why is the international 6.0 and 6.4 bad?

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Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL

As for GM, I cannot see how one could expect that putting diesel heads on a 400 small block was going to work out well in terms of reliability. And go figure, it didn't.


Well, it wasn't a 400 sbc that they sarted with- those couldn't keep their head gaskets in one piece even on gasoline! They at least had the sense to start with the Oldsmobile 5.7 (350), which was probably the most rugged GM-built v8 at the time, instead of the much more lightly-built smallblock Chevy. But even the Olds wasn't up to just slapping some 15:1 heads on it and expecting it to live. Truth be told lot of its problems were actually more fuel system related than directly engine-related, though. The cars that got the OldsmoDiesel back in the early 80s didn't have water separators and better/larger fuel filters that are needed for diesels, and then low-and-behold injectors and injection pumps started failing left and right. That would be OK if it just caused a cylinder to drop off line or the engine to quit- but with a diesel that's not the only failure mode. For example, it doesn't take long to wreck a diesel engine when one injector is always firing 30%-50% more fuel than all the others- kinda like beating that one piston with a sledgehammer every other turn of the crank, even at idle :-( But there were plenty of engine related problems, too- cracked heads, broken head bolts, etc.

The one I didn't understand was the 6.2. They *knew* the deal by then, had been burned by the OldsmoDiesel, had a chance to make a great engine, and made a mediocre one instead. Sure, it was far better than the 5.7, but it still couldn't hold a candle to the old normally-aspirated Navistar diesel that Ford was using. Then when Dodge put the Cummins B5.9 in the Ram, everybody else was playing catch-up for years.
 
Originally Posted By: Onmo'Eegusee
Ive heard Cat isnt going to build on-road diesels anymore after MY2009.


Including Class 8, or just medium-duty? I've heard rumors of Cat getting out of on-road too, but given their market share in the big rigs I find it hard to believe they're getting out of *that* segment. Medium-duty, yeah I can see that. Cummins and Navistar just OWN that market between the B-series and the DT466/DT509, not even counting whatever it is that Navistar calls their version of the 6.4. Cat's got little market share there.

Originally Posted By: Onmo'Eegusee
Otherwise I would have liked to have seen a Cat in a Ford.


So would about 1/3 of those guys who bought Dodges just to get a real diesel engine. Yes, this is coming from a die-hard Dodge man- but I know perfectly well that the Ram didn't grab all that market share in the 90s without a significant number of buyers who switched just because of the engine.
 
Im not sure, rumor mill stuff. I can what your getting at with the segments. I think Navistar calls the 6.4 the "MAXXFORCE 7." They do not use their old system of XXNNN, its all MAXXFORCE with a rough and I mean rough number of liters.
 
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL

As for GM, I cannot see how one could expect that putting diesel heads on a 400 small block was going to work out well in terms of reliability. And go figure, it didn't.


Well, it wasn't a 400 sbc that they sarted with- those couldn't keep their head gaskets in one piece even on gasoline! They at least had the sense to start with the Oldsmobile 5.7 (350), which was probably the most rugged GM-built v8 at the time, instead of the much more lightly-built smallblock Chevy. But even the Olds wasn't up to just slapping some 15:1 heads on it and expecting it to live. Truth be told lot of its problems were actually more fuel system related than directly engine-related, though. The cars that got the OldsmoDiesel back in the early 80s didn't have water separators and better/larger fuel filters that are needed for diesels, and then low-and-behold injectors and injection pumps started failing left and right. That would be OK if it just caused a cylinder to drop off line or the engine to quit- but with a diesel that's not the only failure mode. For example, it doesn't take long to wreck a diesel engine when one injector is always firing 30%-50% more fuel than all the others- kinda like beating that one piston with a sledgehammer every other turn of the crank, even at idle :-( But there were plenty of engine related problems, too- cracked heads, broken head bolts, etc.

The one I didn't understand was the 6.2. They *knew* the deal by then, had been burned by the OldsmoDiesel, had a chance to make a great engine, and made a mediocre one instead. Sure, it was far better than the 5.7, but it still couldn't hold a candle to the old normally-aspirated Navistar diesel that Ford was using. Then when Dodge put the Cummins B5.9 in the Ram, everybody else was playing catch-up for years.


Yep, that's right, it was an SBO
wink.gif
For some reason I thought it was an SBC.

Of course it was that abomination that tarnished GM's diesel rep for decades. And yes, I'll never understand the 6.2 either, since it had many of the same failures as its gas-derived predecessor.
 
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: Onmo'Eegusee
Could not get it to meet emissions regulations.


