G'day Folks,

Here's one for the true diesel head.

I saw one of those childish Discovery channel "Top Trumps" - world's biggest member - top five - bestest biggest ever ever ever programs and they had a Australian road train truck that was running urea injection.

I thought they were taking the piss - but apparently not =>

Diesel exhaust fluid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So who's gonna be first to do this to a 300D?

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

What elements are required to use it? Is it feasible to retrofit or are you being funny?

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

No, retrofitting will be near impossible without computer control. Retrofitting on a some what steady state engine like a locomotive or long haul truck is a lot easier than on an engine with constant load and rpm changes. DEF is for NOx emissions control, but does nothing direct for particle emissions.

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1968 220D, w115, /8, OM615, Automatic transmission.
My 1987 300TD wagon was sold and my 2003 W210 E320 wagon was totaled (sheds tear).

Moi funny?

Well to be honest it was an opportunity to be a bit rude and to perhaps learn about something I hadn't come across before...

...see learning all the time...

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

Our 2014 GLK and for that matter almost all recent diesel cars and trucks from a number of manufacturers have Adblue injection. But there have been problems:

- On the 2014 model GLK, quite a number of owners saw Check Engine lights come on not long after they got their new cars. Then a message came up saying the were out of Adblue. First thought was that dealer had not filled it. But no it was full. This had not been a problem on the 2013 models. Turned out to be a computer glitch of some sort which it seems they have corrected.

- The GLK was it seems not designed to house the Adblue system. They needed a place for the quite large Adblue tank. They chose the area where the gas (petrol) GLK stores it's collapsible Vredestein Spacesaver spare. As a result, the diesel GLKs come with no spare. In USA, they provide Runflat tires, but in Canada we just get regular allweather tires plus a compressor and a can of gunk!

Our car has only done 480km and was delivered after the Adblue problem was corrected. I bought a used Vredestein spare off a wrecked gas GLK and carry it in a bag mostly behind one of the front seats if we don't have passengers back there.

I don't think you want to add an Adblue system, even if you could! But judging from the strict emissions laws these days, you never know what we might have to do!

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Graham
85 300D,72 350SL, 98 E320, Outback 2.5

In other news air quality in the LA basin has improved dramatically despite the fact that there are more diesel trucks on the road than ever. CARB banned all trucks manufactured prior to the year 2000 and later trucks were allowed to remain only if they had particulate and NOx filters retroffited.


California also mandates 53+ cetane fuel because it burns cleaner than the 48 cetane fuel found in the rest of the country.

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CENSORED due to not family friendly words

Our 2012 Passat has Urea / AdBlue injection. It works great. The 5 gallon tank will go almost 20,000 miles between fills (I refill it at ever 10,000 mile oil change).

-Jason

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1991 350SDL. 230,000 miles (new motor @ 150,000). Blown head gasket

Tesla Model 3. 205,000 miles. Been to 48 states!
Past: A fleet of VW TDIs.... including a V10,a Dieselgate Passat, and 2 ECOdiesels.
2014 Cadillac ELR
2013 Fiat 500E.

...and learning and learning...

...thanks guys.

I don't really "want" it but it is good to have a rough idea what "they" are up to these days

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

Someone on here or STD was talking about retrofitting it. I think it's a good idea, especially if you can control it-say only use it when appropriate.

Shoot, retrofitting a DPF or cat with a bypass switch (activated until the exhaust is hot) would be fine with me.

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$60 OM617 Blank Exhaust Flanges
$110 OM606 Blank Exhaust Flanges
No merc at the moment

i'll have to admit that the first time i heard about it i thought it was a diesel version of blinker fluid or muffler bearings.

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1982 300sd from craigslist $800 greased on one tank with NO CONVERSION in the Hot Texas Sun. (currently dead & awaiting engine damage investigation and/or longblock swap)
new daily: '03 vw 5speed jetta tdi wagon. bagged&chipped

OK. I don't know much but I AM a bonefide expert on this topic. Just to establish my "cred" I was on the team at EPA that did the proof-of-concept testing on Diesel aftertreatment systems for over-the-road engines and spent the last 7 or 8 years of my work career on just this work.

First of all, don't retrofit a urea system on any Diesel without it. The urea is one of a couple of ways to regenerate the NoX trap - this has nothing to do with PM (particulate matter) control. Separate though related systems.

NoX adsorbers (not a typo - technically they are "adsorbers" not "absorbers") hold the NoX on the surface of the substrate and will eventually plug if not periodically regenerated. The regeneration is triggered by driving the adsorber to higher temps (I don't recall the temp ranges off the top of my head). To do this the flow thru the adsorber is slowed (that's why the aftertreatment systems have a couple of flow paths). The side with low flow then needs an additional chemical to insight the NoX to "burn" and thereby clear off the surface of the substrate.

Urea is one such fluid but it can also be accomplished with Diesel fuel. A small additional injector is placed upstream of the adsorber and a squirt of fuel is added. I'm named on the patent for the fuel method (WAY down on the bottom but I'm in there!) along with the rest of the guys on the team.

M-B opted to use the urea system in (I think) all of their Diesel-fueled vehicles. The last I heard, VW was using the fuel method on their lower HP engines and the fluid on the higher HP engines. There is a small (2-3%) fuel economy hit with the fuel method but I think the cost vs. the fluid has to be about a wash (no data for that assumption).

So you can see, adding a urea system on a car without a NoX adsorber (no, a PM trap is NOT a NoX adsorber) will do nothing at all. Except put pee out your tailpipe!

To be accurate, the urea used is highly refined and really has little to do with everyday urine, so don't pee in your DPF tank!

How's THAT for more than you wanted to know?

Dan

Everything you say is correct, except the fuel economy penalty for the adsorber, at least on the early Ram that met NOX standards three years ahead of schedule, carried a significant FE penalty. Newer trucks that use the SCR process are delivering mileage that rivals my '03 Dodge that has no emission controls at all. It appears that the real-world improvement is in the neighborhood of 10-15%. The in-cylinder emissions are also much cleaner, resulting in greatly extended oil change intervals, which can be a factor when an oil change at the dealer consumes a $100 bill.

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'83 300D, 126K miles.

We heard these stories but in repeatable lab testing this simply is not true.

Fuel economy testing is one of those things that everyone thinks they can do but it reality it is extremely difficult to remove all but the variable that you're testing for and get repeatable, back to back tests. Taking the weather, driving cycle variances, altitude, etc. out of the mix is virtually impossible outside of a lab (indoor) environment. I have story after story on this with both Diesel and Otto-cycle vehicles.

Trust me, the REAL FE difference (assuming that Dodge and Cummins tuned the system properly) is 2-3%. The majority of these tests were run on several Cummins ISBs - exactly what Dodge fitted in Dodge trucks like mine though with a slightly higher HP rating. Was there an individual truck that had the system improperly tuned - perhaps. But there is no reason for the FE hit to exceed 2-3%.

Dan

"The EPA took my pee pee away..."

Phil Forrest

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1972 220D "Trudy," named by a friend.

"The 220D sounds good... I suspect it is the only car that you need a calendar for, rather than a stopwatch, when doing acceleration tests."
Tom Abrahamsson

The Adblue system in the Passat doesn't seem to hurt the fuel economy at all.. those who do a DPF and Urea delete don't report big improvements in fuel economy. The DeNOx cat on the Golf and Jetta does cost a few MPG though. That's how the larger Passat gets better fuel economy than the smaller, lighter Jetta

-J

__________________
1991 350SDL. 230,000 miles (new motor @ 150,000). Blown head gasket

Tesla Model 3. 205,000 miles. Been to 48 states!
Past: A fleet of VW TDIs.... including a V10,a Dieselgate Passat, and 2 ECOdiesels.
2014 Cadillac ELR
2013 Fiat 500E.