Can I increase Cummins ISC power?

[saflyer]

3 hours ago, throgmartin said:

Ed:

 

Like Frank and I both said there are various ECM models for these engines. I believe the 330 has 3 or 4 ECM variants and none of them apply to RV"s. Transit Bus is one, OTR, Trash trucks and I forgot the other application. Monaco seemed to use all of the variants in their coaches. I do know that since your coach was made ( 2005 )  there have been 6 upgrades to the software. Those changes were very minor by the way.

You would be surprised what can be changed in the ECM. Like Frank said many parameters can be changed. Even the brake light deployment can be changed in regards to the Exhaust brake. You can switch the brake light to be off when the exhaust brake is on ( not advisable ) or leave it on. Your best bet is to take it to a Cummins facility and have them plug into the ECM and check your ECM model, update your software and be sure and ask them to do a data dump with print out for you. That in itself is very interesting. It has a host of information and gives you full operating data from the first time the engine was fired up and started its life. Max speed, max temps, hours in first gear, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th. Averages of fuel burn, etc. The information is endless using the data dump feature. It is great to have if you ever sell your coach to show prospective buyers your engine was never hurt or abused.

I believe Cummins charges $ 200 - 250 to access your ECM and make changes and give you a data dump. There are other changes that can be made in regards to engine function but I advise against letting just any Cummins tech making engine operating changes. Those changes can impact a lot of different things such as EG temps, fuel mileage, etc.. The last thing you want is a poor performing engine or a burnt valve. Frank and my son are the few I know who have a good grasp on engine operation and how different parameters effect performance. In other words they know how to tweak an ECM without hurting your motor. Not all Cummins techs are created equal.

Interesting Chris. I have an engine analyzer in my plane that I can download tons of data from and show in digital and graphical form.  Also have a subscription service that uses a computer program to analyze and maybe predict problems. These engine analyzers along with widespread installations of EGT sensing are two of the best things to come along in decades.

While our coaches don’t have the number of parameters that we can control while driving nor go through the range of environments on a given day as an airplane something like this would be useful? Maybe they could upgrade the Scan D line of products to have a similar function.

Ed

[dl_racing427]

On 3/16/2021 at 6:18 AM, throgmartin said:

Ed:

 

Like Frank and I both said there are various ECM models for these engines. I believe the 330 has 3 or 4 ECM variants and none of them apply to RV"s. Transit Bus is one, OTR, Trash trucks and I forgot the other application. Monaco seemed to use all of the variants in their coaches. I do know that since your coach was made ( 2005 )  there have been 6 upgrades to the software. Those changes were very minor by the way.

You would be surprised what can be changed in the ECM. Like Frank said many parameters can be changed. Even the brake light deployment can be changed in regards to the Exhaust brake. You can switch the brake light to be off when the exhaust brake is on ( not advisable ) or leave it on. Your best bet is to take it to a Cummins facility and have them plug into the ECM and check your ECM model, update your software and be sure and ask them to do a data dump with print out for you. That in itself is very interesting. It has a host of information and gives you full operating data from the first time the engine was fired up and started its life. Max speed, max temps, hours in first gear, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th. Averages of fuel burn, etc. The information is endless using the data dump feature. It is great to have if you ever sell your coach to show prospective buyers your engine was never hurt or abused.

I believe Cummins charges $ 200 - 250 to access your ECM and make changes and give you a data dump. There are other changes that can be made in regards to engine function but I advise against letting just any Cummins tech making engine operating changes. Those changes can impact a lot of different things such as EG temps, fuel mileage, etc.. The last thing you want is a poor performing engine or a burnt valve. Frank and my son are the few I know who have a good grasp on engine operation and how different parameters effect performance. In other words they know how to tweak an ECM without hurting your motor. Not all Cummins techs are created equal.

Chris,

I agree with pretty much all you said here, except this:
"You can switch the brake light to be off when the exhaust brake is on ( not advisable ) or leave it on."

That is very dangerous advice.

Having your brake lights activated when you're not using the actual vehicle BRAKES is a really bad idea.
First off, it can activate your trailer brakes on a long downgrade, when you're simply using the exhaust or Jake brake to maintain a steady speed.
This can severely overheat your brakes to the point of total failure, damaging bearings, tires, and even setting your trailer on fire.

Even worse, having your brake lights stuck on while descending a grade will preclude drivers behind you from having ANY warning if you do actually have to use your vehicle brakes.
The last thing I want to do if I have to slow or stop suddenly, is to keep him in the dark as to that fact. 😞

[Frank McElroy]

My dynasty came from Monaco with the ECM setup to activate the brake lights whenever the Jake brake is in use.  I often use the Jake brake to slow down and use the service brake at the end to stop the coach.  As far as I'm concerned I want the person behind me to know when I'm braking by either using the jake or service brakes so I'm not about to change the Monaco default setting to turn off the brake lights when engine braking is in use.

My car gets it's supplemental braking from the air service brakes.

For trailer brakes activated by the brake lights would need to be wired to when the service brake switch is activated and not when the engine brake activates the brake lights.

[Dr4Film]

9 hours ago, dl_racing427 said:

Chris,

I agree with pretty much all you said here, except this:
"You can switch the brake light to be off when the exhaust brake is on ( not advisable ) or leave it on."

That is very dangerous advice.

Having your brake lights activated when you're not using the actual vehicle BRAKES is a really bad idea.
First off, it can activate your trailer brakes on a long downgrade, when you're simply using the exhaust or Jake brake to maintain a steady speed.
This can severely overheat your brakes to the point of total failure, damaging bearings, tires, and even setting your trailer on fire.

