Attention: TDR Forum Junkies I'm buying a brand-new, Caterpillar C-9 engine, (250 HP) (for an industrial off-road application) certified to EPA Tier 3. But apparently this isn't good enough for California, the stock 0. 149 g/bhp-hr Pm10 emissions need to be dropped to 0. 01 g/bhp-hr, in order to satisfy CARB (California Air Resources Board) ATCM (Airborne Toxics Control Measures) regulations and local air district regulations. This is even past EPA Tier 4, which is months if not years away (for the rest of us). This will require an after-market filter to be used. Oh, did I forget to mention that this air district also wants this PM device to be CARB certified? Never mind that not a single vendor has yet to receive CARB approval for this emission limit on this size off-road engine.
Worse, my particular application involves a crane engine, which at best can only be loaded 50% of the time. A lot of idle/light load time is normal in this application. Most PM filters are designed for over-the-road trucks or standby diesel generators, which allow a catalyst to a minimum operating temperature, applications which are far removed from what I want to do. Oversize PM filters might last for a few hours before they need to be pulled and sent out for regeneration. Alternatively, for quite a bit more money some sort of self-regeneration system (fuel injectors and/or heating elements) can be added. But not very practical. An expensive. We're talking about another $10,000 to $20,000 on top of of $10,000 to $15,000 for just the filter.
I've talked to the "big three" (Cummins, Detroit Diesel, and Caterpillar) and I don't blame them for admitting that, frankly, they don't need business in California badly enough to wrestle with this.
At this point, vendors are reluctant to offer performance guarantees, and I don't blame them.
I have the same issue, worse answers, for older 6-71 two cycle diesels, to my knowledge, nobody is comfortable introducing the kind of backpressure on these engines that a filter will introduce.
In case anyone has a good line on PM filter suppliers, especially for retro-fitting older 2 cycle engines, I would appreciate hearing about it.
Worse, my particular application involves a crane engine, which at best can only be loaded 50% of the time. A lot of idle/light load time is normal in this application. Most PM filters are designed for over-the-road trucks or standby diesel generators, which allow a catalyst to a minimum operating temperature, applications which are far removed from what I want to do. Oversize PM filters might last for a few hours before they need to be pulled and sent out for regeneration. Alternatively, for quite a bit more money some sort of self-regeneration system (fuel injectors and/or heating elements) can be added. But not very practical. An expensive. We're talking about another $10,000 to $20,000 on top of of $10,000 to $15,000 for just the filter.
I've talked to the "big three" (Cummins, Detroit Diesel, and Caterpillar) and I don't blame them for admitting that, frankly, they don't need business in California badly enough to wrestle with this.
At this point, vendors are reluctant to offer performance guarantees, and I don't blame them.
I have the same issue, worse answers, for older 6-71 two cycle diesels, to my knowledge, nobody is comfortable introducing the kind of backpressure on these engines that a filter will introduce.
In case anyone has a good line on PM filter suppliers, especially for retro-fitting older 2 cycle engines, I would appreciate hearing about it.
