156: Breaking Down Diesel: Myths, Tuning & Truth

These little pickups in the U.S. roll off the showroom floor, some of them making 500 horsepower

and 1,200-foot pounds of torque.

How much is it clogging it up, first off, and how much more are you actually looking for

here?

Because we're at a point now where the ECUs are having to do torque management towing

like the trucks will literally roast the rear tires towing a trailer.

Welcome to the HPA TuneIn podcast, I'm Andre your host and in this episode we're joined by

Jarman Seat from the FreedomWorks YouTube channel.

I stumbled onto Jarman's channel maybe a few months ago and I really liked the way he was

able to break down a complex topic or a topic that is completely misunderstood,

something surrounded in sort of urban myth, break it down and add some scientific detail

into it to actually give us the facts on how something works.

So this might be something like diesel engine exhaust gas temperature or it might be

something like how often should you be doing your oil changes.

All interesting topics that people probably don't give enough thought to and I fall

into the same category.

I've made my own assumptions about topics and then once you start diving into them

you find, actually you know what, there's a little bit more to it.

Jarman also has a really interesting way of being able to explain these topics

and inject enough humour into it to keep people engaged and I think in this day and age

of short form content, that's an admirable way of providing this information.

We also dive into his background as a mechanical and civil engineer and interestingly

he's very removed from the automotive scene.

His day job is working in the nuclear power industry.

I don't think I've ever talked to anyone before who works in nuclear power but here we go,

first time for everything.

Before we jump into our chat, for those who are new to the TuneIn podcast,

High Performance Academy is an online training school.

We specialise in teaching people how to build performance engines,

how to tune EFI, how to construct wiring harnesses.

We also cover topics on fabrication, 3D modelling and CAD, race driver

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We are constantly partnering with some of the biggest names in the

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Alright enough with our introduction, let's get into our interview now.

Alright, welcome to the podcast.

Jermyn, thanks for joining us today.

And as we always do, let's start by digging into your background.

So how did you get interested in cars in the first place?

Well, you know, I grew up in the 80s and 90s in the US.

We didn't really have video games.

I lived way out in the country.

So to interact with my friends and family, I had to have a way to get around.

So motorcycles, stuff like that, that was the way to go.

And I was poor, so I had to buy a junk and fix it.

So naturally I had to learn how to fix engines.

And that's really where it started.

And once I started digging into engines, I just never got away from it.

So how were you sort of learning these skills?

And this is sort of before the time of YouTube really.

So it's not as easy as just jumping on YouTube and looking up how do I fix XYZ?

Right. We had Hot Rod Magazine here in the US.

That was a big help.

But a lot of it just had to do with curiosity and tinkering and looking at things.

And of course I didn't understand everything I was seeing.

But I had a general idea of what was going on.

And most of the time I could make it work.

But you're right.

Now we didn't have the resources.

This was pre-internet.

So it was actual books and magazines going to the library to check out a book.

I remember those days as well.

It would be a new generation that wouldn't even step foot in the library, I imagine.

My kids have been a few times.

But it's not something they're drawn to.

They would rather watch YouTube, obviously.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

It's a great resource, obviously.

I think both of us run YouTube channels.

It is an amazing resource for sure.

The problem with it, the frustration for me is anyone with a cell phone can set up a YouTube channel

and that doesn't necessarily mean that the content they're producing is factual.

So it does become an exercise of sorting through fact from fiction

which can be frustrating and very time consuming.

No, and that's really why I do what I do.

And that's probably a bigger reason why you guys do what you do.

People want to talk about the best engine and worst engine.

I'll say the worst engine in the world is the internet search engine.

That's the worst engine because confirmation bias is an issue for everybody

and people will get on Google and type in exactly what they want to hear, right?

And lo and behold, they get that information feedback to them.

You can find the answer you're looking for if you try hard enough.

It might not be the right answer, but it will be the answer you're looking for.

So yeah, that's the hard part with social media and the internet is finding credible sources.

So that's why I always try to cite a credible source whenever I can for a video.

And of course, some people won't believe that's credible.

There's always going to be a conspiracy theorist or someone who's skeptical.

And that's okay. You should be skeptical.

Yeah, I think that's a fair point.

It is difficult though when you've done your research, you've put in the hours,

you've cited all of your reference material.

You know that the information you're producing is factually correct

and then someone with no basis for telling you anything comes in

and questions the validity of what you've put out.

But that is the world we live in. It's always going to be like that.

I think maybe it's actually getting worse, but yeah, we have to deal with it.

Let's roll back though because I think we're probably getting a little bit ahead of ourselves.

Now when you're sort of teaching yourself without the benefit of YouTube,

how to spin spanners, there's one thing using a vehicle

for the purpose of getting from A to B, then there's a whole different level

to this when we become enthusiasts and we want to start actually modifying.

So where did that sort of connection come in?

I would say high school. I think it's just a normal progression.

When you understand the mechanics of something,

you want to display your mechanical dominance by making your vehicle faster

or stronger than anybody else's.

And that kind of happened for me in high school with my first truck.

It was a 71 Chevrolet C-10 short bed,

350 small block Chevrolet.

I mean, the dominant, most prevalent hot ride engine probably that's ever lived

up until the LS platform now.

Yeah, that's where that happened.

And that was ordering parts over the phone out of the summit catalog.

No internet. You look through the catalog and you figure out what you want

and you call somebody on the other end of the line and they mail it to you.

But that's where that started.

The diesel thing, I grew up on a farm going to tractor pulls.

So it always amazed me how somebody was taking a farm tractor

that was supposed to make 100 horsepower at 2,000 RPM.

They were making 1,500 horsepower with it at 6,000 RPM.

I couldn't wrap my head around how it was happening.

Hats off to those guys. They figured that stuff out without the internet also.

There's nothing quite like trial and error.

You'll figure it out, but it's typically a much more expensive learning curve

than taking the playbook that somebody else has already written

and just doing the same.

Yeah, I think we'll probably come back to that topic later.

That's one of my big themes or mottoes in life now

as I've gotten a little older is,

I'm more of a bought not built kind of guy these days.

I like to take a vehicle that somebody else has invested their time and money into

and they've come to the end of their rope and they can't deal with it anymore

and they're just ready to offload it.

That's when I swoop in and...

Pick it up for cents on the dollar.

Right. Get the premium parts and get the labor for cents on the dollar.

Sure.

Let's just come back up.

Paul Block Shev just mentioned it's one of the most prevalent engines

for modification anywhere in the world and it was made in,

I don't even know, hundreds of thousands, millions.

I don't know, but there's a lot of them around.

What is it about that platform that made it so popular for modification?

That's a great question.

Maybe it's just the fact that there were so many of them.

Yeah, because on face value there's nothing particularly special about

the design of the engine that lends itself better than any other

for modification, I wouldn't have thought.

No, and I think the small block forward is probably right there with it.

Yeah.

That's a great question.

Big block and small block Chevy versus big block and small block Ford.

I mean, from my perspective, the Chevy's seem to be the cheaper option to build,

maybe more prevalent.

I've been out of that game for a while, so it's really hard to say.

Yeah, I think a big part of it is always how quickly the aftermarket

climb on board to provide off the shelf options because then it becomes cheaper

and of course, much easier to end up extracting more power out of these platforms.

But the small block was probably a little bit before my time,

sort of probably by the time I got into this industry,

it was more sort of around the LS, which has now become the go-to

hot rodding platform as well.

Now again, coming back, so you've talked about how you started getting involved

in cars, the small block Chevy, you've talked about the exposure to diesel.

I'm also just interested to dive into your education as well

because obviously the videos you're producing now,

which we'll get into a bit later, are very educational.

What is your background in terms of formal qualifications, if any?

Yeah, so I have a civil engineering degree.

