Are Detroits THAT bad?

The pre-egr 14.0L 575 detroit is in our experience, a very strong and efficient engine. It will absolutely edge out either a 550 cat or a 565 cummins and still maintain a minimum of a full 1 mpg better! I have to admit my blood runs yellow, but this peticular engine makes a believer out of me.

 

Just curious, whats the torque on that 575 Detroit ??

 

I've had the miss/pop/puff of smoke problem with mine from day one. I recently had a new turbo, new vpods and new delta-p sensors put on. The problem was still there. Monday the Detroit shop in Fleetwood PA adjusted the turbo. It now spools up like a dream and the problems seem to be gone.
They took the time to test drive it and make it "pop", make a small adjustment and then do it again until it wouldn't "pop" anymore. So far so good. I've got an '04 Freightliner Classic XL and before it was averaging 5.7mpg no matter what I did. Hopefully I can get a little better now.

 

Hope it works for you. I'm just very unhappy with mine. Even with the 5.8 MPI I'm averaging. It still annoys the crap outa me.

 

i just sold my detroit 12.7...as some have said before they are weight sensitive. loaded id get around 5.9 and empty high as 6.9 or so. which half my miles are empty being i haul livestock and and deadhead back to the house usually. so id average overall mid sixes maybe. however if i was loaded most of the time i would get my average back up and plus it couldn't pull a hill with dropping 3 gears. i now have a 3406e cat...I couldn't be happier and will be staying yellow from now on. actually gets better mpg than the detroit and pulls a full load like theirs nothing behind it.

plus i could never get the thing to stop leaking oil somewhere, they have some stupid designs on certain gaskets that have a hard time not leaking.

 

As a mechanic that works on engines, all the talk about S60's being leakers is BS. and talk of fuel mileage from a CAT is laughable.
I was the guy fixing the leakers.

 

To me an engine is a engine. Your just delving into flavors of engine. Everyone will be one flavor over the other. Some will say that their flavor is better than others. All that is fine.

To me its called accessability. Which one is the easier to work on.

Cats from what I have read have something funky going on with their valve covers and require shims? I also have heard you have to be careful with cats injectors as some come from Mexico and will not last long.

On Cummins supposedly they have coolant to water pump issues.

Mostly I think (and this is just me) that people dislike detroits as they are the common engines in Freightliners. Most companies these days will start you out with a Freightliner and people love to trash them for their own reasons.

I tend to think that if the driver started out on the Freightliner and learned to dislike it, then the fact it came with a detroit is why they want something else. Mind you this is only speculation with no fact.

The real thing is. Get what you want / need. If it works for you I am glad. I am not going to tell you that you must do one flavor over the other. Just get the flavor you desire and respect that not everyone out their needs to have YOUR flavor.

 

So those of us complaining about Series 60's leaking are making it up ??

 

1850 ft lbs ~ 2500 NM is very good value of torque. OM460 (12.7l) 440 HP is 2100 NM rated (1550 ft lbs) and runs good, so seems to me the real 14L torque is about 1700.

And as I know more then 2500 NM torque may be dangerouse for engine. In combination with bad oiling it may destroy engine