We have a CAT 3406C. Serial No. 8PN03231 - Direct Injection 1995 model. We bought the engine alone, not sure what earthmover, truck or marine equipment it originally came from, and connected it to a small dredge to power the pump and hydraulics. The engine is rated 350hp at 1800rpm We had a new pump installed with 420hp instead of 330hp version that our engine in its current config can easily handle. To pump it struggles to say the least. A lot of black smoke, injector overworking, turbo charger getting hot etc. 1. What can we do to increase the hp on this engine. Any tweaking or replacement of OEM parts that we can simply do? We cant afford a replacement engine. 2. What is the risk to the engine if we utilize it in its current state apart from the smoke that it produces? What negative long term effects to the other engine components? Thanks DK
Maybe this guy can help with some answers. I do not know him, just saw the ad: http://twinfalls.craigslist.org/pts/3213455861.html
I had the same engine in a truck I used to drive in the mid 90's. I inquired at a Cat dealer and was told that injectors, pump and turbo all had to be changed to up HP. My guess would be that all that unburned fuel would cause engine overheating. Should be common sense what prolonged overheating will cause.
Ideally how much BHP do you want/need, and what RPM do you want to run the engine at..? Your engine is Test Spec 2T-6893, arrangement 123-1116. It produces 1350 ft.lb of torque at 1200RPM. It's originally for an on-highway truck application. I can see a multitude of 1800RPM 3406C Industrial engine arrangements that produce either 420 or 440 BHP, or 3406C on-highway truck engines that produce either 415 or 425BHP. I guess any one of them would work for you. The trick will be finding something that's as close as possible to your existing engine in order to keep changes to a minimum. Expect to change turbo and injectors as an absolute minimum.
Borg warner 199119 turbo and back both rack screw out a turn a piece will get you close to 425 without much heat. Any cat guy worth his salt can set the timing and bump it pretty easily without any hard parts, but I'd recommend the turbo to keep it cool. Also aftercool it , I'm assuming you don't have an intercooler setup on it in the stationary application, a good water to air cooler will be a good help.
We need between 420 - 450 horses to be stable. We are fine changing the turbo and injector and pump if we know what specific parts will get the bump for us. The engine has sea cooling connection so it doesn't use a radiator so it hasn't shown signs of overheating that much we don't run it as much as expected as well. It's using up a lot of diesel and burning more oil than our other engines. The engine is in a remote part of the world right now so we are looking for real solutions to educate ourselves with before we have the CAT dealer come in. We haven't been too successful with them giving the best assessments to say the least so far for our dozers and excavators Also - some of the diesel we buy in these parts is crap to say the least. Water, dirt etc. We have used a hydrometer to test the diesel before using it is effective 40 percent of the time. Does anyone have experience with how to determine if diesel is good for use?
Call your local dealer.
Can you get samples of your diesel analyzed..? A full analysis would give you an idea of things like the Cetane Number and sulphur content, the former being important for correct fuel burn and the latter for your oil life between changes. What part of the world is the engine working in, approximately..? You don't have to give a specific country.
The engine is working in Nigeria. The local CAT dealer here is 3 times as expensive as the dealers in US or any other part of the world for that matter. for example. The starter on our 322 Excavator costs about $5000 there. So the team down there orders everything from filters to engine oil even from US. I coordinate the project funding and logistics which is why Im not an very versed in engines but they are having this problem with the 3406 and cant seem to solve it down there. What I relayed is the issue as explained to me. Ive seen the smoke so its real!
I can guarantee you your fuel will be high sulphur then if it's based on Nigerian crude oil. That means either you change engine oil based on oil condition (requires an oil analysis programme) or you change it a damn sight more frequently than normal service routines would dictate. I have mates working around that neck of the woods and we frequently swap war stories about oil analysis results, engine performance, & engine life to overhaul. I'd still recommend getting a sample of your fuel analyzed. It will need about 5 gallons IIRC and obviously shipment of a combustible liquid out of the country will be a total pain unless you can find a lab in-country that can do it for you. I have no idea if that's possible or not. Going back to your OP, I would still favour changing the arrangement of your engine so that it then conforms to a different standard Test Spec that when it was originally built but it's still a "known quantity" as far as performance is concerned. All this talk about winding up fuel pump racks is fine if you have the engine on a dyno and can monitor every parameter, or you are a real engine guru but personally I'd stick with what is known to work (i.e. an engine built to a certain Arrangement Number and Test Spec will produce X BHP at Y RPM with Z ft.lbs. of torque at torque check speed.
This sounds like a job for a guy named Tony handle ynot (name spelled backwards) on the diesel garage dot com (don't know if I can link here). Send him a PM or post this question in the Heavy Duty forum and he should be able to answer with part numbers that wil need to be changed and how to get it done.