Why do so many Americans hate European trucks?

I was incorrect, they are nitrided treated
https://www.mailhotindustries.com/innovations/nitriding/

 

• Shockproof, corrosion-resistant, gas nitrided running surfaces

MEILLER hydraulics: Powerful. Durable. Efficient.

 

It is few years since I was (very) involved with them, and the few pictures I have are on another computer. I’ll have to copy them when I get back home.

There were several different tractors and engines, all John Deere.

Common for most of them:
Diesel fueled. Bosch P or French Sigma pumps (we never used the billet pumps many are using nowadays) Stock pumps for these engines have 9 or 10mm plungers, our Sigma had 16, with fast delivery high lift camshaft. Huge holes in nozzles.

Water injection to cool intake air and keep combustion temperatures in control. The water injection is crucial. If the water injection fails pistons would burn in seconds

5 disc centrifugal clutch. The clutch takes a lot of abuse when building the boost before starting the run

3 speed transmission, all gears and shafts custom made. About 50% faster than road gear. Ratio steps between gears of 8%

Needled diff

Custom made chrome moly main bearing caps, protruding slightly below the block, and supported by girdle.

Timing gears welded on crankshaft, original keys get sheared because of the torque it takes to run the fuel pump and camshaft

Horseshoe shaped steel reinforcements welded around front and rear of engine block to prevent cracking

Custom made camshaft, pushrods, roller cam followers, rockers, and rocker shaft

Flowed heads, larger valves, dual/triple valve springs, titanium spring retainers

Custom ductile iron liners (stock liners crack) and custom made billet pistons

Additional flywheel bolts and holes in crankshaft flange

C-ring style head gasket system (like in yesterday’s post)

Compression ratio (depending on engine configuration) 11 - 12.5 to 1


Some of the engines were 466 ci Deere’s (6466, out of 4440 or 4450 tractors), original bore and stroke, but with the later style(better flowing) heads (55-series).
Others were 8.1 litre (6081) out of 7810 or similar tractors, but we increased bore from 4 9/16” to 4 5/8” to bring displacement at the European 510 ci limit for ProStock tractors


The 510 ci engines were single turbo. The inducer, the small diameter of the compressor typically 4” or larger). Boost pressure about 90-100 psi.

I found a picture on my phone, comparing the compressor wheel of the single turbo tractor to the turbo of a 12 litre Mercedes engine. Just to give an impression.



This compressor wheel got too hot, not enough water injected before the turbo, air temperature out of the compressor went above 600F which led to the failure.

On the smaller engines we ran different turbo set-ups through the years, 2-turbo/2-stage. 3-turbo/3-stage and 4-turbo/3-stage (2 large turbo’s in parallel feeding 2nd stage turbo, feeding 3rd stage turbo), boost pressures up to about 250 psi. The 2 parallel turbo’s a bit smaller than the single turbo on the 510 ci, but not by much.
At engine speeds up to about 1500-1600 rpm these 2 turbo’s did not even rotate. Just sat there. Once engine speed and load (slipping the clutch) increased they would start turning.

Engines were run up to 6000 rpm.
On a typical 12 second run, the 4 turbo engine would use about 1.5-1.75 gallon of diesel, and in the same time we injected about 2 gallons of water into the intake air (between turbo’s and in the manifold)

 

As far as I could find out, the MX engines need an engine oil that confirms to the Acea E6 specification or better. Those are high quality synthetic 10W-40 or 5W-30 engine oils.
It's always a mystery to me why people want to save money on engine oil. When you look at the costs per km or mile, you can hardly find the costs of engine oil. Oil keeps all the moving metal parts from touching each other, there always has to be an oil film between moving parts. Without oil, an engine is ruined within minutes, and certainly a heavy duty diesel engine with turbo. And yet many people seem not to think about the quality of the oil they are using. As long as it looks a bit like the oil that should be in the engine, it's ok.

What I have noticed is that in the US people seem to change their oil much more frequent than in Europe. For cars it used to be 3000 miles, so I've read. Not over here, we change the oil at about 20,000 miles.

In the good old days you could just buy some 20W-50 oil for your car, and you were fine. These days the most modern engines need 0W-20 oil, because the tolerances in the engine are much smaller.

For truck engines it's basically the same, and for the MX engine a synthetic 5W-30 with the proper specification is the best you can do.

@Cat sdp gave us a link to a thread where an MX engine had lost a bearing. Wouldn't surprise me at all it that was due to a lubrication problem. Soot in the oil clogging up an oil line for instance.

 

The oil I use.....



And I change it at 15,000 miles ......

I’m sure Caesar will tell me I suck......

 

500 hours. All I've ever gone by.

 

I'll just keep my old dirty engines. They don't care what oil you put in them as long as you change it every once in a while.

The bonus effect of my old dirty engine is it makes caesars eyes twitch to see guys like me keeping more of our money running our 'dirty' engines.

 

@daf105paccar, what oil and drain intervals you running? What is cost for you on gallon (or litre) of oil and average price on dino vs synthetic for you?

 

My T6 is $22 usd a gallon at wal-mart

 

What I have found over the years is the brand of motor oil does not matter. One brand is as good as another you can even mix brands to no bad effect. The proof in that is I have the oil samples for the past 10 years of doing just that and 750,000 miles on my truck to back up that statement.

I usually buy whatever is the cheapest 15W40 I can find. Currently that is Wal Mart's store brand Supertech oil. Based off those years of samples I conclude spending extra money for synthetic is not necessary.

Oil related failures are very uncommon. I change my oil often, no more than 12,500 miles per interval, and dont have any oil issues. I know people who run intervals twice as long as mine who dont have oil issues.

Oil is oil. Do not over pay for some advertising hyped marketing BS. Synthetic is a waste of money. Now, if these newer type EGR/DPF problematic engines actually require synthetic then that is just one more thing that makes them unappealing.