Black Cloud Diesel Pickups

Not legal anywhere.. All Federal emmission control devices must not be removed or tampered with... period.

 

New York State requires emission testing on diesel trucks. The truck in the picture must have blowby and is burning crankcase oil

 

Running huge injectors and huge turbos. AFR is all wrong until the turbo spools up. Black smoke is the result. If the smoke doesn't disappear once the turbo spools, something is wrong...

Crankcase oil burns blue, not black...

 

Most diesel trucks can produce a bit of black soot. The huge clouds are from engines with larger turbos and injectors when under high load conditions like selecting a higher gear and flooring the accelerator.

 

Those black clouds actually have less pollutants than gasoline tailpipe emissions, though obviously the particulate is worse!

 

Does this qualify for "....another sign the human race is doomed....."?

 

It's harder for the new diesels to blow like that. If they still have a DPF it will trash it.
But the older trucks, just put in a programmer and go. All it is is raw unburnt fuel. A good program won't blow smoke like that, as its a waste. But most jump dump the fuel in, and if the rest of the engine is not able to burn it, that's what you get. But now everyone thinks it is cool...

As for legality, depends on the state. On an old 7.3 here, there isn't a cat or any other emission stuff, so I've never seen anyone pulled over for it. Ag fuel is a different story.

 

Look at these *******s

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=512561165467411&set=vb.456285344428327&type=2&theater

 

It's no different than "test" systems on sports cars, or any of those exhaust systems that make nearby people bleed from the ears. Just jerks being jerks, and there's always been jerks.


At least that example is blowing upwards. Annoying is being in a low-slung car and being stuck near the exhaust pipe of a lifted pickup.

 

True !

 

See this stuff all the time. There are "speed shops" here that specialize in hopping up diesels.

You see (and hear) these things, even while on the Interstate. They are inevitably driven by 23-year-old morons that have their foot in it, run up on someone's bumper, slam on the brakes until that person moves, then back on the pedal and another black could.

When I can hear the diesel truck on the Interstate, while I'm using earplugs on my motorcycle that can set off car alarms due to its exhaust, it is probably too loud.

 

And if the obnoxious black cloud isn't bad enough, most of these tool boxes down here have air horns.

They pull up on your bumper and blow their train horn at you.

 

I pulled the emissions crap off of my Duramax, and you have to put a programmer on after doing this in order to not throw codes. On the lowest setting, the power and fuel economy is noticeably much better. The gov has strangled the life out of these motors in the interest of AGW, without thinking of the results. I guarantee that the loss of fuel mileage more than offsets any emissons gains by the DPF, and low sulphur fuel requirements on diesel engines, not to mention the expense. I would imagine without the stringent emission requirements, light heavy duty trucks could be approaching 30mpg, and retain the amount of power and torque that they generate now. Think about how much emissions, expense, and environmental impact would be avoided by doubling the fuel economy. The pols don't understand that there is more ways to attack a problem than the most obvious.

 

Forget a traffic ticket; Give them an EPA violation and make them bring their lawyer team.

Polluting the environment because "it looks cool". The irony.

 

Reminds me of the old Merc diesels from back in the day.

 

While I'd characterize the expectation that removing emissions controls would double fuel economy from current levels as a bit unrealistic, pollutants have been reduced by far more than half, meaning that fewer pollutants are released under the globally-implemented types of engine emissions regulations.

Also, note that such emissions reductions are NOT focused on man-made global warming, as CO2 is the primary bogey for AGW, but it is tied to consumption, so a negative impact on fuel economy isn't done in the name of AGW. Diesel emissions regulations are about air quality; carcinogens, smog, hydrocarbons.

 

Compensating for something?

(them, not you)

 

The only thing dumber than removing the emissions equipment on a car/truck is to admit that you are violating Federal and State law on a public forum that you are doing so.

 

I was amazed the first time a diesel won lemans. Reliability and lack of ignition I understood. The surprise was that the actual fuel type held the potential for more energy per unit of measure.

Diesel is "dirty" because of the preponderance of carbon molecules that are the equivaqlent of "potential energy".

I am a slow advocate of the hydrogen molecule. It is so light, pure and clean, it fails to hold as much energy as the dirty things.

I have also heard that the motor may be making max HP and show the smoke. Though hard to believe, I do recall having seen things like tractor pulls (no jokes please) and they belch great plumes of the stuff. I don't think it's just done as part of a spectacle.

 

The reason why you can produce smoke like that with Diesel engines is the process of combustion. SI engines burn the fuel with a flame that runs from the spark plug through the combustion chamber filled with a homogenous fuel/air mixture.

Diesel stays in little droplets and self-ignites under high pressure and temperature (-> "compression ignition"). The droplets burn individually from their outer diameter to the inside. If there's a local lack of air, they don't burn cleanly, carbon particles ("soot") are created.
The problem with soot is that unburnt HC can perfectly attach to its surface. The carbon particles can enter the human lungs very deeply and carry the carcinogenic HC with them.

The problem of excessive soot formation does occur when too much fuel is injected, especially at low engine speeds when the turbocharger doesn't move a lot of air around. Normally, ECU mappings are set up in a way to prevent such operating points.

Anyone who tinkers with software (ECU) or hardware (aftertreatment) to generate black clouds is an idiot.