AH64ID

212° Is the max allowable temp with a 180° thermostat, from Cummins, so that seems high.

Yes likely it does no harm, but without an oil temp gauge it's nearly impossible to say. The biggest negative effect you'll see is excessive fan operation, especially since 99's came with 180° thermostats. Fully open on the 200° thermostat is about 215-217°, so that's why you hit 215° and stayed. The 4th gen trucks with 200° thermostats start to cycle the fan at 212°, but I bet your starts engaging around 195-200°. Since it's not ECM controlled you likely won't see much engagement when empty, but as soon as you apply a load the fan will be working a lot more. Yes the cooling systems are pretty darn large for these trucks and can support around 400-450rwhp sustained. I've been WOT for 5-6 miles at 23K GCW up a 6-7% grade running 2500 rpms and my ECT didn't hit 215° ( I engage the fan at 208°), and Cummins says I can run it up to 225° before running out of heat rejection. I'm really curious what oil temp will be on those same long pulls.

They may appear correct but it's still a useless gauge, and that's what sucks with how Dodge/Ram does it! Oil pressure could be 10 psi at 2500 rpms and you wouldn't know until it was too late.

So yours doesn’t display actual pressure. If it’s ever false it’s the flash. It may indicate in the proper range when warm but there will be no warning of a low oil pressure condition. Generally speaking it’s not an issue on these motors thou.

Interesting. My understanding is that the Smarty will apply the TSB for a switch and an algorithm based dash gauge. I wonder if you have it and it's just closer than current trucks are. I do know that the 2nd gen's I've seen aren't nearly as inaccurate as the current flash for my truck. I know that when I bought my truck it was more accurate than it is now, and actually fairly correct 80% of the time. There was a update in one of the software revisions that modified it's operation again and now it's only accurate on a warm motor at about 1300 rpms.

How dirty was it?

A pressure drop on a FASS/AD is a late sign, remember they divert fuel back to the tank with air... That fuel flow will decrease to maintain the set output pressure. A pressure drop on a AD/FASS, with a return line, indicates a huge restriction and is too late. It's important to watch for pressure drops on these systems as it would indicate a plugged filter, but that's more in the event of a bad batch of fuel than for service interval. For pumps without a return the pressure is a much better indicator of filter life, and why people without return lines see a pressure drop sooner. At 60K miles at a 40 mph average over 130K gallons of diesel have gone thru the filters, and over 3K gallons burned. The f/w sep will have had more than that pulled thru it. These aren't big filters. Unfortunately there will always be trace amounts of moisture that cannot be filtered/separated, especially with some of the filters on the AD/FASS cross reference list, and by the time they get to the OEM pump they have been re-emulsifed by the AD/FASS making them even harder to remove. This trace amount of moisture will have an effect on cellulose media over time. Having multiple filters in series will extend the serviceable life, but it won't push it 4 times the life of a single filter. The filters have to be good filters thou, and the wire mesh AD filter,FS19768, doesn't count as a filter it's a rock guard, and that's data from Fleetguard. If the inital f/w sep isn't rated for the flow of the AD the first filter to do anything is the final filter on the AD and now it's a secondary filter with primary filtration duties, that's going to decrease filter life, not extend it. 15K miles is too soon, for sure, on systems with multiple staged filters. If you look at industrial applications they call for fuel filter changes in the 300-500 hour range. Most of those motors have primary/secondary filters as well. What is 60K miles? 1500 hours?

Most filters still contain some sort of cellulose media and it can go bad over time. There are non-cellulose filters too, like the NanoNet I use and recommend, and they should last longer but they can still wear. Over 25K miles there are thousands of gallons of fuel being pushed thru the media and if the media were to get a small tear you’d never see it on the psi gauge. Additionally water separators are less efficient at higher flow/vacuum which may not be seen on a final pressure gauge since FASS/AD move more fuel out of the tank than they push to the engine. Filters are cheap, and they are crucial to good component life. They shouldn’t be changed too often, but they should be changed regularly.

Wow that's a long interval. It explains why you have a descent amount of visible asphaltene buildup on your stock filter. Based on the research I have done on filters I recommend 30K miles, 18 months, or until you see a pressure drop and whichever comes first. This is longer than you will find any filter mfgr recommend as well.

Yes there was a TSB that converted it from a sender to a switch. @Mopar1973Man have you ever had a smarty on your truck?

Right, generally only if it's been reprogrammed. I thought that by 2002 they were all "switches" from the factory.

No it's not bad, but it only takes one load of bad fuel to trash a fuel system. We know you get good fuel based on your lack of winter additives and proper operation, but like I said.. it only takes 1 bad tank.

With the vast variety of different specs and filters I’d pick a filter with the right specs and run it. It’s only going’s to be a couple of bucks, at most, and that’s cheaper than fuel system maintenance for a contamination issues.

