Hello everyone! This is my first post here, after reading on this great site for a long time lol. But anyways... I have a 12v Cummins B in my truck, with a few injector pump mods so it puts out a good haze of smoke if you get on it! But my question is, with my engine producing more soot in the oil due to more fuel, what would be better? To use a premium oil like Schaeffers 7000 & 9000 (I'm using the 15w-40 7000 now) and go strictly by UOA, or use a conventional like Delo or Delvac every 6,000mi (recommended OCI for B series in a Ram) I like to save money, but I would rather have a healthy long lived diesel! Thanks!
OCI to go by for a "modified" sooty diesel?
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First off welcome! 
Whats your driving habits/how often is the truck drove, and how many miles a day city and highway?
Whats your driving habits/how often is the truck drove, and how many miles a day city and highway?Thanks for the welcome! And it's my daily driver/work vehicle that I use to tow a dual axle trailer with. And when I'm not hooked to a trailer, I like to warm it up before I drive, take it easy on the GO pedal and keep it under 2200 rpm BUT... I do like to have fun ever once in a while and let loose down a back road lol. I drive mostly hilly rural 2 lane, some highway and city as well. The truck has roughly 398,000 miles on it and runs perfect.
Being as modified as it is its really hard to give you a number and say you will be fine. Depending on fuel dilution and soot i would think you could do 5-6k. The 6bt is not that bad on oil since its not like fords with hpop that shear the snot out of oil. i would run to 3-4k and do a uoa to check up on soot and fuel, and if its good run it out to 6. You never know you might be able to go even father!
That sounds like a plan to me, thanks for the help! So I wonder if I should go with a conventional or if I should stick with Schaeffer's?
If you can get schaeffers for a decent price, and available locally its a great lube, currently running the 9000 5w40 in my probe. Im a big fan for rotella, thats what our 04 ISB has always had and its pushing 300k. And I run it in my r1 and my race quad, its the only oil so far that i can get 2 rebuilds out of a piston.
dnewton3
Staff member
As mentioned, welcome to the site!
There are two routes here:
1) guessing
2) knowing
Details:
1) We can give you advice, but there is no assurance of the outcome because "sooty" is not well defined. We have no idea how many miles you do per year, how many miles you may or may not run per OCI for the Schaeffers, etc, etc.
2) You can get some UOAs for a few OCI cycles and then track the actual data. Do some experiments back and forth. I'm sure Cummins has studies that show how much relevant soot is acceptable, but I've not seen a stated condemnation level from them for your particular engine, however a fair generalization is 3-3.5% soot is about where most feel comfortable for condemnation levels.
Here is a link from a 2008 study that has some UOA limits from Cummins, among others (page 11):
http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/Publications/UsedOil/2008020.pdf
The whole goal of using UOAs properly is to establish and set condemnation limits, and then operate the lube that best fits your situtation up to those limits. None of us can tell you for sure which program will be best; you'll have to experiment for yourself. You seem to understand, at least at a rudimentary level, that cost is a factor; it may or may not be the most important factor, but it cannog be ignored.
ANY lube can be under or over utilized. The "best" approach is to use a lube up to the safe limits, to get the largest ROI. Regardless of which route you choose, only a UOA is going to tell you which program is "best" for you!
Don't ask us; experiment and tell us!
Again - Welcome!
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: dnewton3
As mentioned, welcome to the site!
There are two routes here:
1) guessing
2) knowing
Details:
1) We can give you advice, but there is no assurance of the outcome because "sooty" is not well defined. We have no idea how many miles you do per year, how many miles you may or may not run per OCI for the Schaeffers, etc, etc.
2) You can get some UOAs for a few OCI cycles and then track the actual data. Do some experiments back and forth. I'm sure Cummins has studies that show how much relevant soot is acceptable, but I've not seen a stated condemnation level from them for your particular engine, however a fair generalization is 3-3.5% soot is about where most feel comfortable for condemnation levels.
