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  #61  
Old 09-12-2017, 07:52 PM
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And because I felt like it, I ran fuel economy data after the tuning I did this past Friday. When I fill the tank for fuel economy data, I fill it all the way up into the filler neck so there's no question the tank is full.

This time around I did 76.0 miles (actually clicked over as I parked at the gas station!) on 2.862 gallons of diesel. That comes out to 26.55mpg, 100% stop/go "city" traffic with A/C running. Unlike the previous time, I drove like a normal person without romping on the skinny pedal.

I think my tuning is complete! Plenty of power without any smoke, and now very good fuel economy. My Honda does ~22mpg for the same driving for comparison. And it's A/C isn't as cold!

Just goes to show that yes, the 3.5L injection pump CAN be used in a 3.0L engine, but needs to be tuned for best results.

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  #62  
Old 09-16-2017, 09:55 PM
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To rule out a fluke fuel economy reading, I've run it again. 79.4 miles on 3.122 gallons of fuel. Gives 25.43mpg so it wasn't a fluke. I haven't been as nice to the throttle pedal this time around, so I'm fine with a deviation of ~1mpg. I'm just happy to see the fuel economy improved to where it should be without any smoke!
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  #63  
Old 09-18-2017, 10:22 AM
Diesel Preferred
 
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You've got me beat in my 124 wagon. I'm getting around 22 mpg with city traffic, AC on.
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'87 124.193 (300TD) "White Whale", ~392k miles, 3.5l IP fitted
'95 124.131 (E300) "Sapphire", 380k miles
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  #64  
Old 09-18-2017, 11:06 AM
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It's all down to the tuning and how much you abuse the throttle pedal. If you're nice to it, you'll get good economy, if you're mean to it, expect less economy. That said, before tuning, I was doing 16-18mpg in town when being careful with the A/C on. It was pretty obvious something wasn't right, the diluted oil was another big clue...

Since the tuning, not only has the economy improved, but the oil consumption is down far enough that I can't measure it, the oil dilution is gone, overheating on hills on the interstate is gone, black smoke is gone, and the power doesn't seem to be any different other than being much smoother in delivery due to a working ALDA.

If your wagon is still fitted with the 3.5L pump, it's worth trying to fiddle with the fueling settings. I didn't lose any power, but gained some very measurable economy and a much more refined car to drive.
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  #65  
Old 09-22-2017, 09:53 PM
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With all the fuel economy watching I've been doing since tuning the injection pump, I learned that my odometer wasn't reliable once it got above 100 miles on the trip, or when running at highway speeds. It turns out the stepper motor (W126 odometers are electronic) was sloppy in its housing and allowing the gears to not always mesh. A simple O-ring seems to have fixed the problem.

I've done a bit of driving these last couple days so finally got up to 141.8 miles and decided to do a fuel economy check to check my progress. Typically by 125 miles I'm down to 2/3 of a tank (or even less), today I was just shy of 3/4 according to the gauge.

The 141.8 miles I've logged took 5.887 gallons of diesel for a fuel economy of 24.09mpg for mixed driving. Pretty well right where I expected it to be. Looks like the O-ring trick worked for the odometer! Since I seem to be staying right around the same fuel economy consistently, I'm satisfied that my tweaks to the IP are good enough. Good power and good economy, that's the goal and that's what I seem to have now.
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  #66  
Old 11-03-2017, 11:35 PM
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Did 413 miles on 17.5 gallons of fuel this latest fillup, gives me 23.6mpg. I'm satisfied that both the odometer and the IP tuning are working like they should at this point. Should be interesting to see how the economy numbers come out when the A/C finally gets switched off for the winter months.
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  #67  
Old 11-03-2017, 11:37 PM
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Also, hard to believe it took this long to bleed the fuel tank down that far. My last fillup was over a month ago! Funny how long fuel lasts when you're driving to a destination instead of driving to waste fuel/measure economy and tuning
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  #68  
Old 11-15-2017, 09:19 AM
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I did my first long highway drive in this car since tuning the IP and it's surprisingly good on fuel on the highway! 75mph with the A/C running and it did 327 miles on 11.123 gallons of fuel. That's 29.4mpg! I'm a happy camper. Truly amazing that old barge will turn fuel numbers like that.
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  #69  
Old 11-16-2017, 05:44 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Diseasel300 View Post
And because I felt like it, I ran fuel economy data after the tuning I did this past Friday. When I fill the tank for fuel economy data, I fill it all the way up into the filler neck so there's no question the tank is full.