I started on the mechanical engineering degree track

and I spent some time working as a quality engineer at an engine manufacturing facility,

basically plucking engines off the line,

strapping them on a dyno and testing the different parameters

and every now and then having a catastrophic failure.

You don't want to see that as a quality engineer.

You want to see that as an R&D engineer, not a quality engineer.

But in that time in the manufacturing facility,

I decided I didn't want to be in a manufacturing facility,

so I switched over to the civil engineering track

and I have a bachelor's degree in civil engineering

and that actually led me into a career in the nuclear power industry.

Oh, wow.

So most people don't know what I'd actually do for a career

and it's not automotive at all.

Now, I did turn wrenches on aircraft in the U.S. Marine Corps

and I did turn wrenches as a diesel mechanic on tractors and equipment

while I was going to college,

but since college I have not been in the automotive industry.

I do nuclear power.

Wow, okay.

Yeah, so I'm probably the world's worst automotive influencer

because I don't work in the automotive industry per se.

I actually think there might be some benefit in that as well.

I think if you're an enthusiast,

you tend to gravitate towards working in the industry

and I found when I ran my performance workshop

after 13 years of doing that,

I found that it actually dulled my passion for working on my own cars.

You'd be dealing with customer cars 40 hours a week

and it was hard then to get motivated to put in the hours after hours

or on the weekends to actually spin wrenches on my own vehicle.

Now, I mean, obviously we're still deep in the automotive scene,

probably more so than ever,

but because now I'm not working on customer cars during the week,

I find that passion sort of got reignited.

So there can, I think, be some benefit

from being a little removed from the industry itself.

Yeah, no doubt.

If I turn wrenches or dealt with automotive components all day,

I don't think I would have the passion for it.

I would want to get away from it just like you said.

So that has helped.

And I'll say one side benefit, maybe the main benefit,

is that being in a completely different industry

has allowed me to look at aspects of engineering completely different.

When you graduate from engineering school,

most people I know it happened for me.

I thought I was the smartest guy in the world, right?

And I thought I had it figured out.

And I got humbled really quickly when I got to the nuclear industry

and I basically started working with people,

every one of which was more intelligent than me.

So, and you just look at,

you look at thermodynamics and physics and stuff differently

when you're looking at things in that scale

and you're looking at subatomic physics and stuff like that.

So it just allows you to think about the automotive concepts

in a completely different manner.

And the biggest thing for me is that it taught me

that common sense and intuition a lot of the times are wrong.

I get the comments all the time,

well that's just not common sense.

And I can agree with them,

you're absolutely right, this is not common sense.

And that's why I'm telling you this,

because common sense will lead you astray in this area.

Yeah, I can get that.

The other aspect with common sense though

is I don't actually think it's that common these days.

No, no, common sense is definitely not as common anymore

and the sense isn't really the sense anymore.

Just when you were speaking about coming out of engineering school

and you think you're the smartest guy around,

which I think is incredibly common,

do you feel that's a bit of Dunning-Kruger effect creeping in there?

Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

There's a lot of truth to the, you know,

the more you know, the more you know you don't know.

Yeah, yeah.

As you learn more things, you realize

how many things there are that you really had no grasp of.

You didn't even know you didn't know.

And that generally just comes with age

and experience, making mistakes.

Yeah, I think as you become really experienced in any field,

it's harder to be completely 100% confident

in a concept or your answer to something.

Whereas at the start, you can, yeah, I've got this.

I know it absolutely with perfection.

Well, and there's a reason that I use the word

probably maybe and allegedly a lot in my videos

because, you know, my knowledge

and everyone else's knowledge is really just dependent

on the state of the art or based on the scientific data

that we have currently, which is always changing, right?

We're always trying to get smarter.

We're always trying to collect more data

and get to a more definitive answer.

So I try to preface a lot of my statements that way

because I know some of the things that I believe

and say now will change with time.

Yeah, no doubt.

I think being self-aware like that is also quite uncommon.

Most people don't really want to be open to, you know,

maybe seeing if a concept that they think they know well,

maybe there's more to it,

maybe they need to do a little bit more research

and then are they prepared to also change their opinion

in light of new data when that comes along?

Most people will sort of double down on their position

even if they start to realize that, oh, no, I'm actually wrong here.

Yes, and that's something.

Social media is a big social experiment for me.

I'm not gonna lie.

I've learned so much from it.

There were times early in my social media journey

where I had people make comments

that I thought were completely absurd

and I had to stop myself from responding to them

in a negative manner, take a step back

and actually try to dig into what they were trying to say

and there's been a few times that has completely changed my position

on a certain topic because just like anybody else,

there are things that I believe to be fact

that I find out, you know, from a comment or a viewer

that's like, wow, that's just not true

and a lot of people have a hard time accepting that

and a lot of people have a hard time commenting

in a manner that will lead you to actually research the topic.

They just want to show you that they're smarter than you

versus saying, hey, look at it like this.

You might change your mind, you know.

Yeah.

Well, let's dive into the social media thing.

So why start a YouTube channel?

What was the aim there?

Become a multi-millionaire from YouTube?

Well, I actually started in the short form stuff,

Instagram and Facebook

and this was back during COVID, being home a lot.

You know, you have some more free time.

You're like, well, what can I do with my free time?

One of my very close friends, Matt Myrick,

he runs the Busted Knuckle Films YouTube channel here in the US.

It's extreme off-road stuff

and they also build rock bouncing, buggies, race cars.

So I had produced some content with him

just kind of as a guest on the channel

and he kind of pushed me to get into social media.

He thought I had a knack for it.

So that's how I got into it.

Had a really close friend, had some free time.

Now I'm doing social media

and a couple years into that,

I realized that the short form stuff

just wasn't where I wanted to be

and I started focusing on YouTube a couple years ago

and just like most people,

I didn't know where I wanted to be

and I finally got to the point where

I just decided that my focus and my goal on YouTube

would just be to get people to think differently

and to present topics

that there are some misconceptions about

and try to present the information in a way

that people could learn from it

and just learn to think differently.

So basically just educating people,

much like we do just in a different area.

Yes, no, that's absolutely right.

I mean, that's maybe not the way it is today

but university used to be

about teaching people to think

or teaching people to learn for themselves.

Nowadays there's a lot of political indoctrination

that kind of goes along with that

but yeah, it's basically just being an educator

and trying to find a way to entertain people

well enough that they will stick around

and actually learn something.

Well, I think that's the knack

that I think you've really nailed there

because it's one thing to present information

that's actually correct

but if it's boring or isn't engaging

you're just not going to get people to the end of the video

but you do manage to add in

I would say enough comedic

sort of angle into your content

that it does keep you engaged the whole way through

so I think you're doing an amazing job there.

Appreciate it.

How do you sort of decide on a topic

that you're going to create a video for?

Honestly, that's one of the hardest parts

of doing this.

The time management aspect

I've got a full-time job

and basically a full-time YouTube career also

and just trying to decide

which topic to go with

is difficult but I have to try

to strike a balance between something

that I am currently interested in learning

and what the internet is willing to watch.

So some sort of weird little Venn diagram

with enough overlap in certain areas

and that's what you've got to try and find.

Right, I don't want the desires of YouTube

to completely dictate what my content is.

I want to be able to choose

how I spend my time and what I learn

but I have to balance that, right?

Yeah, there's no point producing content

that no one's going to watch

that's not helpful to anyone.

In terms of the videos that I've watched

and I've sort of spent a fair bit of time on your channel

but obviously haven't watched all of them

it looks like on face value

you're putting a lot of time into research

and the topics and getting the right data

to present so that it's factually correct.

I'm guessing like you don't have this

innate in-depth knowledge on every single topic

that you produce before you produce it

am I on the money there?

No, absolutely.