That's an easy answer to toss out, but its not really true. The basic structure of the engine was proven, and you can get ANY engine bottom end (except maybe an old Detroit 2-stroke) to meet emissions with enough modification to the parts that handle the fuel and air: heads, manifolding, cam/valve train, ECM, injectors, turbo, etc. All that would have been a "bolt on" solution to making the 7.3L block and rotating assembly continue serving well as far into the future as they would have wanted. But it wouldn't have been cheap, and it was apparently decided that an all-new, smaller, and unproven design would be more profitable than spending the money/design effort on upgrading the 7.3. Obviously that didn't turn out to be true in this case.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-innovation and the idea of making the whole package smaller and lighter has some merit.... IF you don't cut too many corners on the new design. And truth be told, they could have made mistakes on the new emission-compliant fuel system for the 7.3 that would have caused the same problems with it. But it seems less probable to me.


Sorry but emissions is the only reason. (from International's mouth)This whole "bolt on" thing you say would not make any financial sense as you stated. I have never seen any bottom end failures that were not owner related on the 6.0L
 
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: Onmo'Eegusee
Ive heard Cat isnt going to build on-road diesels anymore after MY2009.


Including Class 8, or just medium-duty? I've heard rumors of Cat getting out of on-road too, but given their market share in the big rigs I find it hard to believe they're getting out of *that* segment. Medium-duty, yeah I can see that. Cummins and Navistar just OWN that market between the B-series and the DT466/DT509, not even counting whatever it is that Navistar calls their version of the 6.4. Cat's got little market share there.

Originally Posted By: Onmo'Eegusee
Otherwise I would have liked to have seen a Cat in a Ford.


So would about 1/3 of those guys who bought Dodges just to get a real diesel engine. Yes, this is coming from a die-hard Dodge man- but I know perfectly well that the Ram didn't grab all that market share in the 90s without a significant number of buyers who switched just because of the engine.



CAT is NOT building any on road engines. oh and BTW Cat is the only engine manufacturer to have used a spark plug on a diesel engine lol I saw it for the first time on a C-15. It's used for their after treatment systems.
 
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Originally Posted By: slammds15
[/quote]

Sorry but emissions is the only reason. (from International's mouth)This whole "bolt on" thing you say would not make any financial sense as you stated. I have never seen any bottom end failures that were not owner related on the 6.0L


This probably isn't even worth discussing, but here we go. I'm sure Navistar does say "emissions" is the reason, and that's a corporate decision. But if you talk to engineers, I'm sure they would tell you that of course they could have made the 7.3 meet emissions just fine, and for less NRE (non-recurring engineering) cost than the cost of an all-new engine. But market positioning also plays in, and to be able to claim "xx pounds lighter!" is a persuasive argument in the board room (if not always in the field when the "lighter" engine is in pieces...)

Similar case in point- Electro Motive Division said years ago that the 710 series 2-stroke locomotive engine would never be Tier II emissions compliant, so they had to develop the 4-stroke H-engine to carry on into the future. Well, guess what EMD's largest seller is today? The Tier-II COMPLIANT SD-70M powered by a 2-stroke 710 series. That all happened when the H-series a) proved to be too big for the market just like GE's HDL engine- the railroads really didn't need or want that many 6000 horse locos, and b) had a boatload of reliability problems (again, just like GE's HDL). "Bolt on" emissions compliance for the old 710 to the rescue, and EMD remains (barely) in business instead of shuttered entirely.
 
Originally Posted By: wirelessF
The Scorpion engine from Ford should be promising.


This engine has the exhaust manifold on the top side, normally where the intake manifold is. This is so the feed to the turbo is more efficient. The intake manifolds (yes, plural) are on the outside, normally where the exhaust manifolds are.
I'll keep my opinion on this motor to myself until the engine sees a few miles on an actual highway by actual paying customers.

http://www.greencarreports.com/blog/1034...-turbodiesel-v8

It's interesting that this design was shelved by GM.
 
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Originally Posted By: slammds15
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: Onmo'Eegusee
Ive heard Cat isnt going to build on-road diesels anymore after MY2009.


Including Class 8, or just medium-duty? I've heard rumors of Cat getting out of on-road too, but given their market share in the big rigs I find it hard to believe they're getting out of *that* segment. Medium-duty, yeah I can see that. Cummins and Navistar just OWN that market between the B-series and the DT466/DT509, not even counting whatever it is that Navistar calls their version of the 6.4. Cat's got little market share there.

Originally Posted By: Onmo'Eegusee
Otherwise I would have liked to have seen a Cat in a Ford.


So would about 1/3 of those guys who bought Dodges just to get a real diesel engine. Yes, this is coming from a die-hard Dodge man- but I know perfectly well that the Ram didn't grab all that market share in the 90s without a significant number of buyers who switched just because of the engine.



