Cal Club Autocross Forums

Have you seen the new articles about truckers not being able to make money due to high gas prices? Not add this requirement?

Certainly these "improvements to the pollution situation" are good desires in and of themselves however ...

The timing does not appear to be very good strategically. Kick the consumers while they're down?

Also noticed the unemployment rates jumped drastically last month - largest jump in 20 years.

I had reserved judgment on whether we are in a recession thus far but it is pretty hard to ignore right now. It seems circumstances in the housing sector have come home to roost ... with more to come. I note that this is a US phenomenon ... For example, in Canada these types of loans/mortgages were never available so, to my knowledge, none of these defaults are happening there ... although the automotive industry is laying off a lot of people in the province of Ontario.

Of course, if you are working in the oil industry or some other select industries you are probably ok (most people? 5.5% UI, means 94.5% employment) ... although some slow-downs might be happening. But, you know, I bet the oil industry may slow down too as people start to drive less and actually make a serious attempt to reduce consumption. E.G. use less A/C for homes, drive less, drive slower (think I've noticed this already), less fuel consuming cars/motorcycles/bicycles/walking, etc.

I wonder if this is one of the reasons we are seeing less attendance at solos?

Probably Washington will have to take some additional measures now to help the economy out ...

Whoops! Think I veered off-topic! }:)

Reijo

The Durango is headed for the Riverside Auto auction...

In our driveway sideways and illegally parked to avoid the Wed morning sprinklers is a really shiny Dodge Ram 3500 SRW Mega Cab with 6.7L Cummins Turbo Diesel with BlueTec.
That's a BIG cab.

Full tank of 34 gallons of diesel. 18mpg for the first 73 miles of the truck's life.

Dealer gave $5700 off.
Chrysler pitched in $5000 in cash back.
And 2400 gallons of Diesel for $2.99.

Pullrite 18K Superglide hitch installed on Friday.

Oh yeah... Now we need a bigass trailer....

And there's a pretty cool 18ft dovetail Carsen Deluxe Car Hauler with custom toolbox and tirerack and tongue box and electric jack and brakes on both axles and relatively fresh Goodyear Marathons for sale. Needs paint. Which I have.

did you get the exhaust brake ?

If not, that should be your first modification.

Apparently, all the new 6.7Ls with automatic come with the exhaust brake. Pretty cool.

I guess they needed to toss us some bone with the huge disappointments in the new emissions ready 6.7 over the venerable 5.9. The 6.7 itself is fine. But the new emissions system apparently becomes a huge choke point. And the motor just doesn't respond anymore to exhaust or programming changes like the 5.9 did. I don't care about having a 1000lbs of torque in the truck, but I did want to strive for the extra 2mpg or whatever. I guess it does still respond to intake changes.

11 quarts of oil in a consumer vehicle. Wow!

I always want one of these trucks, but they were so expensive and nobody dealt on them 5 years ago. The dealer addon sticker for this truck was pretty funny--$54260. Yeah right. Good luck with that. At some point I think they may pay people to remove them from the bankrupt dealers lots. Ouch. I figured this might be our last chance to buy a cummins. Dodge isn't looking too healthy. But I figure it will be around long enough to honor the warranty for atleast a couple of years.

Thanks guys for all the advice and guidance.

What's an exhaust brake?

All engines are air pumps. Most of us know about the energy that pushes a vehicle forward, but not to many about the ability to slow the vehicle.

(After typing all the below text, it occurred to me that someone probably already did this. Sure enough, Wikipedia to the rescue.)

Gas engines have a throttle plate (or valve), that when closed, creates a vacuum behind it. This vacuum is what slows you down when coasting in gear. In reality, friction is probably a larger component of "compression" braking than is that vacuum. Oh, and on carbureted vehicles, that vacuum pulls in some fuel (refer to the gas mileage thread, with EFI shutting off most of the fuel), which reduces the vacuum effect by promoting compression (and thus reduces deceleration).