Again, when I started doing the YouTube full-time

I had to ask myself what was it

that I could do

even if YouTube was not part of the equation

and I'm just a big nerd

I just want to understand everything

like if there's something that I don't understand

I'm going to dig into it to try and figure it out

that's really how it works

it's the teacher effect

I want to learn something well enough

that I can teach it to somebody else effectively.

That's one thing I've found

through High Performance Academy

with all of the courses we produce

it started with AFI training

which is something that at the time I'd been doing

for probably 15 years

and at that point I'd say that I was

an expert in the field

and then when you actually start producing

a course about it

and a topic that I know well

when you actually have to teach it

suddenly you find all of those little deficiencies

in your knowledge

and then you start researching it

and you end up understanding it much better

than you did before

even when I thought I really had a handle

on all of these topics

there's something about the process

of being able to teach something

you really do have to know

that topic so in depth

so I've actually found that really

it's been refreshing this whole journey

learning so much more for myself.

Right and that kind of

goes back to what I was saying earlier

about the world's worst engine

as the internet search engine

when college the internet

was still pretty fresh

and a lot of the research actually came from books

and technical papers

and stuff like that

and in the process of trying to

understand one topic

you really would end up

getting a lot of peripheral

knowledge about other things

you weren't even expecting to learn about

and that happens now

when I produce these videos

I'm always learning something that I wasn't expecting

to learn from researching that topic.

Yeah absolutely.

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Alright let's get back to the episode.

What do you sort of see

the long term plan with YouTube?

At this point sort of 170,000 subscribers

and growing quite quickly,

are you expecting to turn YouTube

into a full time career?

Or is it always going to be

sort of just an after hours and weekends project?

No I would like to do it full time.

I do plan to do it long term

and I like my job, my career.

I've got a great job but

I feel like I've kind of plateaued in that career

as far as things that I want to learn

about nuclear power

and power generation

and I just want to go a different route

and focus on a different topic

or different topics

and I feel like doing YouTube full time

would allow me to

basically research for a living

and that would be fun for me.

I'm assuming doing that

you would be looking at expanding

and actually building out a team as well.

It's a limiting factor

when you're trying to do it

everything yourself.

I don't disagree with that.

I haven't thought that far into it.

Obviously the first thing to consider

would be maybe an editor.

I've already had plans

for merch distribution

and stuff like that.

It's not something I want to do myself.

I think my time has better spent

researching and producing content

but yeah I would say

team members

are probably in the future.

I have children 8 and 10

so there's some potential

cheap labor there.

I think that's still legal.

I bought her up until

about 3 months ago

she would pack and ship our merchandise.

Awesome, awesome.

Actually we were paying her

so I can't even call that slave labor.

Totally legal, it's all fine.

I think looking at parallels

with how High Performance Academy

developed when my business partner

and I sort of decided to

give this thing a crack full time

and I sold my old business

and we'd sort of come from

probably a little jaded after 13 years

of dealing with staff

and staff come with their

own baggage as well

so we were done with that

and it's just going to be the two of us

and my business partner was

reasonably competent at shooting and editing video

so on face value it was a perfect combination.

And then after

6 months we sort of quickly

also realised that there is

a glass ceiling on what just two people

could actually achieve

and once we were getting for more courses

and more information

it was pretty apparent at that stage

that if we didn't grow the team

or build a team

we were going to really be holding ourselves back

and I sort of look at that now

I think we're up to 20 total

so it's been quite a wild ride

but it massively expands

what we can do and how quickly

we can push it out so

it's all worked out really well.

Let's move away from

the diet of things and I want to sort of dive into

your actual automotive passion

so for a start

we've talked about diesel and gas

but I think you're probably

looking at your YouTube channel

gravitate towards diesel engines

I'm just interested if you could give us an explanation of why.