Even worse, having your brake lights stuck on while descending a grade will preclude drivers behind you from having ANY warning if you do actually have to use your vehicle brakes.
The last thing I want to do if I have to slow or stop suddenly, is to keep him in the dark as to that fact. 😞

David,

With all due respect I have to TOTALLY disagree with your statement above. I have towed a 30 foot trailer for well over 8 years while Full-Timing in many mountainous regions throughout this country including three trips to Alaska and back and my coach happened to get wired correctly from Monaco (amazingly) such that my PRXB Pacbrake Exhaust Brake activates the brake lights on my coach exactly how I want it to be. I want people to know that I am slowing down when either using the exhaust brake or the service brakes. PLUS, I personally wired the Tekonsha Brake Controller that I installed with the help of Rex Darley (RIP) such that it activates from the service brakes and NOT from some brake light source which is NOT the way it should be done. If there are coaches wired that way then the Monaco service techs working on the assembly line that day were not using their brains or thinking with a clear head which happened more often than not.

For people who have unfortunately gotten a coach from the factory that way I believe from reading the forums that there is one wire that you can snip to prevent that from happening.

[dl_racing427]

While some coaches may have a separate signal to activate trailer brakes, many, mine included, do not.

The PAC exhaust brake on my Dynasty has no connection to the brake light circuit, and as far as I can tell, never did.

Of the many thousands of trucks I've encountered on the road, I've NEVER seen one that had their brake lights activated by the Jake brake.

Engine or exhaust brakes cannot suddenly stop your coach, such as happens when you make an emergency stop.  They're more equivalent to letting off the throttle on a carbureted gasoline powered vehicle.

If your brake lights are on continuously, then those following you will soon ignore them, and you effectively have NO brake lights when you have to stop suddenly.

In fact, back when CB's were popular, I've heard truckers admonish RV'ers for riding their brakes on a grade, when often it's a coach that's just using the Jake brake.

People are going to have different opinions on this, but I would NEVER want my brake lights tied into a Jake or other retarder system.

[throgmartin]

Richard, this is the exact reason why I left the Pac Brake factory default alone. If your Pac Brake is activated it means you are slowing down. If I am slowing down for whatever reason I want the traffic behind me to know. The last thing I need is to get run over by an 80,000 lb semi who is on my tail. 70 % of the time when I activate the pac brake I have not yet touched the brakes so there would be no warning to traffic behind me if the pac brake/light function is changed in the ecm. I have never had a pac brake freeze up on me probably because I use it a lot to slow down. In the city I always have it switched on. I turn it off on the freeways but will use it on off ramps. My brakes will probably last 250,000 K miles.

After my accident in December I am hyper vigilant of traffic behind me. One only has to get blasted at 55 mph in the back of your vehicle to fully appreciate alerting drivers behind you that you are stopping.

[vanwill52]

This is one of those hotly contested subjects that has been discussed to death.  Just as many knowledgeable people choose one way or the other.  This thread can go on and on, or everyone can agree to disagree and move on.  Otherwise, we'll hear all those explanations we've all heard dozens of times.  Let it rest.  Waste of time.

[saflyer]

1 hour ago, vanwill52 said:

This is one of those hotly contested subjects that has been discussed to death.  Just as many knowledgeable people choose one way or the other.  This thread can go on and on, or everyone can agree to disagree and move on.  Otherwise, we'll hear all those explanations we've all heard dozens of times.  Let it rest.  Waste of time.

Please don’t take this wrong but my thinking is if you’re tired of a subject don’t click on the topic. As for me I find occasionally someone adds something I didn’t know.

Ed

[vanwill52]

1 hour ago, saflyer said:

Please don’t take this wrong but my thinking is if you’re tired of a subject don’t click on the topic. As for me I find occasionally someone adds something I didn’t know.

Ed

No offense taken.

I do think the "Increase Power in ISC" thread has gone off the rails.  Perhaps there needs to be yet another thread started debating this brake light issue.

[dl_racing427]

8 hours ago, vanwill52 said:

No offense taken.

I do think the "Increase Power in ISC" thread has gone off the rails.  Perhaps there needs to be yet another thread started debating this brake light issue.

I'm not going to start that one.  Yes, it can go on forever. LOL
All I know is that professional truck drivers, that often weight double what our coaches do, and drive hundreds of thousands of miles a year, do NOT have their brake lights activated when they're only using the Jake brake.  Apparently they're all stupid. 😉

[Howard]

I agree that the post has gone off the rails. Can we get back to the "Increase Power in ISC" subject. As I said before, I'm looking in to the AG Diesel Solutions device, I have a 2004 8.3 330 hp Cummings. Has anyone any information on this unit? https://www.agdieselsolutions.com/

I would really like to find more information on this device...

[smavM2]

Just completed testing of an Ag Solutions Module by PSI Power on my 8.3 ISC cummins. The model they sent me based off of the engine info I sent them was the 12200. Once installed it worked in stock mode with no issues. When I put it in the 15% or 30% mode, which are the only two other than stock that it can be in, the truck would die out and would not build more than about 6psi of boost when you stepped on the throttle very hard. So in affect it actually had less power with it turned on or up that it had in stock mode. I could not accelerate going up hill and go faster when it was on anything other than stock mode. I called for tech support and did what they suggested to no prevail. They did issue me an RMA for a full refund. There really wasn't much to it as it just plugs in to the injector lines and map sensor so other than checking plugs, power and ground connections there wasn't much more to the troubleshooting so I will just leave it stock as it has pretty decent power for what I pull.