD happened (I talked to the local supplier who I got my fuel from and know exactly when they switched), I had two injectors fail. That's when I got the B Codes. I wasn't ready to purchase them, but my CCT tests showed two not doing their part and my fuel mileage fell on it's face and continued to get worse. I'd be willing to bet that if I had been religiously running an additve, my injectors would not have required replacement.

After spending nearly $3K on a set of new injectors, there's no way in heck I was going to run the risk of damaging them because some fuel supplier didn't put it in that week or because they're using a cheap or not enough of an additive. To me, it's worth the price of an additive to know that my fuel has enough lubricity. I spend less than $100 a year on additives (also running Schaeffers), so would have taken me over 30 years to equal the price of new inejctors on what I spend on a lubricity additive. That makes it a worth while investment to me.

Also, since I'm doing this CR swap and have been spending a good bit of time on the Cummins forums, I have noticed the problem is affecting them too. The Dodge boys as a whole don't seem to be big on using additives, and it's starting to show. Pictures of inejctors are starting to show up that are experiencing excessive wear. The seats in some of them are wearing pretty drasticly. To the point that the seat for the needle in the tip of the injector has worn out past the spray holes in the nozzle. You can bet that I'll be running an additive in the CR as well. My injectors are brand new, with $1K worth of work done to them. I'll gladly spend $100 a year to ensure they'll not see excessive needle/seat wear, requiring replacement in 3-5 years.

The bottom line is this: we have no way of knowing what the lubricity at the pump really is, no matter what the laws say. Are you willing to risk it?

 

Well said Jeremy.

 

You're right. I have no way of knowing what the lubricity is and no way to know what the terminal level has added or not added. My point was that the report should have done some random tests at the very least.

Problem is we don't know yet how much protection it will give us to be worth anything. For instance, we don't know whether the injectors would go bad in say 5 yrs on the average with additives or 4 yrs without, etc, etc. Now, if they had run a test on injectors that said the average injector lasts 10 million cycles with and 8 million without, that would be something I could get a handle on. This way, it is very much up to interpretation.

 

While I might have also liked to see a little more info in the report as well, I think it's far from being completely dismissible. I believe it has value, but that is up to the person reading it.

Based solely on the number of people I've talked to who have lost a set of injectors after the switch, that's enough to tell me the lubricity additive is worth some protection. Thrown in my personal experience with losing a set of injectors (4 years on the old diesel, no additives, no problems -- 3 months on the ULSD and they start to fail...maybe it's coincidence, but I don't think so), companies like Cummins issuing tech bulletins that a lubricity additive will be needed in the pre ULSD trukcs, and seeing pictures of injectors driven an average number of miles that have excessive seat wear, that's enough for me. I don't need a test or a study to tell me that a lubricity additive is a good idea.

 

Glad I read this. Got me a gallon of Opti Lube XPD on the way...