My grandfather and uncle

were both truckers

their entire lives

so I grew up around peer built trucks

you know

the clatter of 1980s

old caterpillar diesels is just

something I've known since a child

so

riding in the trucks with them

this was back before

lawyers and child safety

seats and stuff

I would ride hundreds of miles in those trucks

with them across the southeast

and it was just in my blood

and I worked on a farm growing up

so I spent

most days on a tractor

plowing a field or cutting hay

you know and rebuilding

tractors, skid steers

things like that so it's just always been in my blood

since I was a child

I guess at a really

basic level why

do we have diesel engines

in trucks and tractors

and not gas engines

Efficiency that's it

Explain more

So a diesel engine

is more efficient

than a gasoline engine

the brake specific fuel

consumption of a diesel

is lower than that of a gasoline

it takes less diesel

fuel to make

a brake horsepower than it does

for a gasoline engine

that's really the essence of it

and you know this is one of those

things that I get comments

on all the time and I just started making videos

on the topic horsepower versus

torque but you know everybody thinks

diesels are designed for torque

you know big trucks have

2000 foot pounds of torque because

that's what it takes to move the load

and that's not reality

you can move that load with an F1 engine

if you had the right gearing

but Rudolph diesel

made diesel engines for efficiency

the torque was just a fortunate

byproduct of that that's why

you run a diesel engine and a ship

train generator or big truck

now on a pickup truck it might not

be as cost effective these days

with all the emission standards but

you know up until the last two

decades diesel pickups have always been

more efficient at moving load

I can see how that would

make a lot of sense in trucks

and ships basically if you can reduce

your fuel consumption to get the same job done

that's going to add up to be

a massive saving

another factor that we see with diesel engines

versus gas is the rev range

it's pretty typical

for a diesel engine to

have a rev limit at maybe 4

4,500 RPM

gas 6,500, 7,000

maybe 8,000 RPM

can you dive into that a little bit

so the big factor there

is really just the combustion

process you've only got a certain

amount of time to get the fuel

to burn

in a gasoline engine and people like to talk

about flame speed and the speed

of combustion it's really hard

you're kind of comparing apples to apples

gasoline in a diesel engine with a gas engine

you know

fuel and air are generally entering

the combustion chamber together

already mixed

of course gasoline direct injection

kind of blurs that line but

generally when the intake valve opens

air and fuel come in together

already mixed ready to burn

versus a diesel

where the fuel is injected

pretty near top dead center

of the compression stroke and that fuel

has to vaporize mix and burn

all

right then right there

so you're just limited by the amount of time

the fuel can burn

or the fuel has to burn

and you can only use so much timing

to start that burn process

earlier

but to keep things efficient and to get

the full burn out of the mixture

you're just kind of limited to that rev range

that's not to say you can't build a diesel engine to rev

you know 7,000 RPM

or 8,000 RPM

it's just not practical or efficient to do that

and a lot of people will say well the engines

are just bigger and heavier

and that's why well you can

you can build connecting rods

to withstand those forces but you just can't

fight

the laws of physics and chemistry

the fuel will only burn so fast

yeah I was going to raise

the sort of general mass

of the components inside a diesel engine

they've got a cope with

significantly higher cylinder pressure

so generally everything is built

bigger, stronger and heavier as well

but that's not actually the main reason

as you've just explained

alright so let's get into

some of the aspects of

where we are at with

current diesel engine technology

it seems from the outside looking

in that regulators

are trying to make it as hard

as possible for diesel engine manufacturers

to keep making new diesel engines

I mean obviously they're not

it's not because they don't like diesel engines

but these emission standards get

more and more strict every year as it would seem

what's the situation

with the current crop of diesel engines in terms of

what they need to do in order to

be emissions compliant

well I think one thing to address

and this is

a misconception as I see it

is the emission standards

are the same

at least in the US for gasoline

diesel engines it's not

it's not that there's a separate set of standards

that are more strict

and to try and push

diesels out of the market now

they could be pushing diesels

out of the market

just because

the way that the emission standards are

the diesel just really can't meet that

but it's not a specific set of standards

to push diesels out of the market

just in terms of diesel

versus gas diesels

generally it would be fair to say

are a dirtier engine in terms of their

tailpipe emissions than a gas engine

hence it's harder for them to meet these standards

absolutely they produce

more knocks

because of the higher cylinder

temperatures and pressures

and the fact that they have excess oxygen

available in the cylinder

a very lean mixture

and they obviously produce more

particulate matter

and again that goes back to the mixture process

inside the combustion chamber

it's not

pre-mixed working fluid

it has to mix in the combustion chamber

and I don't know

I'm assuming that on your side of the world

EGR

SCR and DPF

are commonplace

on your engines

I think we pretty much

follow the rest of the world

internationally there will be different sets of emissions

laws but we have

all of that same emissions

control devices on diesel engines here

and about the only outlier

that I know of and I'm sure somebody

can correct us is

some of the Scania diesels

don't run

EGR

they run only SCR and DPF

to meet the knock standards

allegedly

that one

is well out in my wheelhouse

you've just used a bunch

of acronyms there

so can you actually explain

for those who don't know what we're talking about

what each of those devices stands for

right so in diesel engines

specifically

it's a little different in gasoline engines

the purpose of EGR but

in diesels

the purpose of EGR

in general is to introduce

inert

exhaust gas into the combustion chamber

and by inert I mean

it's pretty much devoid

or has a reduced level of oxygen

and what that does

is reduces the amount

of oxides of nitrous

or NOx that the engine emits

if there's less oxygen

in the cylinder

then there's less

ability for the nitrogen to combine

with it and create oxides of nitrous

or NOx

oxides of nitrogen I'm sorry

that exhaust gas

recirculation as well

the combustion temperature

is one of the main drivers

of NOx formation so by introducing

an inert gas that's not going to combust

we end up therefore

essentially reducing

the combustion temperature as well

right and also the

exhaust gas has a higher heat capacity

meaning

I did a video on this that basically it takes

more heat to raise

the temperature of that gas

as the other

clean air coming into the engine

so it's kind of a complex thing

it's really hard to understand

trying to explain it in 30 seconds

but yes it lowers the temperature

of the combustion chamber

and it reduces the amount of oxygen

in the combustion chamber

okay so this all sounds

great where's the downside

oh the downside

well you get a small

efficiency reduction

small I say

I like to say you

have a power reduction

and people like to argue that well

EGR doesn't

function at peak power

and I'm not going to argue that

I will say it changes your brake specific fuel

consumption you'll make less power

for the same amount of fuel

when the EGR is in operation

so the EGR operation

this is going to be occurring

in cruise conditions

generally yes it can happen in idle

also but low and medium loads

the other downsides

you're going to see is you can get a gummed up

intake track when the vaporized

oil that comes through your crankcase

ventilation system gets into your intake

it oils up

you know the intake ducting

and then when the soot hits it it just turns

into schmoo basically

that was pretty much

where I was going with as I see it

the main drawback

of EGR and I think it's the one

that the internet probably hates the most

is you look at

an EGR system on a truck

that's done I don't know 100,000 miles

and it's pretty ugly right

right right no it's a thing

no doubt I will

say that my Duramax has got over

200,000 miles on it and I've been

into the intake tract of that truck

and it's actually clean there's

no build up in there now I mean it's

you know it's got some glaze

some oil glaze in there

you're not going to eat off of it

but it's not caked up and

the other downside is

the soot finds its way into your oil

if you have a truck that's EGR

equipped versus not EGR

equipped the truck with the EGR

will soot up the oil quicker

than one without so on

that basis we

require more frequent maintenance in

terms of servicing oil changes etc

it could I would say

most people are probably changing their oil

too frequently anyway

so it really doesn't make a difference

alright so we'll come back

to the oil change frequency but

in terms of the other emissions devices

what's next on your list that we can talk about

so since we're talking about NOx

let's talk about SCR

which is selective catalyst reduction

and that works in conjunction

with DEF

or diesel exhaust fluid you guys might call it

add blue over there

basically all that's happening there

is that diesel exhaust fluid

is interacting

with the SCR

the catalyst with inside the SCR

to basically

combine with the NOx

or break down the NOx and the exhaust

it also reduces the NOx

levels coming out of the

the tailpipe

so this is just adding

more complexity and more expense

to the modern crop of diesel engines

we need these devices

and then with diesel exhaust fluid

as well it's consumable

so we need to refill that tank

obviously not as often as we're

filling up with diesel but

it's frustrating because it always comes up

with a warning on the dash at an opportune

time that you're running out or you've run out

and you ignored it

and again as the world's worst automotive

influencer I have no

emissions equipped diesel trucks

so it's hard for me to

give any

personal anecdotal

experience but I know

it's a problem

it's obviously a problem for people

but yes, the DEF

causes issues not just in the purchase

but in the reliability of the system

another problem with that

and I mean this is third hand information

that might actually be completely wrong

but it's one of those things I got told

and you just believe it

my wife had a 2020

Land Rover Defender which was

I think it's either a 2.2 litre

4 cylinder turbo diesel engine

and we bought that

I think it was 18 months old

and it had 40,000km on the clock

you can convert that

miles I can't do that one in my head

and

after we'd owned that car for about a month

my wife rang me, I was actually in the US

at the time and said that

a warning had come up on the dash

that the water level was low

it was always a little worrying

and I said well there's not much I can do

from Las Vegas so take it home

and ring the dealer

and she rang me about 5 minutes later

and said that at the top of the driveway

another warning had come up saying engine hot

this can't be good

long story short went to the dealer

and the dealer fixed it in 5 minutes

and said oh it was because they hadn't

put the clip back on the lower radiator hose

when they changed the engine

I was like whoa whoa whoa

it changed the engine, what are you talking about?

and he said yeah it's

had a new engine

fitted to it under warranty

I'm like okay I'm gonna obviously need a little bit more

information on this so apparently

and this is where maybe this

might not be technically correct

but when they first came out

the DEF

calibration

was excessive so it was

injecting too much diesel exhaust fluid

and if they didn't

basically get to them before the car

had done something like 10,000 km

it would actually end up damaging

the engine. Now I can't quite

in my head connect

diesel exhaust fluid injection with

a destroyed engine so again

maybe this isn't quite accurate but

if it is, there you go, not great

but unfortunately that was on Land Rover Jaguar

and not on our dime anyway.

Yeah now I would have to

research that as far as

I know

the diesel exhaust fluid would be

injected downstream of the engine so

Correct, yeah

it was one of those things that at the time

you know oh yeah fine

I'll just accept that and then later on

as I've started to sort of think well

hold on that doesn't quite make sense

so I would say a more likely scenario

a more likely scenario would be

that the calibration

associated with

regenerating the DPF

would have been a little too much

and the fuel

would be diluting the oil and that

would ruin the engine. I could

understand that completely. That one I could get

behind. Yeah, so

therein lies the danger of just blatantly

believing something

that you've been told

and we've just unpacked that inside of this

podcast so I guess I look like an idiot.

No, no, no that's fine absolutely

and that brings up DPF

the last thing that I didn't talk about

would be the diesel particulate

filter. Pretty straightforward right

very fine filter in the exhaust

system catches the soot

on its way out and

it is regenerated through

exhaust heat. If you're pushing the truck

hard enough regeneration doesn't happen

very often. If you're not pushing the

truck hard enough

regeneration will happen more often and

regeneration is basically

when the ECU forces extra

fuel to be dumped either

into the cylinders directly

or into the exhaust system

where it can react

and create heat

and burn all that

collected soot

those carbon particles

generally burn it off

into carbon dioxide.

That in and of itself

sounds like an emissions disaster

and I'm going to go out on a limb here

and assume that they're probably

not testing emissions during

a regen cycle because it's got to be

pretty ugly right?

