First Cummins at last!

[Skyjim]

Hi All - One week into my first Cummins ownership! We were planning on ordering a 2020, but the clearance pricing on the 2019s sucked us in. Wife got pushed into a slightly earlier retirement than she planned but we'll survive the hit and it's finally time to do some long trips this year. Long-time campers/RVers with a string of mostly Dodge tow vehicles, but this will be the first Cummins.

Have to get the Emissions recall done and get our check from FCA on our 2016 1500 Ecodiesel before selling that (which we spec'd to tow a Trail Manor folding hardside - seemed like a cool, lightweight idea, but poor materials and workmanship soured us - every time we opened it up, we'd find hardware on the floor - structurally suspect and we traded it in for a 29' conventional TT. If we'd known that was what we'd be towing I never would have spec'd out a half ton in the first place!). Other previous tow vehicles included a 98 Dakota 5.2 five speed manual with 3.92s, an 88 F-250 7.3 IDI diesel with a Banks turbo, and an 02 Ram 2500 QC SB V10 that would pass anything but the proverbial gas station.

Just got past the first 500 miles on the new baby and waiting for a new drop shank for the equalizer hitch - can't wait to start working that 6.7! Running light the off-idle power is of course super-impressive and I can't wait to run the trailer up the nearby Castaic grade as soon as I have that hitch piece. After the little 3.0, I expect the standard output 6.7 to sort of shrug and ask if that's all I've got for it to do...

Thus far love the new interior, the current gen Uconnect is more responsive than our 2016 1500's, the LED headlamps are worth every penny, and the adaptive cruise seems pretty smart so far. Since I will never be towing a fiver or a gooseneck the 2500 has enough payload for me, and the coils in back seem to ride fairly well, even unloaded, for a 3/4 ton. I had planned on ordering dual alternators and aux switches, and may wind up missing the full console, but got all of the other stuff I wanted except the truck had the darn 20" rims. Not a hard core offroader but would've preferred the 18s - just in case I am on a slightly blocky, rocky washed-out fire road or something I'd prefer more sidewall before rock finds rim. Will post a pic or two tomorrow or the next day. Jim

 

[Jim W]

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Cummins12V98]

Congrats and welcome!

Do your self a favor and dump the rear diff at 5k or less and go with AMZ/OIL 75-90 SevereGear or another high quality GL. Do NOT replace with OE junk.

 

[AH64ID]

Congrats!!

Dual alternators are fairly easy to add, but unless you are running a winch or some sort of ambulance body they really aren't worth the upgrade/maintenance cost.

 

[Wayne M.]

Welcome to the TDR!

 

[HPSimpson]

Come on aboard to TDR most knowledge people for Cummins trucks and how-to-do repairs on RAM trucks!

 

[Wiredawg]

Howdy and Welcome,

You've come to the right place with the TDR, you'll find wealth of info, some clever humor, and you'll figure out soon enough who the characters are here.

Congrats and enjoy your new rig.

Cheers, Ron

 

[Skyjim]

Thanks to all for the warm welcomes, my silence does not indicate a lack of interest - I'm busy absorbing information and searching threads so I don't parrot questions already asked previously by the rookie Cummins owners before me. This is my third diesel truck and I've been towing for 30 years but I'm light on Cummins-specific experience. Trying to read up enough to ask intelligent questions. Already having some basic assumptions falling into question, for example: I was taught, almost literally at my father's knee, to operate a diesel tow vehicle with an eye on my EGTs. Yet there seems to be a pretty strong body of opinion here that if I intend to stay stock on power (which I do) and tow well within GCWR (I don't anticipate towing at even 70% of GCWR or trailer weight rating), I probably don't need to bother installing a pyrometer. Or at most, I could get away with an Edge monitor using what looks to be after-turbo EGT data just for peace of mind. Gotta consider that - unexpected! I'd been thinking about how to minimize the amount of drill chips I got into the exhaust manifold when I drilled and tapped for the pre-turbo thermocouple... Jim

 

[Wayne M.]

Jim, you set up your truck according to your taste or wants. If you want a pyro, because it’s information you want, you do it! People think it’s unnecessary to watch lift pump pressure on common rail engines, but I do. It’s not on the dash, but it’s under the hood. That info might help me someday.
Anyway, as we know, the best place for a thermocouple is pre Turbo. I wouldn’t fret the chips getting in the Turbo. As you break through, put grease on the drill. It’s more important to put that hole in the right place because there are casting ribs inside the manifold, but there’s reference on here to help with that.

 

[Cummins12V98]

The newer trucks simply don't "NEED" any monitoring. When I spoke to Stan Gozzi Head West coast Warranty Rep at the time he said "they can't hurt them selves".

