MATS

Friday myself, and most of the non-union employees of Cummins took the day off to go to the Mid-America Truck Show in Louisville, KY. Its the largest Class 8 truck and Industry show, and its conveniently located in our backyard. This is mostly engine manufacturers and OEMs, with a handful of snake oil salesmen thrown in. Cummins had a large booth where we showed off our 2007 on-highway engine lineup, a few flat screens explaining the new emission controls, filter sales, and t-shirt sales. Other big players were there as well, such as PACCAR, Volvo, CAT, and Detroit Diesel, to name a few.

Its interesting to take a look at other manufacturers and see how they passed emission regulations compared to what we did. One of the biggest jokes of the show was their diesel particulate filter regeneration system. The filter cleaning machine that I am working on is designed to clean these filters once they become clogged, but the engine has the capability of burning the soot off, leaving just ash. What our '07 engines do is pretty simple. When there is a large load on the engine, and the exhaust temperatures are up, fuel is routed to a doser injector, injecting fuel directly into the exhaust manifold, burning off the soot. When the vehicle is under light load, or idling, the variable geometry turbocharger can artificially load the engine, creating higher exhaust temps, and perform a stationary re-gen cycle. Simple.

Cat doesn't have a VGT. Rather, they have a 4 fuel lines running into this cylinder thing on the exhaust, which has a spark plug in it. I believe this is the first diesel in history to have a spark plug. The plug is attached to a spark plug wire and a coil pack. I don't know how you can introduce an engine, keeping a straight face, with flame thrower kit from an old hot rod attached to it and call it your new emissions solution. I really wanted to ask the CAT guys how often they have to change the spark plugs on their diesels, but bit my tongue.

Ford was also there showing off their new 6.4L International Powerstroke. This engine has caused Ford nothing but headache. It is supposed to be more reliable than the 6.0 that they ran from 03-05. The problems that they have had with this thing so far start at the manufacturing. Ford refused to pay the benefits to the International employees per the existing contract, so International stopped production on the engine until the issue was resolved. More recently, Ford has recalled 38,000 vehicles due to a leaky doser injector on their emission control. Apparently the doser will leak fuel into the exhaust, and when it does try to re-gen, there is too much fuel in the exhaust, and was a fire hazard. Ford and GM both have air diffusers on their exhaust to cool the air before it exists to prevent fires. We didn't do this because our dosing process is actually done at lower temperatures. However, I wouldn't be surprised if all 3 are blamed for grass fires this summer. I remember how many forest fires were started from cars backfiring and catching grass on fire, and these are perfectly operational vehicles reaching 500 degrees F, which someone might very well park over some dry grass and cause it to catch.