Diesel engines don't have a throttle plate, and therefore don't generate vacuum, so a diesel engine doesn't generate any vacuum braking, and relies instead on it's considerable friction braking and inertia (I imagine that the crank in the Dodge Cummins easily weighs 200bs). So, in order to get engine braking, you need to make the engine into an air pump. An exhaust brake does this by placing a valve in the exhaust stream (or in the turbo itself in the case of the Dodge 6.7L), which allows the engine to push against something to slow down the vehicle. The exhaust brakes usually are set at 45-60psi, and generate noticeable slowing.

This is not to be confused with a compression brake (Jake brake) that the big trucks use, which are much more effective, often generating up to 80% if the engine's HP in deceleration.

Huh. Interesting. Thanks!

As an aside to the above response; Why doesn't compressing air generate deceleration (without an exhaust brake)? Because the energy required to compress the air when the piston moves upward is returned to the system to accelerate the piston downwards (not counting friction and other inefficiencies). That is, you generate potential energy compressing the air, which is returned as kinetic energy to the piston.

This is also covered in Wikipedia.

Ack... David is making my head hurt again... Must think about nekkid chicks...

Steve Ekstrand wrote:Ack... David is making my head hurt again... Must think about nekkid chicks...

How 'bout nekkid chicks driving diesel trucks? Oh, yeah, with guns, they gotta be packin' heat. Nekkid chicks, diesel trucks and guns.

Post a pic and /thread...

Steve Ekstrand wrote:Ack... David is making my head hurt again... Must think about nekkid chicks...

Imagine if I was awake (worked last night, and it's 9:25am here in KS).

I guess it is time to go visit my nekkid chick.

Your nekkid chick is always welcome to drive the new truck. But I can't see her going for the guns. I see her more as a hand to hand combat girl.

Earl Merz wrote:

Bob Beamesderfer wrote:They'd require smog on a '63 diesel?

So you haven't heard the program ARB is trying to shove through on HD Diesels? Latest form would make all pre-98 HD diesels pass 2005 emission standards by 2009, all pre-2005 HD diesels pass 2007 emission standards by 2011, and by 2015 all On road HD diesels to meet 2011 emission standards. Oh, Motorhomes are exempt from this, for now. ARB also stated in a brief that 70% of all greenhouse gas/smog producing pollutants come from On road and Off road HD diesels engines

Which is a back door way of forcing those vehicles off the road. I don't buy that last part for a minute. There are too many older diesel buses, not to mention the ships that burn bunker fuel, diesel locomotives -- although a lot of them are diesel-electric hybrids to make that figure stick.

David Avard wrote:Gas engines have a throttle plate (or valve), that when closed, creates a vacuum behind it. This vacuum is what slows you down when coasting in gear. In reality, friction is probably a larger component of "compression" braking than is that vacuum.

I think you're right, friction is a much greater component of decelerative force than the vacuum effect. Try shutting the ignition off on your car while driving and notice that there is very little difference in deceleration between open and closed throttle. Ooo, sounds like an effect I should log with the DL1 (damn data craquisition).

Just don't do this in a carbureted car - it will still draw fuel but will just pump it unburned into the exhaust where the catalyst will ignite it and blow your exhaust system off.


... and into a nearby truck, blowing out it's 150lb tire, which will promptly dislodge, cease all forward motion, crash into a following car at 55mph, killing approximately 1000 people within a 2mile radius.

Will Kalman wrote:
Just don't do this in a carbureted car - it will still draw fuel but will just pump it unburned into the exhaust where the catalyst will ignite it and blow your exhaust system off.


... and into a nearby truck, blowing out it's 150lb tire, which will promptly dislodge, cease all forward motion, crash into a following car at 55mph, killing approximately 1000 people within a 2mile radius.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V4Z2DdEdnU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here's the best I could do on short time, Curt. If I had time, I could Photoshop her into the bed of a truck, but your imagination's gonna have to do for the time being...