Yeah, that's a good point

I don't know what

you would find for NOx

and you know hydrocarbon levels

during the regeneration

stage but one

thing that I hear often it's kind of

a big misconception is

and I've said this myself

before I understand the system and this goes

back to the teacher effect right

in researching it

what does it matter if you collect soot

and then you burn it off later

why not just

it's because you're collecting

solid particles of carbon

that allegedly

get in your lungs and cause lung cancer

and when you

regenerate the DPF

those solid carbon particles

get combusted

and turn into carbon dioxide

and water vapor so you're spinning out

a gaseous

carbon dioxide versus

solid carbon particle

OK, that makes sense

the problem with

the DPFs as well

is these regen cycles

particularly if the vehicle you mentioned earlier

that if the truck's been driven

hard it's not generally a problem

to create enough heat so that's fine

and likewise if you're doing a lot of

long distance driving these regen cycles

will probably come and go and you might not

even necessarily know that they're occurring

where it does become a little

problematic is when you're doing a lot of short haul

driving and

again this is my own experience

here we had a 2018

Silverado with a 6.6 litre

Duramax engine in it, great truck

but for our use it was

a lot of short haul driving

and you'd be a kilometre from home

and it'd come up on

the dash that it's doing a regen

and it says keep driving

well how?

OK now I gotta go

for a half an hour drive and dinner's

on the table waiting for me so this is

a little inconvenient and of course

being an average human being

you ignore that warning

and that ultimately

doesn't end well so there's a lot of

problems with these emissions devices

if they aren't maintained properly

that end up becoming quite

expensive to the owner of the truck

so I think that and

I would say maybe

a perceived effect on power

and torque might be

why they're so hated on the internet

what's your take on that?

Oh absolutely

and they do

affect power and torque

to some degree but it's not

it's not what people

believe

people think the DPF just completely clogs

up the exhaust and you can't make any power

with a DPF on there

and I've talked about this

in videos but that

extra bit of back pressure from the DPF

it's not making

a substantial effect

and let's be clear

diesel pickups in the US

roll off the showroom

floor some of them making

500 horsepower

and 1200 foot pounds of torque

OK you know

how much is it clogging it up first off

and how much more are you

actually looking for here

because you know we're at a point now

that the US are having to do torque management

you know towing

like the trucks will literally

roast the rear tires towing a trailer

you know so

yeah I'm not knocking anybody

that wants more power

I want more power but yeah

the back pressure from the DPF

it's really not making a big difference

and the EGR

it's making a small difference

and the DEF's making no difference really

so

at the EGR you've

kind of summed it up nicely

it's making a difference

when it's functional but when you're at wide open throttle

and asking for maximum power and torque

it's doing absolutely nothing

other than yeah sure

maybe after 100,000 to 100,000 miles

that gumming effect might have

some effect on airflow and efficiency

through the intake manifold

but the EGR itself is doing nothing under those conditions

right and as platform specific

I had a Volkswagen TDI

that the

intake choked down

to about 20% of its factory

size

it varies based on the platform

yeah of course

the other thing I find with the

DPFs in particular of course

their job is to collect that

exhaust soot

so if it's doing its job properly

if you're actually looking at the visual emissions

out of the tailpipe you shouldn't be seeing

a trail of black smoke when

you put it into the throttle

what's happening pre DPF

on the other hand no one knows

because the DPF's doing its job

and we don't get to visualise what's coming out

the exhaust gas

inside of the exhaust pipe

where I'm going with this is I think it becomes

a little problematic when you start driving into

tuning and adjusting the calibration

because with the diesel engine

more fuel is more power

but you get to a point where

you're going to be starting to haze up that exhaust

or it's done at roll coal

and under those conditions if you get a little too greedy

essentially you're just filling up

that DPF much much faster

so you're getting into a situation of

regions happening all of the time

in one of our diesel tuning courses

we actually did that demonstration

and we placed a

opacity meter

sorry I was just struggling with the term there

opacity meter pre DPF

we just put an O2 sensor boss

pre DPF and tucked it in there

and that was actually quite enlightening

even with the stock calibration

on our Silverado, the smoke level

pre DPF was actually significantly

higher than what I've expected

so hence you go a little bit, get a little too greedy

and it doesn't end very well.

Now if we move into some

of the aspects of diesel tuning

and I've sort of just touched on there

more fuel is more power

but let's get

a more thorough explanation

of the levers that we have

available to pull when it comes to

adjusting a factory calibration

and trying to make more power.

Well you'd be the guy to talk to about that

but yeah I mean you know

we're talking common rail diesels now

I'm assuming. Yeah of course.

That's really all that's out there now.

Now I have other things on my driveway

but what most people have

we're common rail. Injection pressure

injection timing

injection duration

I guess those are your big levers

as far as power goes and obviously

you need the air to

match to keep things in check

but you know like I said

I like the gas you know fuels the big

lever of the diesel.

I think a lot of people

that transition from gas engine tuning

to diesel tuning

find out very quickly

that they're completely out of their depth

because almost everything

in a diesel engine when it comes to calibration

is the polar opposite

of the 180 degree opposite of how we

treat gas engine tuning.

So you know if you take a factory

gas engine calibration

generally it's gonna be

pretty rich, safely rich

and it's going to be very conservative

in the ignition timing

and if it's turbocharged

there's probably a conservative boost level

so the way we'd approach it

a tune there would be to sort of

chip away at some of that safety.

Maybe a 2 or 3 psi more boost

in the air fuel ratio slightly and reduce some

of that safety margin and maybe we can

creep a little bit more timing in because

we know we're running on a really good quality fuel

and the factory calibration is made

to be safe for any fuel

octane no matter where in the world it goes

so you've got kind of like the lowest common

denominator of factory calibration

and in most engines it'd be surprising

if you couldn't extract another

20 or 30 horsepower, sometimes

it's 80 to 100

but that's the approach

that we take.

