Particulate filter on IDI?

I don't really understand how these work, but curious if we can put some type of filter inline on our exhaust that would let these run a little cleaner. These engines don't make a lot of power and engines that make way more power have some type of pollution control. It got me thinking that I could add this and not kill performance. Has anyone done this, and is it even possible to do? I don't want to spend a ton of money (deal breaker), but if I could add something like a cat that would clean up my emissions I would feel good about doing something for the environment that might make up for my fleet of smog producing cars, trucks, and motorcycles. Probably not alone in loving my old diesel, but also a lot of love for the outdoors.

Come to MT I'll give you a dpf off of a 19 ford 6.7 psd but I'll tell you this I bet it's plugged tighter than a bulls ass in fly season in a week apparently the def system helps clean them I'm not totally sure how the hole system works but I know the trucks run better and are more fuel efficient without them so in my mind take a truck getting 14 mpg and delete it and get 20 umm I'd say that's better for the environment

Oledirtypearl86 said:

I know the trucks run better and are more fuel efficient without them so in my mind take a truck getting 14 mpg and delete it and get 20 umm I'd say that's better for the environment

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I'm not the most up to date on these, but from what IO understand, there's a little bit more to it than just doing the delete. You have to delete the EGR valve and related components too. Then you have to get it reprogrammed. My boss had a 15 'F250 with a 6.7. What I heard through the grapevine was that he had the emissions stuff deleted, but didn't have it reprogrammed so it didn't get very good mileage. There's some things that make me tend to believe that it's true. He hadn't bought any DEF for quite a while. He's also EXTREMELY tight so that sounds like something that he'd do. As far as the DPF, it's my understanding that as it gets plugged up, the truck's computer makes more fuel be injected into the engine than it needs. This makes the EGTs go up and burns the plugging out of the DPF. So I also think that a IDI engine will completely clog a DPF in a very short time. Even faster than the truck that it came off of since there's no computer to control the amount of fuel that goes through the engine.

Oledirtypearl86 said:

Come to MT I'll give you a dpf off of a 19 ford 6.7 psd but I'll tell you this I bet it's plugged tighter than a bulls ass in fly season in a week apparently the def system helps clean them I'm not totally sure how the hole system works but I know the trucks run better and are more fuel efficient without them so in my mind take a truck getting 14 mpg and delete it and get 20 umm I'd say that's better for the environment

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The DEF is urea (main component of human *****) and it is used to clean up the NOX created by burnt diesel. Lots of large equipment I work on, like incinerators, have a giant system and leaks are no fun. As far as installing one of these systems on to a vehicle, I wouldn't. Diesel engines, especially ours, run better without restriction. Open that thing up and crank the IP!

Politics aside, for every Tesla sold, the amount of coal required to charge them outweighs the carbon footprint of these old trucks anyhow.

Are all the systems computer controlled? I was hoping for a passive filter that just collected soot. I'm not interested in adding a bunch of computer stuff.

onetonjohn said:

Are all the systems computer controlled? I was hoping for a passive filter that just collected soot. I'm not interested in adding a bunch of computer stuff.

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You could go with a Bully Dog inline DPF or some other sort that is a removable filter requiring maintenance and is not computer controlled. There are others out there too.

onetonjohn said:

Are all the systems computer controlled? I was hoping for a passive filter that just collected soot. I'm not interested in adding a bunch of computer stuff.

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Diesel emission controls mainly revolve around reducing NOx content that's what the urea does. The black soot is unsightly but it's really just carbon and it settles to the ground, not really any harm or foul. If you want some research to look into, poke around in the early 2000s (up til 2007 or so) of Diesel Progress magazine. I believe they have a digital archive back that far. There were tons of articles about emissions and what the industry was having to so to meet the new requirements.

If you're really serious about it, about the only reliable system you could add to these trucks would be a new catalytic converter for a power stroke up to MY2003. If your truck runs clean and you keep it tuned up, you might be able to make it viable for 50k miles and might only pollute at 2003 or older standards. I believe the catalyst for those was marginally effective at reducing NOx, at least to those standards. It will get clogged much faster if you dont have enough air flowing through your engine to keep the smoke away so you would at least need a modern turbo that moves a lot of air even if you don't feed it a bunch of fuel. The 6.0 was basically passive system as well but fuel injection and turbos on those trucks made them much more efficient at their reduced size so their systems don't see near the loading of the older ones and nox levels were also lower to start with b/c of the increase in efficiency. Any of the newer systems involve significant tie-ins to engine management and that stuff simply isn't available in the IDI platform without lots of development work.

CARB forced the garbage industry to start installing DPF’s on mechanical diesels back in the 2000’s. They did trap the soot and stop black smoke. But they had to be plugged into 220v to burn off the spot. They had a lot of problems and made what was the most reliable portion of the fleet the least reliable. And caused me more than a few grey hairs. Don’t do it unless legally forced to. It would take away 3 reasons we keep these old mechanical diesels, simplicity, reliability and low cost.

Wouldn't recommend it either. My F450 gets 14.5mpg at best. All the emissions equipment ruins the fuel efficiency. My '86 F350 gets 17-18mpg and it's far from stock.

Tell me what's worse... burning much more fuel with no soot...... or much less fuel with some exhaust soot?

I know my answer.

Heath

IDIBRONCO said:

I'm not the most up to date on these, but from what IO understand, there's a little bit more to it than just doing the delete. You have to delete the EGR valve and related components too. Then you have to get it reprogrammed. My boss had a 15 'F250 with a 6.7. What I heard through the grapevine was that he had the emissions stuff deleted, but didn't have it reprogrammed so it didn't get very good mileage. There's some things that make me tend to believe that it's true. He hadn't bought any DEF for quite a while. He's also EXTREMELY tight so that sounds like something that he'd do. As far as the DPF, it's my understanding that as it gets plugged up, the truck's computer makes more fuel be injected into the engine than it needs. This makes the EGTs go up and burns the plugging out of the DPF. So I also think that a IDI engine will completely clog a DPF in a very short time. Even faster than the truck that it came off of since there's no computer to control the amount of fuel that goes through the engine.

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Yeah I usally flash the computer and he has some kind of programmer on it or it would go into emissions limp mode and never go past 30 mph and usally I deleted the dpf and if wanted the egr but with proper flashing the egr can be shut off and they just soot shut and and with the dpf removed I see like 18 to 24 out of the psd and like 18 out of the Cummins and durimax

Oledirtypearl86 said:

Yeah I usally flash the computer and he has some kind of programmer on it or it would go into emissions limp mode and never go past 30 mph and usally I deleted the dpf and if wanted the egr but with proper flashing the egr can be shut off and they just soot shut and and with the dpf removed I see like 18 to 24 out of the psd and like 18 out of the Cummins and durimax

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This is my plan for the F450 once the warranty runs out.

Heath

Why in the world would you want to put filters on your exhaust? You will screw up a good machine and do no one any good. We need that soot to help the snow melt in the spring.

I think you would be better off with a turbo that spools @ low engine speeds and good injectors that are not weeping.

Propane comes to mind.... it acts as a catalyst to burn more of the injected fuel, and then itself burns too. Be very careful though. It requires very little to be effective.

There used to be a good write-up from a local guy, but its long gone. Further discussion in this thread:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/346970-do-it-yerself-propane-injection-on-7-3-idi.html

Scotty4 said:

Politics aside, for every Tesla sold, the amount of coal required to charge them outweighs the carbon footprint of these old trucks anyhow.

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In all fairness coal accounts for less than 25% of US energy production( https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 ), but I get what you're saying. I would like to read the breakdown of how our trucks are cleaner than a Tesla--just curious.