Thanks to this forum, I have heard about the thee cylinder high for very cold days.  However, I have never experienced this occurrence until last week during an overnight low of 20 degrees at my property near Baker City, OR.  I fired up the truck, turned on the exhaust brake, and went inside.  A couple of minutes later I heard the engine slowly increase in RPM.   Then all of a sudden it started making such a wild clatter that I thought I was going to have to shoot it and put it out of its misery.  After thinking about this for a couple of minutes, I realized that this must be the three cylinder high idle feature.  I touched the throttle and the engine went back to a normal idle.  I had to do it again a few minutes later.

 

I have had the Smarty S03 programmer on the truck for about three years, so I'm guessing that it has the high idle feature included.  I actually do not want this feature.  Is there a simple way to disable the three cylinder high idle?

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

- John

do you want 6 cyl high idle?  You can't have one witout the other.

 

  On 10/19/2019 at 3:27 AM, Me78569 said:

You can't have one witout the other.

 

I would be happy to have no high idle, but a  six cylinder high idle would be acceptable.  Can either modification be done and how would you do it? 

load your smarty up with another flash that is not "cold weather" and use that.  

 

I believe some of their tunes don't have it enabled.  

I fired my truck up at a slushy 17deg the other morning.  Did not notice a different idle with smarty on board.

 

But I did go back into the hotel room so may have missed it.

  On 10/19/2019 at 3:38 AM, Me78569 said:

I believe some of their tunes don't have it enabled. 

 

Leave it to Smarty to keep everything a secret.

 

  On 10/19/2019 at 7:03 PM, Evan said:

I fired my truck up at a slushy 17deg the other morning.  Did not notice a different idle with smarty on board.

 

Mine didn't ramp up to 3 cylinder high idle until 2 or 3 minutes after the engine was started.  I am going to try to figure out a way to fool the software into eliminating the 3 cylinder high idle.  I did notice that once I depressed the clutch pedal or touched the throttle, the feature was immediately disabled.

 

- John

Yep,. Easiest way would be to jam a resistor into the iat plug to trick it into thinking it was always above 40*f out.

 

That causes other issues though.  I would say just live with it

Is there any benefit to 3cyl high idle. It sounds scarey 

  On 10/19/2019 at 11:00 PM, Evan said:

Is there any benefit to 3cyl high idle.

 

Personally, I don't think so.  In the past I have just used the exhaust brake at regular idle and the engine warms quickly.  And, it is certainly much quieter.

 

- John

much faster warm up.

 

other than noise there is no drawback

  On 10/19/2019 at 11:00 PM, Evan said:

Is there any benefit to 3cyl high idle. It sounds scarey 

 

It puts a good load in the motor to prevent the coking on the valves. The 24v's flow so much air at idle it cools the head off at an idle when it's cold. 

 

Watching the engine struggle to warm up while it wet stacks is like asking for issues with bent push rods.

In the cold temps I put a cardboard in front of the radiator that blocks all air. I'm running it folded in half right now.

 

When it drops to negative temps it will rarely warm to above 165. 

 

I'm curious to hear 3cyld high idle if it ever does it.

  On 10/20/2019 at 3:19 AM, Evan said:

In the cold temps I put a cardboard in front of the radiator that blocks all air. I'm running it folded in half right now.

 

When it drops to negative temps it will rarely warm to above 165. 

 

I'm curious to hear 3cyld high idle if it ever does it.

Your should not be doing that. That cardboard thing can make things worse. I still use my winter front I made from the lexan from years ago that fits in the grill. Even when it hits 45/50 during the day it never over heats.

 

What tstat are you running? Even when I was in PA in 5°f weather I was still seeing 200°f coolant temps

180.

 

I've been blocking the radiator for 15 years and will continue. Seen no negative effects.

 

I drove in -20 one time truck running a fuzz over 140 this was consistent temp for 100 miles. Windshield icing over inside and out. Was running a heater in the truck and not running any heat of own. This is when I started blocking radiator.  Night day warmer gas station lady looks at me with questioning look ad I beg for a big cardboard box.

 

  On 10/20/2019 at 2:23 PM, Evan said:

180.

 

I've been blocking the radiator for 15 years and will continue. Seen no negative effects.

 

I drove in -20 one time truck running a fuzz over 140 this was consistent temp for 100 miles. Windshield icing over inside and out. Was running a heater in the truck and not running any heat of own. This is when I started blocking radiator.  Night day warmer gas station lady looks at me with questioning look ad I beg for a big cardboard box.

 

 

Can I ask why your running such a low thermostat? 

 

I run a 200 in my truck and I haven't seen any issues with that yet. I can burn you out of the cab when it's 0 out and the heater core is running 175°f out of the vents. 

  On 10/20/2019 at 2:23 PM, Evan said:

180.

 

Too cold. Need at least the 190F thermostat. I'm wanting to go back to a 200F thermostat as well. My last Gates was too wild I might try for a NAPA 200F...

Hmmm I dunno I like running at 190 in the summer 

 

 

  On 10/20/2019 at 7:45 PM, Mopar1973Man said:

 

Too cold. Need at least the 190F thermostat. I'm wanting to go back to a 200F thermostat as well. My last Gates was too wild I might try for a NAPA 200F...

 

Did you try a dodge one? Mine from Dodge out of a 2008 6.7L works flawlessly