This time around I did 76.0 miles (actually clicked over as I parked at the gas station!) on 2.862 gallons of diesel. That comes out to 26.55mpg, 100% stop/go "city" traffic with A/C running. Unlike the previous time, I drove like a normal person without romping on the skinny pedal.

I think my tuning is complete! Plenty of power without any smoke, and now very good fuel economy. My Honda does ~22mpg for the same driving for comparison. And it's A/C isn't as cold!

Just goes to show that yes, the 3.5L injection pump CAN be used in a 3.0L engine, but needs to be tuned for best results.
Yes a properly adjusted 3.5l IP can work very well on a 603, I finally did everything right, the first time I must have had an air bubble in the filler neck and had an error.
This time I filled to the line on the neck of my '87 300D fitted with 3.5L pump (set up and calibrated at the Bosch shop) took a trip and 328 miles later I filled back up to the same level with 11.6 gals.
With a calibrated speedometer at 70MPH its less than 2% error
Thats a mileage figure of 28.27 MPG.
This was mostly (95%) freeway miles with as constant a speed around 65-70MPH as I could achieve without my cruise control working and a few brief spurts to 80. No AC.
I think thats better than I ever got before I replaced the stock IP and had the injectors pop tested. My friend said if I filled the tires with a few more Pounds of air and stuck at 60MPH I might make 30MPG but thats something I am never going to do
DDH
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  #70  
Old 11-16-2017, 07:02 PM
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DDH you're right there with my previous fillup of 327 miles in 11.123 gallons, roughly 95% interstate miles as well. Surprising economy in a LWB 126, but I'm completely happy with it. Good power, no smoke, starts easily, and good economy. I'd say it's pretty well set! No Bosch shop here, but I got REALLY lucky dialing it in on the 2nd try.
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  #71  
Old 10-02-2018, 11:20 PM
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Wow great thread for sure!
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  #72  
Old 10-14-2018, 10:54 PM
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i need more fuelzzz too. what adjustments internally did you guys do to max your pump?

so far ive completely removed the alda to get full rack travel. my next step is to throw more fuel pressure at the ip with an electric fuel pump and regulator. prob start at 15psi and see what happens going up from there.

what sort of internal adjustments did you guys do to get more fuel.

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  #73  
Old 10-29-2018, 02:13 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by g-wizz View Post
i need more fuelzzz too. what adjustments internally did you guys do to max your pump?

so far ive completely removed the alda to get full rack travel. my next step is to throw more fuel pressure at the ip with an electric fuel pump and regulator. prob start at 15psi and see what happens going up from there.

what sort of internal adjustments did you guys do to get more fuel.
Read through the thread. I'm trying to REDUCE fuel. Just do the opposite to what I'm doing to INCREASE fuel. Be aware that unless your foot is welded to the floor you should have no smoke, slight haze is ok. Smoke means you have too much fuel for the amount of air in the cylinder. The result is high EGT's, fuel dilution of engine oil, coking of the turbocharger, and poor fuel consumption.
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  #74  
Old 10-29-2018, 02:26 PM
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And here I am revisiting this thread after a bit over a year. A few weeks ago I took the car to a gathering and got complaints from the MULTIPLE cars behind of the toxic cloud coming from the car on hills. I knew the turbo was in poor shape but didn't know how poor until looking in the rear view mirror and noticing that people in the cars behind were getting a mining lung disease from the funk coming out the tailpipe!

Flash forward and I installed a rebuilt turbo last week which seems to have cured the oil smoke entirely and dramatically improved the performance of the car in general. That old turbo was in really sad shape!

