I'm pretty new to all of this, but is there a guage, electronic doo dad, or some other type of device to monitor cylinder pressures while you are driving to help protect from blowing head gaskets? If not, it would be a great invention for someone smarter than me to come up with....perhaps someone from Innovative?
Cylinder Pressure
1 - 8 of 8 Posts
Joined
·
4,350 Posts
No... Some one from Elite Diesel already has... Most of his tunes are CP tested... www.elite-diesel.com
I think Tadd's system is realistically only for bench testing, not something you could run regularly on the street. But the principle is good. CP and EGT's are the key safety variables for the engine. We use boost, but it is not that good of an indicator of CP.
Joined
·
2,072 Posts
Measuring cylinder pressure is a really involved process. It would be more than difficult to develop a system that would be portable, reliable, and effective enough to actually trust. It would require pressure transucers, Data Aquisition boards(change signal references to a 0-5v signal), and software to effectively analyze it. National Instruments LabView is very popular in the automotive industry. Vehicle manufactures extensively use tools like this when developing new engine designs to test different airflow characteristics, sustained timing, fueling mixture, etc.
Cylinder pressures were tested on the 6.0L early in 04 with changes made to tuning to figure out how far you could push a stock truck. Timing, fueling, and boost all change cylinder pressure.
Cylinder pressure isn't specific to diesel's, it's data used in the automotive industry for all IC engines. Changes to cylinder head design, injector design, turbo(s), etc. are all important to cylinder pressure.
Cylinder pressures were tested on the 6.0L early in 04 with changes made to tuning to figure out how far you could push a stock truck. Timing, fueling, and boost all change cylinder pressure.
Cylinder pressure isn't specific to diesel's, it's data used in the automotive industry for all IC engines. Changes to cylinder head design, injector design, turbo(s), etc. are all important to cylinder pressure.
I hear what you are saying, although the the electronic end is probably the easy part. That is, P transducers, a board to collect and analyze them and then display them is no harder than the monitor-based performance systems (e.g., Edge Monitor), but where I am uncertain is in accessing the CP's. I guess you'd have to tap each cylinder, which in porinciple should work, but over time, I would be worried about it fouling the transducer (or path to it) and eventually, springing a leak. Then if one cylinder weeps, it may not be pulling its load and thus create an imbalance, etc. For bench testing, no big deal, but for a permanent install, big deal.
Ralph
Ralph
[ QUOTE ]
And once the tests have been done to write the programs, there is no need to watch them other then if there is a problem...
[/ QUOTE ]
That is my point. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to monitor for a problem and recognize that there is a problem, instead of finding out that you have a problem the next time you open the hood and see white spray all over the inside of the engine compartment. I don't know, but could changes in things such as air temp and elevation cause different cylinder pressures due to the amount of oxygen that is in the air?
And once the tests have been done to write the programs, there is no need to watch them other then if there is a problem...
[/ QUOTE ]
That is my point. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to monitor for a problem and recognize that there is a problem, instead of finding out that you have a problem the next time you open the hood and see white spray all over the inside of the engine compartment. I don't know, but could changes in things such as air temp and elevation cause different cylinder pressures due to the amount of oxygen that is in the air?
Joined
·
4,350 Posts
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And once the tests have been done to write the programs, there is no need to watch them other then if there is a problem...
[/ QUOTE ]
That is my point. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to monitor for a problem and recognize that there is a problem, instead of finding out that you have a problem the next time you open the hood and see white spray all over the inside of the engine compartment. I don't know, but could changes in things such as air temp and elevation cause different cylinder pressures due to the amount of oxygen that is in the air?
[/ QUOTE ]
Not enough to justify the cost... Once you learn what does what there is no real reason to watch them all the time.
[ QUOTE ]
And once the tests have been done to write the programs, there is no need to watch them other then if there is a problem...
[/ QUOTE ]
That is my point. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to monitor for a problem and recognize that there is a problem, instead of finding out that you have a problem the next time you open the hood and see white spray all over the inside of the engine compartment. I don't know, but could changes in things such as air temp and elevation cause different cylinder pressures due to the amount of oxygen that is in the air?
[/ QUOTE ]
Not enough to justify the cost... Once you learn what does what there is no real reason to watch them all the time.
1 - 8 of 8 Posts
