ULSD vs Regular Diesel / Have You Noticed?

Is it an issue of sulfur laden soot damaging the particulate filter or regeneration system?

Nox sensor is before DPF.
You are comparing fumes out the tailpipe on 1 vehicle with fumes before they enter the filter on other.

This is a problem when no one is monitoring the monitors. My toad is 22-years old and according to real-life CO, CO2, HC, and NOX it pollutes quite closely to a similar horsepower 2015 engine. How is this possible?

I have an 07 Ram 3500 with the 6.7L Cummins. When the VIN was checked I was told it was part of the first 300 off the assembly line of the "Clean Diesels".

With the blow by and the emissions the oil would be black in just a few hundred miles. 10 yrs later and a non-functional EGR had the oil much cleaner looking. Did not look like a bunch of soot suspended in the liquid.

Still get thinning due to blow-by of fuel. It is difficult to find where all of this emissions system is actually helping. I say this because when it is 100% operational my fuel economy average is 13.7 mpg average. With EGR unplugged fuel economy goes up by 3.1 mpg.

When it came time to change some of the exhaust pipe I ran a straight pipe from the turbo back. MPG went up to a hand calculated 20.4. I was not very excited about reinstalling the 2 cats, dpf, and plugging the egr back in.

I really wonder if there is any difference in the total amount of harmful emissions in a given set. I look at it this way. If my total harmful emissions with everything in place over 500 miles is significantly less than just running a straight pipe then I am ok with emissions system. But if I burn nearly 50% more fuel in 500 miles with the emissions system and the system only reduces my emission by 25% then I would in actuality be polluting more in 500 miles because I burn more fuel.

The oil in my ULSD Sprinter gets black pretty darn fast after an oil change. Way faster than with a gasoline engine.

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
The question is directed at owners of diesel engines of similar type that have had extensive experience with both types of fuel. Low & NO.

Does oil stay cleaner longer. Soot contamination is black.

We have a small fleet of mostly specialty diesel powered vehicles. Most of them are pre-1999 engines, a few are 1980’s engines.

There has been absolutely zero visually noticeable, or measurable in the 4X / year oil samples, difference between ‘old’ diesel, LSD & ULSD.

Not that it’s by any means conclusive, but some of our engines run for months at a time (off road, on remote sites) on off-road diesel, furnace oil, kerosene and / or Jet A. Again, no difference in oil sample results.

Gosh, you don’t think that just like with ‘corn liquor’ the general population is being a little misled on this do you? ;-p

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Locally?

Next door to the taco stand. Read the panel to the left of my message post block :)

If you had an older diesel, you could use some of that used taco grease for fuel:)

The question is directed at owners of diesel engines of similar type that have had extensive experience with both types of fuel. Low & NO.

While I don't have a ton of experience, I'm at other end of the stick but have done tons of reading. And have spent hours talking with a retired Cummins engineer. So maybe my post is more of a "book report" so take it for what it's worth. ULSD is not user friendly to mine at all. In my reading and many phone calls to oil analysis places questioning (weather to add two stroke oil or not) several have said that if they owned a newer (anti?) pollution machine, they would add a "spinner" or (search word) "spinner centrifuge oil filter". Removes soot down to 2 micron level. Which at that level, some detergent is also trapped. If you start researching them...first step is to find out how much oil pressure your spec's says you are supposed to have. If you don't have enough oil pressure to cycle oil into and out of spinner, useless to have one. YouTube has some vid's also. The retired engineer backs up his maintenance 10-15 percent. He also said most fuel pumped to the public in the US is at the 20 micron level. He didn't think overall additional fuel filtration beyond OEM was necessary, but he has an onboard fuel pressure gauge and replaces fuel filters when he sees a bit of restriction or 10 percent less mileage/time than what spec calls for.

Having said all that I thought one of the reasons for the new oil spec "CK" was supposed to help you guys that carry around extra 500 pounds of (anti) pollution devices? Wonder if you can buy carbon offsets for carrying around that extra weight?:)

" API introduces two new diesel engine oil standards, API Service Categories CK-4 and FA-4."

http://www.api.org/products-and-services/engine-oil/eolcs-categories-and-documents/latest-oil-categories

Locally?

Next door to the taco stand. Read the panel to the left of my message post block :)

Where do you get non-ULSD that is legal to be used in OTR diesels?