Diesel on the other hand is kind of

again around the other way because we are

always tuning leaner stoic

and usually significantly leaner

might be 20 to 1 or something of that nature

so by adding

more fuel and richening

that air fuel ratio we straight away

end up making more power

but unlike a gas engine where

a rich tune is safe

because we're coming it up from leaner than stoic

the more fuel we add

the more heat we produce and that can quickly

become real melty inside the engine

and then the other aspect

with the diesel engine that is

counterintuitive from a gas

perspective is boost is your friend

because boost is producing more airflow

adding more oxygen to the cylinder

which leans out the air fuel ratio

so that makes it safe so

very very different, now I've kind of

just answered the question that I

asked you so I apologize for that

when it comes to monitoring

the safety of your tune

and a diesel engine

EGT is kind of the

go-to, no one really runs

an air fuel ratio wideband sensor

in the exhaust so

talk to us about the relevance

of EGT and why that's the go-to metric

well it's the easiest one

to monitor

the easiest way to monitor what's going on

in your engine with a diesel

but I think

and I've made a video on this

and I think what trips people up is

as they look at the EGT

and they

fail to correlate that with

the actual combustion temperature

when you see an EGT of

we'll just call it 1400

degrees Fahrenheit

there's freedom units over here in the US

of course, I get it

I've never understood Fahrenheit but I get it

you know people

will say well you got to keep it below

1400 because

it'll melt the aluminum pistons

or

it'll melt the turbine wheel or whatever

more so the piston

the turbines are generally

incanal or something like that

pretty stout you got to get it well above 1400

to cause a problem but

the temperature inside the cylinder could be

3000 or 4000 degrees for short periods of time

so

when you're monitoring that EGT

you know it's the surrogate for

combustion temperature that's what really matters

is the combustion temperature

the EGT is just the surrogate for that

yeah so we're trying to correlate

what 1400 degrees

is at the EGT

sensor to what's actually going on and what the

piston's being exposed to

and the AFR just really isn't

going to it's good data

to have but I just don't know how much

value you would get from

spending the money and having that data available

to you in the cab

unless you were dinotuning or something

I don't think it's a tuning

tool more than it is

a safety tool because

the correlation between exhaust gas temperature

and hence combustion temperature

and then air fuel ratio that's not a

direct link so yeah I get

that aspect but definitely something that

I would like to see when I'm actually

tuning I've got a diesel engine on the dyno

yeah I would like that as well

right so where do the wheels

kind of fall off with this

EGT versus

combustion temperature correlation

where do the wheels fall off

as in what temperature

or what's the disconnect

yeah what's the disconnect here

can we directly correlate

combustion temperature to EGT

or are there a few other

aspects that kind of

go hand in hand to affect this

yeah no I mean they're not directly

correlated because

you know changes in timing

could have a huge effect on the

engine but basically how much heat

is the piston

extracting from the working fluid

you know if you're firing early

and because you've got a lot of timing

you know you're going to get a good burn

the piston's

going to lower in the cylinder

the pressure and temperature is going to fall

the valve's going to open it's going to blow out

the turbine's going to extract some

energy from it and you're going to get

a certain temperature reading if you got

late timing you might have some after

burn or basically

you're still getting some combustion

when the exhaust valve opens and you're going to see

a high EGT

that might not actually correlate

to extremely high

cylinder temperature so yeah that's

the big thing in my mind would be

be the timing

so we can't really consider

EGT in isolation

it has to be considered alongside

what's happening with the timing

and I mean really this is exactly

the same in a gas engine

if you have very retarded ignition timing

then

for the same air fuel ratio

the same airflow into the engine

same fueling you're going to end up

seeing a higher exhaust gas temperature

because the combustion process is happening later in the cycle

maybe sort of into the exhaust

depending on exactly how retarded

that timing is so very very similar there

Yeah and I don't have any experience

with it but I believe there's some

racers that need to

spool up large turbochargers

and diesels you know they'll play with

the timing to get more drive pressure

on the turbine when they're staging

or whatever so it's a tuning tool

Yeah, yeah

Okay so on that basis

can we put a line in the sand

and say this is the exhaust gas

temperature above which

things are going to get melty

I would say if you're running a factory

calibration

and again it's engine specific

right? You know on my 7.3

power stroke engine

you know most people say

1200, 1250s of

a safe continuous

duty EGT

I've got

a 5.9 liter

common rail Cummins

even with the factory calibration

you know it'll show a 1400

Fahrenheit EGT under normal operation

you know going up a hill

so that's obviously a safe

range if the OEM is giving you

that but I would say that's

you'd like to think so

well you know

otherwise they're going to have a lot of warranty claims

but so yeah

1250, 1400 degrees

depending on the engine

that's probably pretty safe now I'm a conservative guy

if I see

my 7.3

pyrometer climbing up

past 1100 degrees

for a while I'm probably going to

shift down a gear

or back off of it a little bit

I'm a scaredy cat

fixing these things tends to get

expensive and then you have to get your hands dirty

and then you can't make YouTube videos

so yeah keeping in one piece is a smart idea

right I can't be running my mouth

if I'm turning a wrench so I can't be breaking stuff

the other

part that

I think is easy to overlook with this as well

is not

just the specific temperature

it's temperature and time

I like to sort of combine the two

because what you can get away with

in terms of exhaust gas temperature

and therefore of course combustion temperature

for a few seconds

versus a long pole

upper steep incline towing

20,000 pound trailer

or whatever it might be

those are two very different things right

absolutely

thermal management is a big deal

in the diesel world

the towing world

and a lot of people

as a child I couldn't understand

if you hold this engine on the rev limiter

for a minute

why does it blow up

and the reality of it is things just get hot

the oil gets hot

the oil is what's cooling your pistons

so the hotter the oil is

the less cooling it's providing

pistons are swelling

next thing you know they try to

occupy one spot within the cylinder

and rod comes out the side of the block

so yeah thermal management is a big deal

you can get away with a lot for a very short

period of time when it comes to EGT

but yeah long period of time

a real simple analogy

with this is

get a cigarette lighter and get a flame

you can pass your hand

across that flame quickly

and you won't even feel it

hold it on top of that flame

and you're going to feel it pretty quickly

it's almost like I did that in a video

I did that in my EGT video

oh maybe that's where I got it from

yeah okay that's

somewhat embarrassing but the truth

remains that's the situation that's what's going on

no no I did that exact thing

in a video that's a great analogy

and I know because I use it

yeah okay another thing

with the EGTs that's really important

and again super easy to overlook

is they don't tell

the same story it depends on where

in the exhaust you put them

and particularly with an existing diesel engine

the easy place to put it is post turbocharger

but of course we're going to see

a temperature drop across the turbine

so you're going to end up seeing a lower temperature

than if you were to monitor

pre turbocharger but of course pre turbocharger

is a bit more tricky to install the sensor

so can you talk to us about

how the effect of your location

in the exhaust system

is where we should be fitting the sensor

oh absolutely

pre turbo is always

optimal like you said

it's simple thermodynamics

a turbocharger creates

boost by pulling energy

out of the exhaust stream

and when it pulls the energy out of the exhaust stream

it lowers pressure and temperature

so you're going to get variability

the correlation will not always be the same

because the turbo is

going to be operating in a different

range of boost and it's going to be pulling

different amounts of heat

out of the exhaust

so it'll be variable behind the turbo

where in front of the turbo

there shouldn't be a whole lot of variability

in the exhaust gas temperature

as it relates to the cylinder temperature

the other thing I've found as well

and this is more from a gas engine

perspective but I mean

I can only imagine there's no reason

why this wouldn't be the same with diesel

is the type of sensor

will affect the reading

and I'm talking here about

exposed tip thermocouples versus

enclosed tip

my experience with my drag cars was

the exposed tip would read higher

and it was by a reasonable amount

maybe as much as

50 to 100 degrees C

so I'm going to use metric units

just to confuse everyone now

and of course the problem was

the exposed tip sensors just don't last

it's a pretty nasty environment

to be operating in

then the other thing we were using

individual cylinder EGT sensors

for individual cylinder fuel trimming

and the distance

from the exhaust valve

and also the distance that the sensor

is inserted into the exhaust runner

all of these things matter

and particularly for using them

for that purpose it was critical

that every sensor was installed

exactly the same depth

and distance from the valve

otherwise you end up chasing your tail

on differences that may or may not

actually be realistic

so on face value a really simple thing

but when you actually start diving into it

there's some layers of complexity

that come into this that aren't

always going to be apparent

Yeah and in the diesel platforms

you're generally limited to

one or two spots

on a modern truck as to where

you can put it

Again a little

less relevant because you're not

trying to do individual cylinder EGTs

but yeah just something

that's worth understanding there as well

Now when it comes to

diesel tuning

I think probably

it might be changing a little bit

in terms of prevalence

of people getting

sued by the EPA but

Roblin Coal was always

a big part of diesel tuning

big plumes of black smoke pouring out

of the stacks

Can you give us an understanding of why

people are doing this? Is it for the look

or is there actually power to be had

or is it dangerous?