 

[Skyjim]

Jim, you set up your truck according to your taste or wants. If you want a pyro, because it’s information you want, you do it! People think it’s unnecessary to watch lift pump pressure on common rail engines, but I do. It’s not on the dash, but it’s under the hood. That info might help me someday.
Anyway, as we know, the best place for a thermocouple is pre Turbo. I wouldn’t fret the chips getting in the Turbo. As you break through, put grease on the drill. It’s more important to put that hole in the right place because there are casting ribs inside the manifold, but there’s reference on here to help with that.

Thanks, Wayne. I'm pondering away. Have to get through that pristine virginal stage with the new truck, of course, before I do anything.

(Feel free to skip the following - just rambling from an older Mopar guy about stuff a long time ago...)
I just noticed that A body in your avatar, took a look at your profile, and saw that it's a 340 car, as I suspected. I had a ton of fun with my own 340 street car a million years ago - loved that engine! I was 19 years old, hopelessly in love with E body Mopars in late 1974, when I saw an ad for an AAR 'Cuda for sale. Flaming Tor Red/Orange with that flat black factory Trans AM fiberglass fresh air hood, the Six Pack 340, the strobe stripes, side exhausts, leaky headers, way too much mechanical cam for a street driver, 4 speed, 3.91 Sure Grip, you know - your basic 19 year old's wet dream. My Dad trusted me since I had always been a pretty good kid, but he just didn't realize what a Mopar speed lust burned in my young heart. He knew I wanted a 1970 Barracuda, and consented to consider cosigning on a loan if I looked at the car and reported it to be in good condition - bless his crusty heart, he was trying to make me a responsible adult.

I did a shameful job of taking a Polaroid from an angle that didn't really show the hood scoop very well. It was a small block ("like the 318 in your car, Dad!") and pretty sensibly equipped from Dad's point of view ("Manual steering and stick shift - economy!" "But power front disc brakes for safety!"). He could see the loud paint job in the pic, but I guess he was willing to allow for the tastelessness of youth, and then he asked the big question - but he phrased it perfectly to allow me to fib without TECHNICALLY telling a lie... "What kind of carburetion?" If I had answered "Four barrel." He would have put his foot down, because, by God, four barrel meant hot rod and gas hog to Dad. But, really, he said "carburetion", so I wasn't quite lying when I said "Two barrel". After all, he had not asked how many two barrels... Gawd, I can't believe I pulled that on him even after all these years. He cosigned on the loan, for 2000 bucks. I talked the seller down to 2262 bucks from 2500 because I had exactly 262 dollars in my savings account that weekend. He didn't have to wonder at the odd number because I just told him the truth and he laughed and said fine. He could tell I was in love with the car and I think he wanted it to go to someone who was.

I brought the car home, tinkling exhaust leaks through those headers, mechanical lifters singing, the damned cam so lumpy it wouldn't idle below about 1200, jetted way too rich, eye-watering unburned gas in the exhaust, all the guys in the neighborhood gathering around as I got out in front of the house as the AAR coughed and shook and lifters clicked and I beamed. And here came Dad out of the house, and my friends fell silent, and Dad saw that he'd been had as he saw and heard what I'd gone out and bought, and for the first time in my life, I heard my dignified Dad utter out loud the words: "Oh, Sh*t!"

I ended up putting 100,000 miles on that car over the following decade, went though everything, and in the process became a much better mechanic. I became such a pest at my local Chrysler-Plymouth dealer's parts counter that the parts manager would just toss the 1970 book up on the counter when I walked up and let me look up part numbers myself (Yeah, we used actual paper books then). After a year or so of that, one day when he had a bunch of mechanics lined up and I was at the end of the counter with my nose in the 70 book, he yelled "Jim, get your butt back here!", and I began my first day as a Mopar parts counterman. I just hadn't realized he'd been training me. All of that experience actually stood me in good stead later in life...

Jim

 

[Wayne M.]

Jim, that was. Great story! Were you really a Mopar counterman?
Check out the rambling post about Wiredawg’s Lil Red Truck.
Meanwhile, if you do gauges, do you have an idea of the style you want?

 

[Skyjim]

Jim, that was. Great story! Were you really a Mopar counterman?
Check out the rambling post about Wiredawg’s Lil Red Truck.
Meanwhile, if you do gauges, do you have an idea of the style you want?

Oh, yeah - I was in college, working the dealer parts counter afternoons, then later full-time when the Air Force decided they didn't need as many pilots as they thought they did when I was a freshman. (One of the reasons my Dad was happy enough to help me buy a car was because I had gotten an Air Force ROTC scholarship to college as a pilot candidate - but they cut pilot slots way down after Nam and suddenly my class went from 30 slot to one - oops. All I had ever wanted to do was fly, and I really didn't have a backup plan. I flailed around for a few years.). But having cost plus 10% on parts was great for somebody with a car like the AAR - I was stockpiling parts before they went code NS1 (out of production or inventory), and there were a bunch of unique pieces for the Trans Am cars (The AAR and the Challenger T/A). There are STILL a few old 7 digit part numbers rattling around in my head - though many are the old Direct Connection Mopar Performance numbers with the P prefix. I'm pretty sure the DC performance electronic ignition kit for street "LA" engines was P3690426...

