Whats The Best Diesel Exhaust?

Can you make a automatic dodge cummins turbo diesel smoke diesel out the exhaust?

• I just want to know if it would be better to get a manual transmission or automatic for smoking diesel out the exhaust

• Answer:

  Manual is better. You can lug it a lot easier. Not a good thing to do on a continuous basis but thats the easiest way to do it. Personally I don't like smoke but you can make tons of it if you try. I'd advise not to do so simply because it gives diesels a bad name. I can roll a good cloud with mine if I really lug down on it but I drive sanely and don't do that. Thats just part of being a responsible owner. I say it a lot, but you need gauges. Boost and EGT gauges at minimum with the EGT thermocouple mounted pre turbo. You'll find that when you're lugging and making smoke that they will get way HOT very quickly. To make smoke you'll probably do a mod that will also add power. Adding power is a slippery slope. You can add a part or two that will give you an additional 200+ horsepower but to run that reliably and continuously requires a good amount of $$. Figure at least $6000 to $8000 to do it right! One thing to note. The way diesels are ran, there really is no rich or lean as related to a gas engine. A gas engine must run around its stoichiometric air/fuel ratio, 14.7:1. It will vary some but nothing like a diesel. Frequently a diesel will idle at 70 to 100:1 or higher and run at full power at somewhere around 20:1. Diesel smoke really starts to appear somewhere "richer" than this ratio. Heres where it gets interesting. A diesel has a stochiometric air/fuel ratio and just like a gas engine it will make its most power, for a given amount of oxygen, near its stochiometric air/fuel ratio. However, a diesels stochiometric air/fuel ratio, about 14.6:1, is far below the full power air fuel ratio that most manufacturers use. Basically if you try to run a diesel at its stochiometric air/fuel ratio it will smoke like a freight train! Heres how you know Gale Banks is full of it. He always says black smoke isn't power and that its wasted fuel. This isn't the case. For instance suppose you have two identical diesels, both capable of drawing in the same amount of air. You adjust one so that its full power setting is just barely producing a haze and you adjust the other until its smoking, the smoking one will be producing more power because it is approaching its stochiometric air fuel ratio. The EGT's will be through the roof and engine damage will occur if ran that way for long, but it will make more power. Thats why you see all these sled pullers blowing huge clouds of smoke. They're making every bit of power they can with the amount of air they have. To maintain that same power level and run cleaner they would have to add a lot more air. Or on the flip side, they could reduce fueling until they ran cleaner, but power would be reduced as well. Even so, its still not good to run an engine there for long and certainly not good for the environment.