Thinking of swapping the ranger for a half ton

[Eddo Rogue]

I found an FB listing that claims to be a F350 with 351W. Pics are a 350, but no motor pic.

what sort of mileage is considered high for a diesel. The 7.3 is supposed to be a half million mile engine, but there’sa lot of variables. I’ve found several from 150k to 300k with new motors.

Yes, it is. I'd even say a million miles. Another thing is you can make it a coal rolling 1000lb torque beast if you wanted to

 

[don4331]

351W is a tall deck, stroked 302. In its glory days of the late 60s, it was a very decent performance engine. But it was neutered by the time it was put out to pasture. Swap the heads for something older or the state of the art 302, and it came alive. (Same for the 302 on my wife's '82 'Stang. A pair of '69 351W heads, 4bbl intake and carb and it was actually a performance car. Well right up until the 4ROD transmission gave out...)

At least in '82, 351W was offer in the base F250 (along with 300 and 302). If you wanted the F250HD or 350, you got choices of 300I-6 (250HD), 351M or 400

My old man bought an F150, but I still remember trying to convince him that the base F250 better met his needs/driving style but he was concerned his boss would want him to haul with it - I was prepared to swap badges, and put hubs over the 8 bolt rims to muddy the water and allow him to claim it was just a 1/2 ton.​

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Note: The 400 has stroke of 4.00", the 300 I-6 only 3.98" (there is probably some law that >300 is taxed different - with 3.98" stroke, it is 300.0 in^3, with 4.00" it is over 301 in^3)​

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Note 2: The FE 352, the 351W, 351C and 351M all have 4" bore/3.5" stroke. Obviously, that was the correct size.​

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Those trucks with engines replaced are probably the ones with wick turn up to roll coal. Rolling coal overwhelms the stock EGR and things go downhill after that.

 

[racsan]

usually turning up the performance shortens the service life of a engine.

 

[Chapap]

Those trucks with engines replaced are probably the ones with wick turn up to roll coal. Rolling coal overwhelms the stock EGR and things go downhill after that.

I’ve read that running rich/over fueling is how to roll coal. Is it possible for a diesel to run rich/lean? I thought that metering fuel is basically the butterfly valve... Running “rich” just would just be pressing the gas a little bit.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I’ve read that running rich/over fueling is how to roll coal. Is it possible for a diesel to run rich/lean? I thought that metering fuel is basically the butterfly valve... Running “rich” just would just be pressing the gas a little bit.

My understanding is that it has something to do with turning up the fuel pressure. It’s really dumb though, greatly increases exhaust temps, fouls things up, and wastes fuel

 

[Snoranger]

My understanding is that it has something to do with turning up the fuel pressure. It’s really dumb though, greatly increases exhaust temps, fouls things up, and wastes fuel

In a diesel, black smoke is partially burnt fuel. (White/gray smoke is unburnt fuel.) Black smoke is caused by too much fuel/ not enough air and can cause cyl and exhaust temps to rise enough to melt pistons. On a diesel, rich = hot.
When seat of the pants tuning an old mechanical diesel, you’re looking for a very light haze of smoke under full throttle/ heavy load conditions. That’s pretty much the best balance between power and mileage you can get without any special equipment.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Diesel is metered opposite of gas from driver input, on a gas engine you are controlling the amount of air entering the engine and the carburetor or fuel injection tries to match the amount of air with an amount of fuel to try to hold a fairly consistent air fuel mixture. On a diesel the air is wide open and you meter the amount of fuel and are varying the air fuel mixture... I'm pretty sure the smoke thing (I have a diesel truck and tractor but am mostly a gas guy, haven't played or looked into tuning a diesel much yet) I'm pretty sure is more on the electronic diesels where they give a normal amount of fuel at a normal injection timing then add more later in the cycle just to waste fuel and look "cool". Sure you can push things to the max and have black smoke when you are making real power which usually happens when the injector pump is maxed out on pressure and duration and you can't get any more air in, but that's not what got a bunch of people in trouble for being dumb and "rolling coal" on the road...

 

[Chapap]

Should have had a new truck today. Went to look at a “pristine” truck with 120k miles, zero rust for $10k. Well it had 190k, brake pedal went to floor before it kicked it, overflow empty, blowby coming out dip stick, and it doesn’t roll (like it has perpetual parking brake). And it was overly rusty. And it was 3 qts low. Very disappointing.

