Practical Diesel Tuning: Rolling Coal
Rolling Coal
02.05
00:00 | - One of the most controversial topics when it comes to diesel engine tuning is the subject of rolling coal. |
00:05 | Anyone who's followed any form of competition diesel, tractor pulling, drag racing, would have inevitably seen one of these trucks or tractors or cars blacking out the sun with clouds of thick black smoke being expelled from the exhaust. |
00:18 | Welcome to the world of rolling coal. |
00:21 | As we've discussed throughout this course, in simple terms, the key to power in a diesel engine is adding more fuel. |
00:27 | There is a limit however to how much fuel we can add. |
00:29 | Or how late we can inject it in the combustion process before we get to a point where unburned fuel makes its way into the exhaust in the form of soot particles. |
00:37 | It may look like this is a terribly inefficient use of fuel and to a degree there's some truth here. |
00:43 | However it's not all about looks and we will see that the engine produces more power under these conditions than it can with no visible smoke output. |
00:50 | The obvious problem is that the excessive fuelling required to get to this level of performance dramatically increases the engine's emissions output. |
00:58 | As a performance enthusiast I find myself walking a bit of a tightrope here between getting the absolute most out of my engines and maintaining some consideration for the lung health of my fellow man. |
01:09 | Ultimately I'm not an advocate for the practice of rolling coal and instead I strive for the optimal level of performance I can achieve while still maintaining clean, smoke free operation. |
01:18 | This is very much your personal choice, we're not here to pass judgement, just understand that as with a lot of tuning changes that we've discussed so far, this practice is almost certainly going to mean your vehicle is no longer emissions compliant and it could potentially land you with a fine depending on where in the world you live and who sees you doing it. |
01:35 | If you're running a diesel engine that's equipped with a DPF then you're going to simply fill up your DPF very quickly since this task is to remove the soot that you're now purposefully producing in excess. |
01:45 | You're also likely to find that the DPF won't be recoverable via regen and replacing it will be a costly exercise. |
01:51 | Of course, those wishing to go down this path probably aren't going to hesitate removing the DPF anyway but this may be tricky unless you have the ability to disable DPF functionality within the ECU. |