maxxforce engines pro's and con's

The requirment for DEF usage to comply with the reduced amount of nox without EGR is more than you think. Imagine filling up a DEF tank eveytime you fill with fuel. That is what it would be like. If you did that you would still need the DPF and SCR on the truck. I really would like to see it go that way, but I don't buy trucks so I have no say in it.

 

has anyone dealt with intermittent no starts only cranks after it's up to operating temp on any maxxforces

 

very late to the party. just changed a radiator in a maxxforce / 2012 prostar. it was an absolute nightmare. the larger radiator behind the a/c condenser, charged air cooler, and 3 other radiators had a broken neck on the lower hose. to get the actual larger radiator out took me and another coworker almost 2 hours. we were doing this in 100F degree day with 77% humidity so you can imagine the anger we endured fighting with this piece of ####. we've had nothing but issues with the maxxforce / newer prostars. we bought two straight trucks brand new with the maxxforce 13's in them. both blew the twin turbos @ 32k miles. dumped tons of oil into the intake and had to have the cac sent out to be cleaned. we consulted international on the issue and they said "the turbos aren't blown, it's normal for them to dump that amount of oil into the intake, but not to worry it has a runaway kill sensor on it to close a plate in the intake to prevent diesel runaways".. yeah. it's junk. international should've never gotten rid of cummins..

 

International got rid of the cummins because they didn't want to mess with DEF, even though every other engine manufacturer said it's the way to go. International learned that lesson the hard way by almost going bankrupt because of the Maxxforce engine.

 

You can get cummins in a international again . They had to get them back because no one wanted the maxcrap. They couldn't sell any trucks, had to do something.

 

It took moving out top management and moving in guys that had better sense on what to do.

 

International had great success with the medium duty series of engines for many years and they thought they could expand that success with the big bore series too into the Maxxforce generation. They got rid of Cummins because they only wanted to sell their product and have 100% control of everything in terms of design. They did not have the best design engineers and it is very true that top management made one poor decision after the other. The biggest problem was timing. They never should have come out with a totally new engine line at the same time as a new tear of emissions standards on top of that. This just compounded the problems exponentially. Many engineers did say Advanced EGR would not work and upper management would not listen. I think Cummins spent around 800 million dollars to develop DPF/SCR technology with a generation of experience already there. International only spent around 300 million on Advanced EGR with no prior experience. No wonder it never worked! International did come close to bankruptcy. We have heard a few buy-out rumors, Volkswagen being the last about a year ago.

I can remember when the Maxxforce 13 started to appear. We just stood there in complete shock that that was what they come up with! I couldn't believe it!!! I saw nothing but a mess and complete nightmare to work on. I saw there would be nothing but problems. We all new back then this engine would be terrible for customers and reliability would tank. We were all quickly told if we did not like the Maxxforce engine then go work for someone else! They would not tolerate any bad mouthing. "Ok, just wait!" I said, LOL!

 

Now Navistar is playing with the Opposed Piston Opposed Cylinder (OPOC) engine design. Now this is one area they could really make some strides and take back some market share. 50% fewer parts, no valve train or cylinder heads, electric turbo charger, lower cooling requirement, engine is modular and can install banks of cylinders as needed and banks can be shut down when not needed. 15-50% more fuel efficient and significantly smaller footprint and weight. Current testing shows 1.1 hp for every 1 lb of weight of the engine. Test engine being run by Navistar now weighs in at 296 lb and produces 325 HP and 664 lb of torque. That is just one bank of two cylinders/4 pistons. Banks can be added as needed. Multiple bank setup would match current class 8 inline engine power output and weigh less than 600 lb and be cheaper to build. Sounds promising. The electric turbo charger can build boost before the engine is even started or before major power needs. As opposed to turbo lag, it is turbo advanced.

http://www.trucktrend.com/features/1106dp-navistar-ecomotors-diesel-engine/

Check out the size of a one bank, 325 hp / 664 torque engine that Navistar and Eco Motors has in dyno testing...

 

An electric turbo ?
Would that not just be an electrically powered supercharger?
Turbo indicated driven by turbine.
In truck terms meaning by gas flow out of the internal combustion engine.
Also to convert mechanical energy to electricity then back to a mechanical air pump sounds inefficient. Looking at the pictures it does look like a turbine compression side of a turbo and some other sort of drive.
I suppose if the engine does not produce much heat a replacement for an exhaust turbo would needed but a supercharger would be a more accurate term in my opinion.
Anyway an interesting prospect.