My first (Blue Bird) coaches came with a perkins I-4 diesel powered 12.5kva genset. It ran at 1800rpm, the noisiest thing was the (240vac powered) cooling fan.

A squirrel-cage furnace-type fan is better, best if you can use a 2-speed that is on low constantly with high controlled by a temp-sensor.

All commercial gensets have a shutoff for low oil pressure and high coolant temp. This can be done easily with a couple of relays and a Tee for extra sensors. The oil-pressure would kill the engine so you need to hold the start button down until it builds oil pressure in this simple iteration, and replace the vacuum shut-off with a 12v solenoid which will turn the engine off when not energized.

The engine should be fairly efficent at 1800rpm, but be careful to not "lug" the engine. This engine is currently designed for automotive operation, the cooling system and lubrication system aren't set up for extended full-output at low (1800) RPMs.

As far as efficiency, much of this engine is designed to be efficient at higher RPMs, and will therefore need re-tuning to create more efficiency at low RPMs. This can include many things such as: combustion chamber design, valve timing, pre-chamber design, injection timing and injection rate, injector pop-pressure. If you want to use it for more than occasional use and are interested in improving efficiency there are probably some generator and refrigeration unit gurus who can help. At very least I would consider the oil pressure at those RPMs and water flow, might be wise to replace the oil pump with a higher-volume pump and put a smaller pulley on the water pump (or larger on the crank).

Thanks for sharing your project so far, it helps some of us live vicariously though you.

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff