dont worry i'm a professional. ha

A former Barth owner pressure washed his present Monaco radiator and ended up with scrap.

I certainly agree with both Bill(s) about a power washer! I used a garden hose with a small blaster on the end and ruin my original radiator. I was wasn't careful enough and hit the rad at an angle with the water stream and it bent a couple of fins over, upon straightening them, one of the tubes broke with a very small pin hole. I now open the engine room and spray from a spray bottle simple green and then water with the engine running at high idle.

On a pusher, rear mounted radiator, I would never remove the engine mounted fan!!! I have two 3000 CFM pullers on the back side of the radiator and they come on about 195. I still see 200 occasionally on long uphill pulls with outside at 95+. I also do a lot of driving at altitudes above 3000 ft and there is a noticeable difference and lack of cooling at high altitudes.

Don't know what engine you have apoccia, but the intake system filter is not going to cause much trouble. If you are looking for higher HP, there are systems out there that will improve the breathing some what,it is a system with many parts upgraded for the upgrade, the air cleaner change by itself will not do much if anything, and with a diesel there is always a risk of engine damage due to small particle ingestion.

quote:

Originally posted by apoccia:
I think the stock airbox/filter is too restrictive also.

Does the coach have a Filter Minder? It will pay for itself by avoiding unnecessary filter element changes or intake modifications.

Or, you can use some vinyl tubing and make a manometer to judge the need for intake mods.

quote:

Originally posted by apoccia:
I think the stock airbox/filter is too restrictive also.

Does the coach have a Filter Minder? A FM will pay for itself by avoiding unnecessary filter element replacements or intake modifications.

Or, you can use some vinyl tubing and make a manometer to judge the need for intake mods. K&N would be out of business if people measured before buying.

On a side note, I have a suspicion that measuring exhaust pressure would save a lot of power-seekers money, but I don't have numbers or enough good testing to back it up. So many buy mufflers on sound, anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by MWrench:
....... simple green, etc, etc .........

I have used Gunk SC since the '50s, but have been finding it scarce lately, so now use Castrol Super Clean.

Has anyone compared Simple Green to Super Clean?

quote:

Originally posted by bill h:


Does the coach have a Filter Minder? A FM will pay for itself by avoiding unnecessary filter element replacements or intake modifications.

Or, you can use some vinyl tubing and make a manometer to judge the need for intake mods. K&N would be out of business if people measured before buying.

On a side note, I have a suspicion that measuring exhaust pressure would save a lot of power-seekers money, but I don't have numbers or enough good testing to back it up. So many buy mufflers on sound, anyway.

You point is spot on Bill! If you can get 20 lb boost at full throttle, (or whatever the engine management is set to) you will not get more power from a diesel. You have to change the fuel management via the fuel pump and the boost pressure via the regulator and that is it!

Yes changing the air system and exhaust system by opening them up will change the response a bit (slightly faster spool-up) but not enough to warrant the $$$ to change.

I have a minder on my intake system and it doesn't move until I have well over 20 K miles on the filter. If the minder doesn't pull up, that means the air system is NOT restricting the air flow or air demands of the engine.

I recently put on a 4" exhaust system with 4" Magnaflow muffler and noticed no difference at all in either performance or mileage!

The intake mods aren't that expensive...also my filter minder has a range that maxes out at 630mm of water column and I can get it up to 500+mm immediately after putting in a new filter. this reading is about 3/16 of an inch from the red line at 630mm. I've searched for better flowing filters, but they dont exist for this housing. My turbo builds 23lbs of boost. EGT can get to 1200 pretty quick (up hill high gear at lower speeds for that gear [411 ratio in rear]), but its hard to get up above 1200 , i lift if it goes over 1100 degrees and it typically runs 900 on the highway at 65mph.

here is a picture of my filter and minder, probably the same minder as yours. The filter is a Wix # 46737, on the filter the number is 546737.

Never have seen the minder move above 180 as mentioned before and I check it with a calibrated vacuum source at each filter change. As you can see, it is still at the bottom of the range and this is after 15K miles of fairly dusty conditions.





Do you have any pictures of your air cleaner for comparison? Would like to see the turbo from Banks also for comparison to mine.

quote:

Originally posted by MWrench:
here is a picture of my minder,

Mine is rather like that. I see you use the good silicone rubber hose, too.

quote:

Never have seen the minder move above 180

How is yours marked? Mine are in inches of water. My rather expensive dyno time showed me that power in a carbed gasser starts to drop between 20 and 25 inches of water.

quote:

I check it with a calibrated vacuum source at each filter change.

What do you use? I have never found a reasonably priced low range suction gauge. I just use a clear vinyl manometer and suck.

BTW, our stationary engines at work all had FMs, and we learned that they were heat-sensitive. They need to be in a cool location to stay accurate with a free piston. Probably no issue for DP owners, but would be for gassers. Mine is remotely located for that reason.

I see that K&N is marketing rebranded FMs now. That would seem to be counterproductive, as a FM will usually confirm that a decent paper element is not restrictive. As an example, I use an element in my gasser that is about half the height of the OEM, with a matching lower top to allow a lower doghouse with a taller intake manifold. Measurements of the 502 at full throttle and rpm up a 6% grade with the heavy 4WD behind indicate no restriction. I imagine the shorter element will clog sooner, but I use a Baldwin polyester wrap around it, and wash it when I wash our air conditioner filters. I had great success with these in off-road racing. Carried several, depending on the course.

Of course, being faster would have put me ahead of the dust cloud.

End of thread drift.

Mine has both markings, 25" and 635mm full scale. I use a mercury tube (1 of 6) that I use for setting the BMW M6 throttles. It is 1.838 inches of mercury to 25 inches of water.

I could of course make a water tube but I had the mercury tubes with a calibration scale already set up.

The filter is 200 miles old.

It looks like the intake pipe on yours is larger than mine just judging from the pictures. It couldn't be that is the only difference though. Not that I would do it, but I bet my fm would go 1/2 way up without any filter at all.

It sure looks like your tubing from the air cleaner to the turbo is much smaller then mine. This is a stock 230 HP engine.


Don't know if you have seen what I did to my intake system, here is the link to the write-up.

Revised intake system

This did improve the response time a bit but did not do anything for more power. I am not sure what the rational was for that LONG tube from the output of the intercooler to the engine.

Your filter looks the same but the actual filter housing seems to look smaller, maybe it is the angle of the picture??!! What is the filter number you have on yours?

EDIT:
You might check the accuracy of the minder first before concluding the system is restricted particularly if you are using the same filter as I do. I run 20 PSI boost all the time and do not have an issue, going to 23 PSI should not be that much more demand over 20 PSI.

Nice! I'm doing that. Can you send me a list of parts and where i can get them? I'm much too lazy to find them for myself. ha ha. I agree your housing looks way bigger than mine i'll check the number on the filter when I get home...I have a Napa element and a Baldwin?

I don't have part numbers but most any turbo shop that deals in turbo upgrades has the 45 degree elbows. I found these on the internet and came from Florida.

Here is an example, takes 2 of these.

turbo hose

The manifold adapter I fabricated out of a 90 degree piece of exhaust tubing, and a plate cut out of 1/2 inch plate steel. I used the intake gasket as a template and welded the plate to the steel tube after I found the correct angle. I also added a very small bead of weld around the 3 1/2" end for something the silicone tube with clamp could bite on. This is needed, I had the clamp further up and it pushed the silicone tube right down to where the clamp couldn't get over the weld. I had to reposition the tube and lower the clamp to the area where the weld was to keep it from moving.

There are intake adapters out there as well that Dodge tuners use but I found them to be smaller in diameter then I could actually make and they were pricey! My goal was to maintain 3 1/2" from the output of the intercooler to the intake manifold surface.