Oh how I’ve missed the private car market.

 

[don4331]

There are 2 ways to "roll coal" on a diesel:

1. You inject extra fuel (diesel) into the cylinder after main combustion - injection even be so late as exhaust stroke, you just need exhaust hot enough for partial combustion. Which gets you the cloud of black smoke. The airplanes at air show are injecting oil into exhaust to get the smoke trails which is probably the extreme example.​

2. You inject more diesel into the engine than there is air to burn - this makes more power, more power equals more heat. You can, of course, over do it, and inject so much diesel that things start cooling down again.​

What got people in trouble for - the OEMs put EGR and DPF (diesel particulate filters) in the vehicles to pass emissions (Just like they put catalytic converters in vehicles with gas engines). But you can't roll coal with those devices in your truck. So, aftermarket supplied "off road only" products to eliminate the EGR and DPF. Eliminating emissions devices/causing excessive emissions attracted the wrong attention.

I agree with @lil_Blue_Ford, its dumb to be blowing unburned fuel out the exhaust - you see the price of diesel?! My historic tricks were propane injection which allowed for combustion to start faster and water injection to cool things a bit - the wrath of Dad being far worse for a 16 year old than EPA - rolling coal. being a tip off that you were "experimenting".

 

[Chapap]

There are 2 ways to "roll coal" on a diesel:

1. You inject extra fuel (diesel) into the cylinder after main combustion - injection even be so late as exhaust stroke, you just need exhaust hot enough for partial combustion. Which gets you the cloud of black smoke. The airplanes at air show are injecting oil into exhaust to get the smoke trails which is probably the extreme example.​

2. You inject more diesel into the engine than there is air to burn - this makes more power, more power equals more heat. You can, of course, over do it, and inject so much diesel that things start cooling down again.​

What got people in trouble for - the OEMs put EGR and DPF (diesel particulate filters) in the vehicles to pass emissions (Just like they put catalytic converters in vehicles with gas engines). But you can't roll coal with those devices in your truck. So, aftermarket supplied "off road only" products to eliminate the EGR and DPF. Eliminating emissions devices/causing excessive emissions attracted the wrong attention.

I agree with @lil_Blue_Ford, its dumb to be blowing unburned fuel out the exhaust - you see the price of diesel?! My historic tricks were propane injection which allowed for combustion to start faster and water injection to cool things a bit - the wrath of Dad being far worse for a 16 year old than EPA - rolling coal. being a tip off that you were "experimenting".

Wonder if anyones ever tried to have a “coal injector” similar to a stunt plane. An injector in the exhaust somewhere that is solely for making smoke.

 

[Eddo Rogue]

Seems I opened a can of worms. I think there's two ways to roll coal, the fake intentional way, and the real accidental way. A true coal roller does so because its putting out 1000 ft lbs of torque, the coal burn is an afterthought.

 

[don4331]

Seems I opened a can of worms. I think there's two ways to roll coal, the fake intentional way, and the real accidental way. A true coal roller does so because its putting out 1000 ft lbs of torque, the coal burn is an afterthought.

The coal burn is a function of over-fueling. If they added enough additional air, they would have their 1k ft lbs of torque and clean exhaust. Anything more than a light haze and you're just wasting fuel.

I didn't do "rolling coal" that's after my time. But we did do, speakers in wheel well, dry ice and fan - to make it look/sound like we were doing a burnout. Cops actually had a sense of humour about it.

 

[Ranger850]

We did actually burnouts and dough nuts. The cops did not have a sense of humor about it. Never rolled coal lol. But I've seen it with what I call " Bully Dog Injected" dually trucks.

 

[Eddo Rogue]

I borrowed my buddy's coal roller for earth day. It's a dodge 3500 single cab flat bed with a boosted 12 valve and a manual 5 speed. She billows smoke when the turbos spooled up. It was fun. I fed a Prius a nice soot sandwich.

 

[superj]

sometimes when bike riding, high school kids with trucks their parents bought would drive up and try and smoke us out. luckily none of it has gone like the kid that ran those cyclists over by houston though.