Here is a link from a 2008 study that has some UOA limits from Cummins, among others (page 11):
http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/Publications/UsedOil/2008020.pdf
The whole goal of using UOAs properly is to establish and set condemnation limits, and then operate the lube that best fits your situtation up to those limits. None of us can tell you for sure which program will be best; you'll have to experiment for yourself. You seem to understand, at least at a rudimentary level, that cost is a factor; it may or may not be the most important factor, but it cannog be ignored.
ANY lube can be under or over utilized. The "best" approach is to use a lube up to the safe limits, to get the largest ROI. Regardless of which route you choose, only a UOA is going to tell you which program is "best" for you!
Don't ask us; experiment and tell us!
Again - Welcome!
This is great advice and if you follow it, you'll know a whole lot more about your engine.If your car comes with analogue oil pressure meter, you can see how fast the pressure build up during startup and the how high oil pressure during cold. In the past, my diesel car with modified injector pressure, need 33.5-5k km OCI due to soot dilution depends on how often I floor the pedal. The other telltale is the slow pressure buildup during coldstart means the viscosity has changed much from fresh oil. IMO, with diesel, shorter OCI is much more beneficial compared to the gasoline.
Originally Posted By: HighMileCummins
Hello everyone! This is my first post here, after reading on this great site for a long time lol. But anyways... I have a 12v Cummins B in my truck, with a few injector pump mods so it puts out a good haze of smoke if you get on it! But my question is, with my engine producing more soot in the oil due to more fuel, what would be better? To use a premium oil like Schaeffers 7000 & 9000 (I'm using the 15w-40 7000 now) and go strictly by UOA, or use a conventional like Delo or Delvac every 6,000mi (recommended OCI for B series in a Ram) I like to save money, but I would rather have a healthy long lived diesel! Thanks!
DNewton has given you excellent advice...but I have to wonder: if you've already got 400K on it and it runs perfectly, then it seems to me that what you've been doing has been working quite well...so why change?
I would go off of liters of fuel burned,not mileage or hours. And get a uoa keeping a record of liters of fuel up to that point,then see how the oil checks out. Diesel today sucks. A guy I ride with has a fleet of diesel tow trucks of varying makes and sears buy the fuel burned method.
When operating a fleet nickels and dimes count. He uses the rotella t-6 5w-40 in everything and buys it by the drum and has a full time mechanic. I think he has 40 trucks in total. He is who showed me that rotella.
That cummins will last forever so don't think on it too much.
If your only doing 6k OCI? any name brand CJ-4 will handle the soot produced in that time frame.
UOA will tell the story..
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couldn't possibly soot load the oil any worse than these new engines do. The CJ-4 oils are designed for it.
Originally Posted By: Astro14
DNewton has given you excellent advice...but I have to wonder: if you've already got 400K on it and it runs perfectly, then it seems to me that what you've been doing has been working quite well...so why change?
Thanks guys for all the input! Great advise! I wish I knew what the previous OCI were, I got the truck when it had about 300,000 on it, so I had a couple rotella, delo and scheaffer's oils in there since then. But I'm probably going to get my oil now (7000 schaeffers) checked out with a UOA, and see where I am and i might use a CJ-4 conventional? I have a great source for oil and they carry Formula 500 15w-40 which I think is a Cj-4 and is also a Cummins CES20081, has anyone heard anything on this brand produced by Hicks oil? I heard it's and old Texaco formula. And I have big HP gains with turning up the pump, somewhere around 95 est. HP gains and almost 300 lb.Ft. of torque increase.
Any CI4+ or CJ4 oil will give you better protection against soot than oils formulated before 1998 (last year of the 12-valve engine in the Dodge). I ran Valvoline Premium Blue Classic CI4+ for 15k mile changes in my '01 24-valve for many years. My truck has a +60HP program in it, which probably puts our power about equal. Mine runs about 290hp on the chassis dyno. I have turned up the boost on mine to ~25psi max, and don't get steady-state smoke out of it.
Thanks guys! I'll keep you up to date with the changes, UOA and what oil I go with!
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