Diesel engine heat management 6.0

[Navi]

I've seen numerous people use the hood vents. How much did those help?

Anyone else have some suggestions on taming the heat a bit on these vans?

I hauled a trailer through Texas hill country backroads in 100°+ heat and my van was not very happy with it!

 

[ujoint]

Vents make a huge difference. In summer heat you can't hold your hand there for long!

 

[stormlover]

There's no magic sauce for getting the 6.0 crammed into a van to run cool. These are all mods I've done that directly or indirectly help:

-hood louvers (not sure it makes any difference at 70 mph but definitely helps heat escape once stopped)
-ceramic coating and wrapping the Y-pipe and downpipe (a game changer for under-hood heat and heat transfer through the dog haus)
-all aluminum radiator (debatable)
-bigger turbo (pushes more air)
-DC Power XP250A (higher output alternator doesn't work as hard and makes less heat)
-EGR delete (not recirculating hot soot back into the engine)
-cat delete
-high flow muffler
-Tru-Cool Max 40,000 GVW transmission cooler

By far the biggest difference was removing the constriction imposed by the cat. The stage 1.5 KCturbo definitely runs cooler than the stocker. My tranny ran pretty hot, especially off-road. The van tranny cooler is tiny compared to the trucks but is upstream of the radiator. So, hot tranny oil is first flowing through the lower part of the radiator on it's way to the tranny cooler. That doesn't help things. So, if your towing you might consider upgrading to a bigger tranny cooler.

But really what's HOT? The vans run hotter than the trucks and what some of us consider hot is actually ok. EOT of 230F and ECT of 220F while running at an outside temp of 100F is more the norm for most. More importantly, are you monitoring your EGTs? How hot is the exhaust getting on those long pulls while towing? Are you running a PCM and/or FICM tune?

 

[IdaSHO]

Diesels need the heat to run efficiently.

6.0 t-stat doesnt even open all the way until 219 degrees.

And with a 16PSI radiator cap, the coolant system is good for 250 degrees or so.

 

[Navi]

The van came with a high flow cat and magnaflow muffler.

I'm only keeping tabs on eot/ect/tranny temps for now. It maxed at 229eot 223ect and 205tranny but I was really babying it on the many long pulls.

No tune. I desperately need to do all the normal bulletproofing. Ive been swamped at work but this trip really made me decide to get around to it soon!

 

[stormlover]

The van came with a high flow cat and magnaflow muffler.

I'm only keeping tabs on eot/ect/tranny temps for now. It maxed at 229eot 223ect and 205tranny but I was really babying it on the many long pulls.

No tune. I desperately need to do all the normal bulletproofing. Ive been swamped at work but this trip really made me decide to get around to it soon!

All seems normal. And IdaSHO is correct, the thermostat doesn't even start to open until 190F and fully open at 219°F which is about when my fan kicks in. Tranny fluid can get quite hot as well but approaching 250F is not good. More importantly, your deltas between ECT and EOT are good indicating an oil cooler in good health.

 

[IdaSHO]

Engine temps look fine, but the trans temp is a bit warmer than I like to see, especially if not towing anything.

Ideally Id try to get it below 195 or so. So toss a good trans cooler on it, and call it a day.

 

[EMrider]

Your temps seem normal.

My 6.0 is completely stock and has run great for 120k miles.

We regularly drive in 95-100 deg outside temps. On long climbs in hot temps I typically see max EOT and ECT of 230-225.

R

 

[pugslyyy]

Posting here rather than starting a new thread... on the subject of hood vents, any sources to consider or avoid? I'm not looking to go crazy $ here - if I were I would put on a Sarona hood.

 

[FDM2012]

Sounds like your exhaust is squared away.

I did the hood vents, and it seems nominal at best when at idle and holding my hand over them....

Wrapping your y and down pipe, along with a turbo boot, will keep the heat in the pipes and out the tail,
as it should be.

Here are the vents I used: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Jeep-Cherok...ash=item2efbd83f45:g:C-8AAOSwB4NWvB5~&vxp=mtr

 

[pugslyyy]

Sounds like your exhaust is squared away.

I did the hood vents, and it seems nominal at best when at idle and holding my hand over them....

Wrapping your y and down pipe, along with a turbo boot, will keep the heat in the pipes and out the tail,
as it should be.

Here are the vents I used: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Jeep-Cherok...ash=item2efbd83f45:g:C-8AAOSwB4NWvB5~&vxp=mtr

Thanks. I need to wrap the pipes, but waiting until I pull the turbo off to clean it - will be a lot easier with it off the vehicle.

 

[stormlover]

Did someone say wrap the pipes? One of the best mods I've done to my rig. Heat dissipation is ~200F for every 12" of pipe travelled. Definitely do the up-pipe or Y-pipe. Wrapping the downpipe was a considerable improvement on underhood heat management and the dog haus wifey toast-a-meter.

Ceramic coating.


Ti-wrap

 

[SHAFT]

I installed mine because I (naively) wanted to reduce the temps in the back of the engine bay and try to preserve the all the wiring. I didn't see any change in the doghouse temps after putting them in. I ran a thermocouple probe to the back of the engine bay, above the driver's side valve cover just to see before and after. the only thing which affected the temps that far aft, was if i was driving or not and my temp delta between that and the intake was reliably 10 degrees (oregon in the winter). that's not to say they don't bleed off heat, i'm sure they do. just seems to be best for cooling the bay forward of the belts and such.
at least they look cool....
oh, and if you're concerned about EOT and ECT, the Bulletproof Diesel oil cooler has my endorsement. Was my first major mod and maybe it's overkill and a bit expensive, but making coolant and oil independent of each other is worth it.

 

[stormlover]

I installed mine because I (naively) wanted to reduce the temps in the back of the engine bay and try to preserve the all the wiring. I didn't see any change in the doghouse temps after putting them in. I ran a thermocouple probe to the back of the engine bay, above the driver's side valve cover just to see before and after. the only thing which affected the temps that far aft, was if i was driving or not and my temp delta between that and the intake was reliably 10 degrees (oregon in the winter). that's not to say they don't bleed off heat, i'm sure they do. just seems to be best for cooling the bay forward of the belts and such.
at least they look cool....
oh, and if you're concerned about EOT and ECT, the Bulletproof Diesel oil cooler has my endorsement. Was my first major mod and maybe it's overkill and a bit expensive, but making coolant and oil independent of each other is worth it.

Interesting. I think wrapping the downpipe made a biggest difference. I couldn't even leave a beverage in the cupholder on the dog haus for longer than 10 min. And the radiating heat on the passenger side was quite noticeable. I also re-insulated the dog haus but it's now a non-issue. And with a 40HP FICM tune and 80 HP PCM tune my van runs on the hot side of things.

 

[Navi]

Those of you running a coolant filter, what brand did you run?
I order a mishimoto kit today for a 6.4, it has longer lines and a frame mount.
Im going to filter the coolant for a month before doing a full flush to hopefully prevent plugging up the oil cooler.