So I would say both right

it depends on the individual

initially in the late 90s

early 2000s when

I would say that's when the modern diesel pickup

era started

when people realized they could make more power

with a

driver and a hammer on a Cummins engine

they were going to do it

and

part of it is for the power

for some people it's just

the image right? Some people

see that as their rebel image

that they don't conform

and that's what they want to do

because they can so that's

one sect

I would say one group of people

and the other would be

people that are actually pulling

out of the racing

in those realms

power just kind of goes along

with smoke when it comes to

diesels now in the racing world

and I'm not saying that's good

or bad I'm just saying that that's the

reality of the combustion process

if you want to make a lot of power

or the most power

if you want to make the maximum power

with a diesel engine it's going to smoke

unless you're spraying a lot of nitrous

it's going to smoke

a lot of folks have gone to

spraying a lot of nitrous to eliminate

partially for performance

and partially for image

let's cut down on the smoke

if we can try to keep

the sport off the radar

and the tractor pulling world

I think even in

the world of motorsports

being seen to be environmentally

sort of correct

these days is pretty important

so pouring piles of

black smoke out is not a great look

in that respect

in the tractor pulling world

at least here in the US

most classes

are limited to a turbocharger

size so you can only cram

so much air into the engine

no nitrous allowed

in that respect you're going to end up smoking

right and a lot of those guys

are actually

injecting additional fuel

to get the mixture richer

because at that point

you're actually doing some heat management there

so it's keeping the EGT

lower at that power level

at the downside being you're making a ton of smoke

yeah okay so a couple of things

I want to dig into there

just for a little bit of clarity around it

the nitrous that you mentioned

the benefit there in terms of

cleaning up the exhaust is that

we're just chemically adding more oxygen

so leaning out for

the same amount of fuel being injected

out the air fuel ratio correct?

also it calls

the combustion charge as well

yes and the thing

there being and I think a lot of people

miss this or they just don't

conceptualize it as

this thought that well you can always just add more

add more air you just need

more air if you're making smoke

just add more air well

smoke and heat drive the turbocharger

so if you lower the smoke

level and the heat level

less drive energy for the turbo

it's circle logic you can't

just keep adding more and more turbo

to reduce the smoke you're just

limited by the amount of air

that a turbo can push into

the engine and that's limited by the amount

of exhaust drive energy that's coming

out of the engine so to get

to those really lean

AFRs in a diesel to get rid of the

smoke at those power levels the only way to get there

is to to inject the nitrous right

it's an artificial oxygen source

so yeah.

Alright so the second part of that was

running now richer than stoic so

I just wanted to clear up this because

it might have come across as confusing

I originally said that diesel engines

almost always run leaner

than stoic and as we add more fuel

and we move towards stoic we're creating

more heat so the

part that I just wanted to clarify there

is we're going to see maximum combustion

temperature and hence exhaust gas temperature

pretty much at the stoic air fuel

and then as we go over the hump and we start

going richer than stoic which is where we run

a gas engine we start cooling that

exhaust gas temperature and combustion

charge temperature again.

Right and people argue that in the comments

generally because

it's just a big misconception

but point being once you get to

stoic there's no more

combustion that can be

had no matter how much fuel you put

in there there's only

enough oxygen to support a specific

amount of combustion.

If you go beyond that basically

you're just injecting

a fluid into the cylinder that absorbs

heat just like water meth injection.

Yep, glad we got that

sorted and out of the way.

Alright let's move on.

I just wanted considering you're

deep into this world and I believe

you've got all three.

I wanted to sort of dive into

the sort of debate on power stroke

versus Cummins versus Geromax

but I don't know maybe there's

no winners in this no matter which way

we go we're probably going to end up

pissing off someone if not everyone

but there's also clearly generations

to these engines as well.

It's a family of engines

and one from

2025 is going to look pretty different

to one from the early 2000s

but can you give us your take on

the pros and cons of those three

engines families?

Oh wow, yeah I think you've already

been asking this question

but yes I do own all three

I have one power stroke

one Duramax and

actually three Cummins trucks

so you would probably think well

Cummins is the one. He's a Cummins guy

because he's got three.

Nah I've actually watched one of your videos

and it sounded like the Cummins is

probably the most problematic and

expensive to extract serious power out of.

No that's

I think a lot of people miss

to construe my video

or maybe let me rephrase that

if enough people misunderstand it

that means that I made the video

but I did do a video about Cummins

being

the 12 valve being overrated

and that only applies

in certain scenarios right

if you want to make a ton of power

it's a great engine

if you want to make 500 horsepower

you should probably buy a common rail engine

and just tune it right

there's plenty ahead there

but yeah you're right it's generational

I'm not a brand specific guy

I drive a Duramax daily

my granddad bumped that truck brand new

and I purchased it when he passed away

so that's why I drive

that truck it's got a sentimental value

that being said it is a

it's a great truck 2006 model

that was a great great

year for those trucks

power stroke world you know seven threes

were great you know there's slugs

compared to what we have today

but great reliable trucks

six liters and six fours not so much

the newer six sevens are

pretty good engines

I don't think the Duramax really had

any bad years

as far as the engine goes

and the Cummins

has really never had a bad

generation I would say the newer ones

with the roller

lifters on the cams

versus the flat tapets

but overall I'd say the Cummins

is the best engine platform

but I'd say

from a truck standpoint it's probably

the worst the Dodge Ram

truck you know it's probably

not my top choice

like I said I've got

three Cummins trucks

and as far as which one

requires which ones require the most

repair and effort

to keep them reliable

and comfortable on the road it's definitely

one of the best trucks

but they're also the cheapest

ones to go really really fast in

so it's really

what are you looking to do?

Yeah I guess you have to choose the right tool

for a particular job

now I just wouldn't mind

diving into that in a little bit more detail

so if you want to go really really fast

and I mean everyone's got a different definition

of what that is what's the sort of

recipe look like for

extracting serious horsepower

on a specific platform or?

No you mentioned Cummins so let's stick to that

Yeah the Cummins is the easy one

and first let's start with why the Cummins

the architecture is good

the bottom end is strong

it's going to be stronger than the others

and you have six of each component

instead of eight right

six injectors, six pistons

everything's pretty much cheaper

to build on a Cummins engine

so bang for buck you're going to want to go with the Cummins

for serious power they're all going to need

the transmissions built

so that's kind of a wash to me

but historically the Cummins

have just been the go to because

in factory form the transmissions are junk

but they can be built

to be very very strong

and the engines are already very strong

so yeah the recipe

build the transmission

throw some big injectors and some big turbos on it

and you're ready to go really.

That easy so no need for any internals

just essentially bolt-ons

also transmission.

It's generational for a 12 valve

if you want to make 5, 6, 7

100 horsepower

there's really not much you need to do

some head studs will help keep

the head gasket in place

anything past that you're going to be

taking the engine apart

or firing in the head

maybe some rod bolts but not necessary

but when you get into your common rail engines

now you have to worry about valve

seats dropping and stuff like that

you can't have that same power level right

5, 600 horsepower

now you might be looking at an aftermarket head

with better valve seats and stuff like that

but the gaskets are good on those

you can make a lot of power

5, 600 horsepower without a lot of fuss.

