Maybe I should just turn this into a thread to document my experiences and processing methods. People who want to hear about it! My gf and roomies think its cool, but are probably sick of hearing about it haha.
This is all in a 95 12v Cummins. Stock 175hp p-pump. 5spd, HX35 turbo, 4" exhaust, timing about 17*. Governor springs, delivery valves, and injectors are coming. In that order. Then that's pry it honestly, even stock it does what I want very well.
Have about 10k on various D2 blends and started going full W85 3k ago. Most of my oil is 15w, so I bumped it up to W80. I get a lot of white smoke at idle. I made it disappear completely for 1k miles after running 7gal of D2 with a high concentration of Standadyne performance formula, but now its back. In the fall, I experimented with using a Dodge ATF/coolant heat exchanger to heat my fuel but was dumb and plumbed it before the lift pump and had priming issues. But it seemed to help smooth it out and reduce idle smoke somewhat in temps around 40*. I wanna try getting it plumbed back in after the lift pump when I get a little time.
As far as temps and the truck, runs fine. I haven't been plugging it in and it will start at 15* on W80. 10 seconds of cranking with my foot on the floor gets it to fire (new batteries were key) and I have to hold it at about 1200rpm for a couple minutes, then it will run on its own and come up in idle speed as it warms up. It's been 50-60* the last few days, and I think it does run better. All the more motivation to get that heater back on.