CAT is NOT building any on road engines. oh and BTW Cat is the only engine manufacturer to have used a spark plug on a diesel engine lol I saw it for the first time on a C-15. It's used for their after treatment systems.

Ive seen old diesel tractors with two fuel systems. Has a conventional gasoline carb, dist, spark plugs on one side of the inline block and a diesel IP and injectors on the other side. They are started on gas to warm them up then switched over to diesel only operation.
 
Originally Posted By: Kruse
Originally Posted By: wirelessF
The Scorpion engine from Ford should be promising.


This engine has the exhaust manifold on the top side, normally where the intake manifold is. This is so the feed to the turbo is more efficient. The intake manifolds (yes, plural) are on the outside, normally where the exhaust manifolds are.
I'll keep my opinion on this motor to myself until the engine sees a few miles on an actual highway by actual paying customers.

http://www.greencarreports.com/blog/1034...-turbodiesel-v8

It's interesting that this design was shelved by GM.



GM's design was for an engine to fit in the same space as there small block v8 so that they could put diesel in thier half ton trucks. When the plan to put diesel in the half tons was ax so was the engine, as GM didn't need to design a replacement for the duramax yet.

I was really hoping gm was going to go through with that engine as I would have liked a diesel in a half ton.
 
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Originally Posted By: Onmo'Eegusee
Originally Posted By: slammds15
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: Onmo'Eegusee
Ive heard Cat isnt going to build on-road diesels anymore after MY2009.


Including Class 8, or just medium-duty? I've heard rumors of Cat getting out of on-road too, but given their market share in the big rigs I find it hard to believe they're getting out of *that* segment. Medium-duty, yeah I can see that. Cummins and Navistar just OWN that market between the B-series and the DT466/DT509, not even counting whatever it is that Navistar calls their version of the 6.4. Cat's got little market share there.

Originally Posted By: Onmo'Eegusee
Otherwise I would have liked to have seen a Cat in a Ford.


So would about 1/3 of those guys who bought Dodges just to get a real diesel engine. Yes, this is coming from a die-hard Dodge man- but I know perfectly well that the Ram didn't grab all that market share in the 90s without a significant number of buyers who switched just because of the engine.



CAT is NOT building any on road engines. oh and BTW Cat is the only engine manufacturer to have used a spark plug on a diesel engine lol I saw it for the first time on a C-15. It's used for their after treatment systems.

Ive seen old diesel tractors with two fuel systems. Has a conventional gasoline carb, dist, spark plugs on one side of the inline block and a diesel IP and injectors on the other side. They are started on gas to warm them up then switched over to diesel only operation.


I was going to comment on that also, but I figured the comment was on OTR diesel engines. International Harvester had tractor engines that started on gas and then switched over to diesel. This design was probably from the early 60s. The heads on these engines cracked fairly easy.
 
Originally Posted By: Kruse

This engine has the exhaust manifold on the top side, normally where the intake manifold is. This is so the feed to the turbo is more efficient. The intake manifolds (yes, plural) are on the outside, normally where the exhaust manifolds are.


Almost all marine and locomotive diesels are arranged that way. The turbos go at one end of the engine, high and centered to be fed from the exhaust manifold(s) in the "V" of the engine. Exhaust exits the turbos straight upward to the uptakes (ship) or silencer and stack (locomotive). The compressed intake air goes through an aftercooler and then right into the "log" manifolds along the outside of the engine. Very space-efficient in height and width, but makes the engine longer since the aftercooler and turbo(s) are at one end of the engine. Fine for ships and locos, but I can see where it might present a few packaging challenges under the hood of a truck where length is very constrained and the exhaust ultimately has to be turned downward.
 
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: slammds15


Sorry but emissions is the only reason. (from International's mouth)This whole "bolt on" thing you say would not make any financial sense as you stated. I have never seen any bottom end failures that were not owner related on the 6.0L


This probably isn't even worth discussing, but here we go. I'm sure Navistar does say "emissions" is the reason, and that's a corporate decision. But if you talk to engineers, I'm sure they would tell you that of course they could have made the 7.3 meet emissions just fine, and for less NRE (non-recurring engineering) cost than the cost of an all-new engine. But market positioning also plays in, and to be able to claim "xx pounds lighter!" is a persuasive argument in the board room (if not always in the field when the "lighter" engine is in pieces...)

Similar case in point- Electro Motive Division said years ago that the 710 series 2-stroke locomotive engine would never be Tier II emissions compliant, so they had to develop the 4-stroke H-engine to carry on into the future. Well, guess what EMD's largest seller is today? The Tier-II COMPLIANT SD-70M powered by a 2-stroke 710 series. That all happened when the H-series a) proved to be too big for the market just like GE's HDL engine- the railroads really didn't need or want that many 6000 horse locos, and b) had a boatload of reliability problems (again, just like GE's HDL). "Bolt on" emissions compliance for the old 710 to the rescue, and EMD remains (barely) in business instead of shuttered entirely.