Alright

let's come back to

something we touched on earlier which was

oil change frequency

and again this is an

area I think there's not

a lot of misconceptions, a lot of misunderstanding

and maybe some misguided people out there

give us your take on it

you made the video, you've done the testing

right so first off I don't want

to be the best on the internet at changing oil

I don't want that trophy

and I did that video and I will continue

to do those videos not because I want

to prove my oil change dominance

but it's mostly for

showing people just a different

way of looking at things

if you really want to know your oil change stuff

the motor oil geek's got a great channel

Lake Speed Junior

that's what he does for a living, that's his

wheelhouse, his oil

everything so I don't want

to try to compete with him, I don't have the pedigree

for that but I will say

in general and again this is very

condition-specific

operating condition-specific

but people want to argue that

will I change my oil every 3,000 miles

well I used to do that too in 1994

things were different

back then and then it was

5,000 miles and there's

a generation of people, the genixers

that are now, which I'm a part of

every 5,000 miles or else

your engine dies a premature death

and nowadays

the OEMs are recommending

10,000 miles

something like that, most vehicles

have a calculator that will

tell you when it's time to change

your oil, a lot of people

don't believe in those

so what I will say about an oil change

interval is

do what the car or truck

or the owner's manual tells you to do

and you're generally going to be okay

I'm not a believer in

the planned obsolescence

conspiracy theory that

the OEM wants your engine to fail

right outside of warranty so you have to buy a new vehicle

I don't buy into that

I don't agree with that at all

but if you do buy into that

I don't believe that the car

or truck's computer

can steer you in the right direction

just do one

used oil analysis

run the interval 10,000 miles or whatever

take your oil sample

and send that sample off to a lab

and let the lab tell you

what the condition of the oil is

do that one time and you can sleep

well for the rest of your life

and never have to watch another oil change video

so my

belief on this

and this is another good example

of where

we come up with our beliefs

maybe through what my dad

told me or just

listening to other enthusiasts

is that

oil is the cheapest insurance

we've got for our engine

so therefore changing it

more frequently can only be

a good thing

and that's also come along with a second

belief that manufacturers

are trying to push

the range for oil changes

because servicing costs

are a part of vehicle ownership

so hence if you buy two vehicles

ones from Toyota

ones from Ford and they're both $50,000

but one requires

oil changes twice as frequently

your actual ongoing ownership expenses

are higher on that basis

so therefore it's in the OE's

best interest to try and push

service intervals out further

but the reality is maybe

I'm being misguided the whole time

no, there's some validity

to that they're obviously

trying to keep the total cost of ownership

lower to stay competitive

in the market because the media

and the magazines they're going to

they're going to latch onto those numbers

and put that in their review so

there is some truth to that

but I think

the belief that

the OEM's don't

have your best interest as far

as vehicle longevity

you know

I don't know how far I would take

that you know I don't want to

turn that into a big conspiracy theory

but I would say in general

yes changing your oil more often

could be more

beneficial for your engine

that's a big could be

but does that

potential benefit outweigh the cost

to your wallet, your time and the environment

because you're wasting

a resource for no reason

you're wasting money for no reason

which is why I say instead of

speculating or just

doing what redpappy told you

you know $35 one time

to have the oil analyzed

and the oil app can say look man

you could have taken this oil another 10,000 miles

and then you just

know you've got the data

and you can make your decision

based on scientific data

as opposed to gut feeling

or what granddad told you

that makes a lot of sense

but I think so many people

don't think like that and I think that's

really the whole basis of your youtube channel

is the way you think is different

to everyone else or most other people

yeah

I've become a lot

more open minded as I've

aged and again that goes back

to what we're talking about earlier

you know the more you know

the more you realize you don't know

so you're more open to taking

data points and advice from other people

yeah

while we've been talking I just realized

that the conversation we had earlier

about diesel emissions devices

there's one area of that

that I forgot to ask you about

so I just want to jump back into that

and that's around

what some proposed changes

and this is very US centric

administration with the EPA

potentially rolling back

on the requirement for

I think it's just meeting greenhouse

gas emissions and what that effect

is going to have

there's a lot of people thinking that

now no emissions devices are going to be

required on any engine so can you

give us the actual data on that

what's really happening here?

Yeah I did a really in depth video on that

a few months ago because

I was seeing a lot of

bad information out there

there are influencers out there

that will hype up these topics

to get the clicks

and like mainstream media might

say what people want to hear

versus the reality of it but

I work in the regulatory world

that's my day job

not in automotive

but in nuclear power world

so I have a little bit of insight

into how these things work

I'm not an expert, not a lawyer

but yes

rolling back to greenhouse

gas emission standards

would not affect EGR

SCR

DEF or DPF

those systems

are for

reducing NOx

and particulate matter

they are not associated with

reducing carbon dioxide

or greenhouse gases

and NOx in particulate matter

have nothing to do with greenhouse

they are not a greenhouse gas

particulate matter is not a gas at all

so that clears that one up

Right so it would basically affect

nothing that really matters to diesel

enthusiasts

now it could have some effect on

your large class 8 trucks

and stuff like that

but not much

but the emission systems that people love to hate

it does not affect those at all

that would take different

DC to basically

gut the emission standards

but you know it's

it's just for show it's not real life

and I know there are people out there

that think that would be a good thing

because the emission standards

really have a negative impact

on the efficiency and the reliability

of modern diesel vehicles

and I understand that

I guess that stance

really comes from

where your belief is

around climate change

and the effect of these emissions also

on people's health and I'm not getting

on a political soap box here

whether you believe in it or you don't

that's for the individual but

I think that's probably where that sort of all stems from

Well absolutely

and I don't take a political stance

in my videos

people will surmise

my political affiliation

or try to based on the fact that

I talk like a redneck, I drive diesel trucks

and this, that and the other

but my political affiliation

is use your brain and think for yourself

but unfortunately here in the U.S.

you know the

climate change

the environment has become very politicized

in the last

15, 20 years

I can remember the late 90s

and early 2000s and I think most everybody

agreed that doing the best thing

for the environment was

worthwhile for everyone

but the media and the politicians

have turned it into a tool

you know for votes

if you're a conservative you think

you have to believe this science

and if you're a liberal you have to believe this science

and they're both science

but they say completely different things

and everybody thinks their science is the right science

and it sucks but that's where we're at

so having a conversation

a common sense conversation

about the environment

it's just a hard thing to do over here in the U.S.

yeah it absolutely is

maybe a hard thing to do almost anywhere

in the world but I do agree I think it's probably

a little bit

it's stepped up a notch in the U.S.

I mean on the emissions device

side of things as well

one thing that I've never been able to get my head around

is why

container ships or cruise ships

seem to just be

they don't have any emissions requirements

at all as far as I am aware

and they still

are getting outside of the environment

I'm guessing just in terms of the size of the engines

the raw amount of diesel

fuel that is being burned

these are probably some of the highest

emitters as well yeah so a couple

things there especially when you talk

about your large ships

they're not necessarily burning

a diesel fuel they're burning

what we call bunker fuel

and that kind of goes back to the

flexibility of the diesel engine

design it'll run on

a lot of different kinds of fuel

doesn't have to be diesel

the engine came first the fuel came later so

originally they were designed to run

on coal tar and peanut oil

it's interesting actually

Rudolph diesel designed the engine

to not run off petroleum that was one

of his big things was

designing an engine that would run off of

a fuel source that a farmer

could produce themselves

but that being said yes the fuel burned

in large container ships

is not the same

as diesel it's a little heavier

it's not as refined

it will produce more emissions

and I'm not going to argue

whether they should be able to

emit more emissions than me

but I will say the rationale

for it is that

ships aren't generally

operating in the proximity

of human beings they're out

in the middle of the ocean

so you know their particulate

matters just falling into the water

and sinking to the bottom of the ocean

I guess versus

you know getting into

people's lungs on city streets

and stuff so I think that's

the big driver there

I can buy into that that makes perfect sense

and when you talk about

aircraft you know people will say

well aircraft this I don't want

emissions systems on the aircraft that I'm on

I want complete reliability

I'm willing

I'm willing to ingest some

deep some jet exhaust

fumes to ensure my safety

yeah I don't

want to have to pull over on the side of the sky

to have the

jet engine equivalent of EGR

be cleaned out that's

probably I'm not down for that

of course those could be chemtrails right

that's another conspiracy theory that I

enjoy

let's not dive deeper down that rabbit hole

alright I think that's probably

a perfect time before

we do get

into some questionable areas

to start wrapping this thing up

and we've got the same

three questions of course we ask all of our

guests the first of those and I think

we've probably touched on some of it

as we've gone but what's next in the future

for you? Yeah I just want to continue

growing the channel

and you know building relationships

with people smarter than me

so I can

you know learn more

as a young person I would try to

figure out everything on my own and as

I've aged I've found that it's

much you learn much

quicker if you seek

information from sources or

people that are actual

experts in the field and most people that know

their craft very well are

happy to share it

with you and teach you

so that's the thing just building some relationships

hopefully make some better content

some more I don't want to say

extravagant but maybe

156: Breaking Down Diesel: Myths, Tuning & Truth

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