 

[Skyjim]

Jim, that was. Great story! Were you really a Mopar counterman?
Check out the rambling post about Wiredawg’s Lil Red Truck.
Meanwhile, if you do gauges, do you have an idea of the style you want?

On gauges, not sure. I did Isspro gauges on my old Ford IDI with the Banks turbo and liked them, but I would probably do one of the integrated monitors like the Edge setup today. There is so much data available on the EVIC display on the stock truck now that all I really feel like I lack is pre-turbo EGT, though I might decide that I want more info about temps at a specific point when I learn more about the truck. Since there is EGT from SOME point post-turbo - related, I assume, to exhaust aftertreatment functions, I don't know if the fact that you can see that with the Edge monitor is enough for me to relax or not. Depends on how far down it is and how responsive to throttle it seems to be. If I had some sense of the relationships between turbine inlet temp and wherever that after-turbo reading is being taken and what type of time lag is inherent between fueling and temp response where ever that thermocouple lives, maybe I'd be happy. Maybe not. Just not smart enough to answer the question in my own mind yet.

 

[Wayne M.]

The cam in my Duster is P4120653. That number is in my head since 1986

 

[Wayne M.]

Well Jim, I had you switched up with another post thats new to Ram, so I went back to your OP, and see that you have a ‘19. In that case, you need to do nothing but get a CTS or similar monitor that plugs into your OBDII. you already have all the sensors you could ask for except for diff temps.
I totally encourage this, because then you can watch other activities like regeneration and SCR events.

 

[Skyjim]

The cam in my Duster is P4120653. That number is in my head since 1986

Ahhh, that's a fairly nasty street cam - lots o' lift. I was daily driving and concerned about midrange torque out of corners since I was playing in canyons (Yes, I was a fool) and eventually went with the old street Hemi grind hydraulic with upgraded springs, keepers, and retainers. Spent a lot of effort on internal friction reduction - torque plating the block while honing, that kind of stuff, drove the guy at the machine shop crazy but he let me come in and do the anal stuff like mock up not just the torque plate but the opposite head with gasket, timing cover, and bell housing. The guy had dated my sister and was a friend of the family, and knew that at that time, the T/A 340 blocks were pretty valuable - and the thinwall LA castings DID flex enough for details like that to have some effect. I wound up with a very sweet, free revving, smooth engine that made good midrange and hit pretty hard to 6200 or so, and got decent fuel economy for the time once I set the outer carbs up to come in a hair late (better than bogging on the street!), and was faster through the 340 hi-po factory cast irons than the overcammed setup had been through the headers (though a lot of that problem had been badly set up carbs and perpetually gas-fouled plugs). It was also fun to beat somebody in another brand who assumed that any exotic-looking Mopar must be a Hemi, and then unlock the hood and show them a small block under an oval air cleaner, but breathing through cast iron exhaust manifolds... ;-) It wasn't the fastest car around, but most guys those days had more run-of-the-mll musclecars, which were generally geared more sensibly, and even then, most guys would spend money on horsepower but never on setting the chassis up, so if you hooked up, you could hole shot people making more power and that was often that in a stoplight race. If you could cut a decent light, had stiffer gears, and didn't spin them, you could leave so quickly that some guys would shut off right after they hit second gear, not even realizing that they could probably pull you if they hung in there...

We tried to do it late, away from places where there were a lot of people, but sometimes our competitive juices got the better of our judgement. It was irresponsible, but it sure was fun. Luckily I was never involved in any accidents doing that stuff. I feel for the kids now who are no more stupid than I was then, but who have access to much faster machinery than we did, at that age when you think you are immortal and nothing really bad can ever happen. The really young ones probably don't understand on a gut level what kind of kinetic energy they are dealing with, and when things go bad, they can go really bad in a bigger way than our slower machines. Doesn't excuse it, but I remember being young and too dumb to realize that that stuff belongs on a track.

 

[Ozymandias]

Jim you know that your Turbo is water cooled?

 

[Skyjim]

Yes. (Edit: Old habits die hard, I suppose. I figure a bit of thermal management must still be a good idea since the owners manual still recommends idling down after working the Cummins - naturally as an ex-rocket engine turbomachinery guy I crave temperature data, especially at the turbine inlet...)

 

[Ozymandias]

What ever you do, your right foot has no influence on EGT, the ECM controls them entirely to keep the emissions stuff happy.
You'll see high EGTs just cruise down the main road, even ideling you'll see 500+.
Idle down is meant if you really worked it hard with a trailer on, up the mountain.
But sure you can install a probe and monitor it, it just doesn't make sense as there is no benefit from it on a new Truck.
Post Turbo is monitored already, an Edge CTS shows this.