The issue now is that I'm still smoking. Different this time though, it's pure black, no blue, grey, or white like it was was the old turbo dumping oil in the exhaust like the Exxon Valdez. Can't see the smoke in the mirror when driving, but you can see the haze when idling, or when pulling out in traffic at night with headlights on.

I had a buddy drive my car the other day and I followed it to see how bad it was smoking and when it was doing it. Any time the IP was delivering fuel, there's black smoke. Idle, gentle acceleration, hard acceleration, cruising on the highway. Smoking stops COMPLETELY if the engine is freewheeling such as when coasting.

All this tells me that the fuel quantity is still too high. My intent is to adjust the idle quantity down a bit and make another tweak to the max fuel adjustment to drop the quantity a touch more.

The car is still doing low 20s in 100% city driving and upper-mid 20s in 100% interstate driving. I suspect with this final tweak the fuel economy may rise a touch. I'm more concerned about coking up my engine from excess fuel than the economy. The rebuilt turbo is delivering a solid 14PSI of boost and builds significantly sooner than the old one.

We'll see how it turns out. If I have a chance this afternoon I'll tweak the IP and see where it gets me.
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  #75  
Old 11-08-2018, 06:57 PM
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Finally Dialed it in...

So I'm back after 10 days...

Tuning that IP was not easy. I suspect it has been fiddled with before since I found signs that someone's been in there before me. Pulling the EDS solenoid revealed a shim plate that was upside down and had the locating pin mashed. I've never had that solenoid off, so it wasn't me who did it. When I got the IP, the idle speed was set ~1100RPM on the mechanical governor, so things are starting to make more sense!

My attempt at simply reducing the "Max-Load" setting (2f) was completely ineffective. If I reduced fuel, I started to lose the ability to idle. If I adjusted the idle fuel screw (2b) to compensate, I wound up with smoking at idle again. Round and round and round I'd go, always winding back up at the same point. Smoke at idle and heavy smoke under acceleration or load.

Then I got the bright idea to check timing. According to the crank pointer, I was right at 15˚ ATDC which is what the engine calls for. I decided to advance the timing a bit to see if it eliminated the "grey smoke" issue I was having at idle. It most decidedly did not. Smoke went from a grey haze to a thick black coal-smoke. If I adjusted the fuelling to even try to reduce the smoke, the engine would barely idle and wouldn't restart without some throttle.

Since that made things worse, I went back the other way and eventually wound up with the IP in the fully "retarded" stop of its adjustment range. Without touching the fuel stops, this not only ended the hard start issue, but also greatly reduced the smoke at idle.

With more fiddling with 2f and 2b, I managed to dial it in just about perfect. 0 smoke at idle, 0 smoke when running unless under WOT conditions and even then it's a mild haze, not the rolling coal it was doing before.

The best part is that I was able to do the final tuning and tweaking with the ALDA, which never seemed to have any effect at all previously.

The final thing worth mentioning is that the overflow valve I had installed definitely had an impact on the idle fuelling adjustment. In the past I had issues with hard starting when cold and nailing. I'd always assumed it was due to air in the fuel lines and installed one of Greazzer's performance modded OFV's from the 617's. It helped to an extent and was left in place. With all my tuning, I decided to try an original style "drilled orifice" OFV instead of the spring-regulated one from the 617 and it had a marked effect on the idle smoke.

Once tuned, there is ZERO smoke at idle, something I never thought my car would do. I knew it consumed oil from the turbo, which has now been rebuilt. I figured some of that idle haze was due to oil consumption. Apparently not. It is obvious that the oil in the sump has a fair bit of fuel dilution going on though. With the gross overfuelling happening with the way it was, I'm not surprised. It also explains why the oil consumption would increase rapidly the more miles the change accumulated.

The only thing left concerning me is why the timing was off, despite being "properly timed". I can only imagine that the pointer itself is incorrect. I'm now at 16˚ATDC according to the pointer. If it were off by 1˚ then that would explain a few things, although I'd still have expected the car to run better than it did with the timing being off by only 1˚.

Who knows, it's tuned properly now. Engine is quieter, smoother, and no more smoke and the reek it brings along! I swear that every repair turns into some sort of saga with that car...

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