[/quote]

Soo.... Like you stated previously, it would be too expensive to completely re-design the 7.3L. Your argument was the block could have worked. So by the time they run a more reliable HPOP, plump a new cam sensor that rarely fails, a new crank sensor, oil cooler, egr cooler, ect ect the block is no longer feasible. I think you said that already.

I'm not going to argue saying the 7.3L was a bad engine, we had 35 of them in buses and many more in customers vehicles. A lot of HPOP's, IPR's, turbo's and injectors were changed amongst other things. NOX standards were not as low when this engine was created. They were a good engine but were still prone to many issues. The 6.0L is no different. Higher injection pressures coupled with emission's equipment is going to result in issues one way or another.

On and offroad emissions are greatly different, they are not really comparable in the truck industry.
 
[/quote]

CAT is NOT building any on road engines. oh and BTW Cat is the only engine manufacturer to have used a spark plug on a diesel engine lol I saw it for the first time on a C-15. It's used for their after treatment systems. [/quote]
Ive seen old diesel tractors with two fuel systems. Has a conventional gasoline carb, dist, spark plugs on one side of the inline block and a diesel IP and injectors on the other side. They are started on gas to warm them up then switched over to diesel only operation. [/quote]

I was going to comment on that also, but I figured the comment was on OTR diesel engines. International Harvester had tractor engines that started on gas and then switched over to diesel. This design was probably from the early 60s. The heads on these engines cracked fairly easy.
[/quote]

Really? thats kinda cool. by the sounds of things it wasn't very reliable?
 
The Scorpion was designed before the GM 4.5. In fact, I hear GM hired the engineer that came up with the design away from Ford.
 
Originally Posted By: slammds15


International Harvester had tractor engines that started on gas and then switched over to diesel. This design was probably from the early 60s. The heads on these engines cracked fairly easy.

Really? thats kinda cool. by the sounds of things it wasn't very reliable?


When I was growing up on a farm, our neighbor had one. Since ether and glow plugs hadn't been economically perfected yet, that is how this tractor would start. You had two fuel tanks. (obviously) The small one had gas, the larger one diesel. You would start this engine on gas, let it run about 30 seconds to warm it up, pull a lever and then it would switch to diesel.
I remember that if you threw it to diesel too quickly, it would put out perfect white rings of smoke out the exhaust about 15 feet up in the air.
This was International Harvester's solution. John Deere used a gasoline pony motor to start their diesel tractors.
 
Originally Posted By: Kruse
Originally Posted By: slammds15


International Harvester had tractor engines that started on gas and then switched over to diesel. This design was probably from the early 60s. The heads on these engines cracked fairly easy.

Really? thats kinda cool. by the sounds of things it wasn't very reliable?


When I was growing up on a farm, our neighbor had one. Since ether and glow plugs hadn't been economically perfected yet, that is how this tractor would start. You had two fuel tanks. (obviously) The small one had gas, the larger one diesel. You would start this engine on gas, let it run about 30 seconds to warm it up, pull a lever and then it would switch to diesel.
I remember that if you threw it to diesel too quickly, it would put out perfect white rings of smoke out the exhaust about 15 feet up in the air.
This was International Harvester's solution. John Deere used a gasoline pony motor to start their diesel tractors.



Here's an example of an IH gas/diesel. Note the injector pump and distributor on the engine.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Farmall-WD6-nice-cle...id=p3286.c0.m14
 
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Originally Posted By: bdcardinal
i love the 6.0's, make a decent amount of money selling parts on warranty RO's with them.


ARP made quite a bit of money on the studs that they sold to the 6.0 owners also.
 
Originally Posted By: Kruse
Originally Posted By: slammds15


International Harvester had tractor engines that started on gas and then switched over to diesel. This design was probably from the early 60s. The heads on these engines cracked fairly easy.

Really? thats kinda cool. by the sounds of things it wasn't very reliable?


When I was growing up on a farm, our neighbor had one. Since ether and glow plugs hadn't been economically perfected yet, that is how this tractor would start. You had two fuel tanks. (obviously) The small one had gas, the larger one diesel. You would start this engine on gas, let it run about 30 seconds to warm it up, pull a lever and then it would switch to diesel.
I remember that if you threw it to diesel too quickly, it would put out perfect white rings of smoke out the exhaust about 15 feet up in the air.
This was International Harvester's solution. John Deere used a gasoline pony motor to start their diesel tractors.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tdsl5vUGtE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBmQsjILzPY&feature=channel
 
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