The older ones are the ones that need the adapter. 1-14 thread is the one you want.

Correct, all 3rd and 4th gen's use the same switch. 2nd gens all have pressure senders; however, the ECM has been reprogrammed to treat it like a switch instead of a sender.

The 4th gen trucks with oil temp show about a +20° oil temp, but I still haven't heard if the sensor is real or fake. I've looked and can't find a part number for a oil temp sensor and the pressure switch part number hasn't changed since 2007 so it's wasn't incorporated into that.

AD BF1275/FF5817 FASS If it's older get the thread adapter to run 1-14" threads. It's available from FASS BF1212 or FS1000 and a FF5814 Like I said that listing is old, and inaccurate. It needs updated or deleted. It leads people down a road to worse filtration than stock, which isn't what people want. If that filter you showed is the one you run then it's a good thing you have the OEM canister still. For the 3rd time, @Mopar1973Man, what filters do you run?

It's the same, and should be similar under every day driving. When making sustained power, i.e. towing, the oil temps will get hotter than coolant temps as the oil has direct contact with pistons and the oil cooler is the coolant.

Cummins part number for a 200° thermostat is 5292724. More fuel in the anti-200° thermostat fire is that Cummins doesn't use it on any of the non-Dodge/Ram ISB/QSB motors. Cummins preferred thermostats are 180° for non-EGR and 190° for EGR. I'll be putting an oil temp gauge in this summer and will drop to a 180° if the oil gets hotter than it should.. thou I don't think it will.

For 00-02 the best filter for the OEM canister is the Baldwin PF7977 rated at 5µ absolute. That page needs updated, it lists discontinued filters as well as filters that have MUCH worse than stock ratings. The specs for the best filters aren't even on the page, which means people likely won't choose them. It also lists the 1R-0750 and 1R-0751 which have the wrong thread size for an AD. None of the Air Dog part numbers have the flow rating for their pump, huge lack of research, and shouldn't be run. Their original f/w sep wasn't even rated as a f/w sep and was only rated for 20 GPH. The only f/w sep filter I've found that fits the AD oddball thread size is the Baldwin BF1275. It's rated for 120 GPH, 99% free water removal, and 96.5% emulsified water sep. It's acceptable for the flow to be less than the pump rated flow as long as there is pressure. The 150 GPH of the AD is only at 0 psi, so as long as you have 10+ psi you shouldn't be flowing more than 120 GPH, but even if you are there isn't another option. In terms of final filtration the AD filters also fall short on GPH as they are only rated for 60 GPH. The donaldson P551315 is rated for 90 GPH, and it's a true 3µ. (The AD "2µ" filter, FF5613 is actually a 5µ filter). I haven't gotten flow specs on it yet but the FF5817 has the best media and should be at least 90 GPH as it's a cross for the P551315. Which Fleetguard do you run?

A hotter thermostat should yield a hotter enigine bay and radiator for the same load, both of those will have an effect on fan operation for a fan clutch designed around a cooler thermostat, which would make it cycle more even with everything in proper working order. I’m certainly interested in hearing about more data when the temps warm up.

He is active on TDR and has a diesel repair shop that specializes in the HPCR fuel system. http://www.tcdiesel.com/

Looks like the issue is with the CP3. There are several components it could be. Personally I would call Todd at TC diesel. He knows his CP3’s and common rails.

A 200° thermostat cracks at 200° but it’s not fully open until around 215-217° which, IIRC, is well above the fan temp. For reference a 180° thermostat is fully open at 198° and had a max allowable (based on heat rejection data) of 212° The 190° is fully open at 207° and has a max allowable of 225°.

Since there is all the talk about 200° thermostat's I'll chime in. Dodge/Ram went to a 200° thermostat with the MY10 trucks. This was done to help increase fuel mileage, and presumably reduce emissions/regens. The hotter the engine the more efficient a diesel engine should be. For this reason I always said that I would switch to a 200° thermostat in my truck once we had fan control with UDC. Well we have UDC fan control and I will not be swapping out to a 200° thermostat. Dodge/Ram only ran the 200° thermostat for 3 years and that made me wonder why, especially since it should yield a more efficient truck. So I started doing a little research and the only thing I can come up with is that while the motor might be slightly more efficient the oil temps got too high while towing and they were seeing oil issues related to heat. There is nothing definitive thou. Oddly enough when the trucks went back to a 190° thermostat they also got an oil temp gauge (thou I cannot determine if they are real or fake). The newer trucks also have a much more aggressive fan schedule than the older ones, that keeps the coolant and oil temps lower. On a 2nd gen, or a non custom tuned 3rd gen, you won't have the ability to change the fans lockup temp and a 200° thermostat will cause the fan to operate more even thou the temps are in the normal range for a hotter thermostat. So that's my 0.02.