AH64ID

No, but when it's 10° out I gotta have some heat :-)

It's the additional flow outside the block. While the coolant filter doesn't have a heat exchanger it does shed heat thru its surface. I have also found a huge different in warmup time based in the fan setting on the heater. I try to leave it on 1 until the block is warm.

My coolant filter takes pressurized coolant from the aft most port between the exhaust manifold and cylinder cover. The return is into the heater core return which is on the suction side of the water pump. The flow is low; however, anything is more than stock and it made a noticeable difference in warmup times.

My cam, coolant filter, and turbo don't help it warm up. It's by far the most cold blooded 5.9 I know.

You do better than I do. Even in the summer my truck takes 8+ miles to get warm... UOA is the best answer to determining OCI.

10 miles can be hard on oil, but it may also be enough. Do you get to operating temp in 10 miles? If so for how long before shutting down? A UOA may not be a bad idea at the 7,500 mile mark. That's typically where I do mine and then it gets changed around 9-11K.

Leaks are something that synthetics are "known" for... but it's really a myth, kinda. What happens with older engines is that cheaper oils don't clean the engine out as well so minor sludge starts to form. The sludge most easily adheres to corners and seams, especially if a little gasket materiel is exposed. The seal may be deteriorating over time but the presence of sludge will block the small leak. Then you switch to a higher quality oil, typically a good synthetic, and it cleans out all the old sludge (this also why the first synthetic change interval on a high mileage motor is often recommended to be shorter). So you have cleaned the minor sludge off the corners and seams and now a deteriorated gasket/seal is exposed to more oil pressure and/or flow and a leak develops. So the synthetic didn't cause the leak it just exposed an existing one. So you may experience this and you may not. The detergent package in Amsoil is a good one. In terms of oil change interval I typically recommend 15K miles or one year without a UOA. What does a typical year look like for you in terms of truck use?That is with the Donaldson filters as I think it's a much better filter.

Yes I run that oil year round. It has a pour point of -40° F, compared to -22°F for Valvoline Premium Blue (Haven't I been reading about someone starting at -25°F without a block heater an this oil?? Ouch). The pout point on Valvoline Premium Blue Extreme (5w-40) is only -38°F, so the Amsoil AME is better off than the 5w-40 Extreme. I have started the truck in about -10° without a block heater and pressure builds very quickly. I think CI oil is better because it's still packing a higher Zinc/Phosperous additive package which is better for flat tappet motors. The CJ oil isn't going to ruin your motor, even the 16's still use flat tappets. The CI oil, in terms of Amsoil, is cheaper than CJ oil and also has a higher TBN so it will last longer in miles and months. These days my oil times out before it miles out. The AME retails for $39.70 a gallon but I can usually get it to your door for less than that. 2.5 gallon jugs are $96.50 retail, but again I usually get to the door for a bit cheaper, around $83/2.5 gal if that's all I were to buy. I have spoken to both Donaldson and Fleetguard within the last 18 months.

Yes Amsoil still makes and sells several CI-4+ oils. The AME is the one I recommend to nearly everyone. It's their Heavy Duty Diesel and Marine 15w-40. There are no links for the filter data. The data is stuff I have collected myself over the years from contacting the filter manufacturers.

UDC Pro 0.0.0.12 was released last Wednesday and I've been re-tuneing my truck. I did my last tune revision at the end of last years tow season and have been very very please with how it preforms so I really have done too much with the big tables, timing, rail pressure, and duration. I started off looking at the fuel limiters, of which there are many. Since my truck is used as a towing/hunting/camping truck I am not going crazy with the fuel. I was able to improve spooling and mid rpm fueling but utilizes the stock limiters to have a smoke free experience. I can now put my foot on the floor at 1500 rpms and not have any black out the tail pipe, yet it still lights the turbo and takes off as fast as before. After a few drives it feels like I have all my power thou I won't know until I hook up the trailer and head into the hills. Since my duration table hasn't changed and my timing is the same it should be the same... just depends on how the limiters are setup. Then it was time to address the pilot injection event. I had already completely killed the post even in my first tune. The pilot on the 04.5-07 and the 03-04 is HUGELY different. The DEMO and licensed version of UDC Pro have all the stock files from 03-16 in it which makes comparing easy. The 03-04 uses a smaller pilot with less timing and even shuts it off at higher rpms and loads. Before even looking at the 03-04 stock tunes my intent was to kill it above 2400 rpms from 0%-100% and above 2200 rpms from around 40%-100% load. Because I have the 03-04 piston I studied the stock stuff for 03-04 pretty hard and it gave me about an 80% solution. I have setup my pilot to be much, much, smaller and not have the huge timing advance that the 04.5-07 did, as much as 57° ahead of the main event! WOT at 2900 rpms the pilot was firing about 58° BTDC! The 03-04 only uses about 4-5mm3 per pilot shot while the 04.5-07 uses up to 15mm3. I was able to cut my pilot WAY down and bring the timing back a bit on it too, as well as drop it at the rpms I mentioned above. The transition from pilot to no pilot is very smooth and quiet, and the reduced pilot in normal driving rpms is an improvement as well. I have noticed my load is a little higher at idle now but I am guessing that's from a smaller pilot and thus a bigger main event. It's also easy to tell there was a lot more emissions restraints on the 04.5-07 engines than the 03-04. The 03-04 only has 2 altitude adjust tables while the 04.5-07 has 5! Aparantly the EPA was worried about emissions while towing at 18K feet... 90% of owners will only ever operate in tables 0 and 1 and the rest will likely never get to 3-4. Tables 0 and 1 are both for the same elevation, up to around 10K feet, but have different tables and triggers based on intake air temp. This is handy as you can mess with timing with a very high IAT. The tables start to blend at 90° and fully into table 1 at 180°. I was also able to drop my CC engage speed to 20! I have always hated the 35mph minimum from Dodge. As for licensing dongles only 1 is needed per tuner, not per VIN. So if you have a MAIN or VIN dongle you can get a Pro tune from a tuner with no additional dongles. If you want to do Pro yourself you will need a Pro license dongle. So there it is in a nutshell. There is also some real time tuning capabilities that I haven't messed with yet, but plan to purchase the hardware to do so shortly.

The old man bought a couple of them in the 90's for GM CAD. They always seemed to work well. One of the rigs was sold in 2007ish but he still has the other one with a posi-lol in it. I do recall hearing that the developer sold the company around 2000, ???, so the quality may have changed since we bought them. Fairly simple concept to make your own with. Gotcha. I did miss that. The SBC hydro's should be adjustable with that setup. I am not sure if you can get enough for your pedals to be flush or not. There are different part numbers for 2nd and 3rd gen SBC hydraulic kits thou.

I hope it doesn't hurt anything... mine isn't ever spinning anymore. Actually it shouldn't hurt a thing. Does posi lok still exist? Stock hydro's and stock clutch? Don't think those are going to hold up well to your power... G56 hydro's are different than NV5600/NV4500 hydro's and are much weaker. They cannot be reused with any SMF conversion clutch due to their weakness.

The AME is a group IV base stock, as is the HDD. Not sure which oil is the HDEO?? The blended oil was discontinued several years ago. AFIK the only group III's are the XL and OE; however, I haven't ever researched the CJ oils as I don't use or recommend them. I could see them being group III as the oil in stock pickups is generally contaminated with fuel before it's depleted. That being said with the 13+ trucks putting less fuel in the oil it may be worth looking at.

Actually you DO... Amsoil is a group IV base stock and Valvoline, Rotella, and Supertech are all group III base stocks. So yes it is VERY obvious if you do the research. Who should read and comprehend? Try a little education, it may help. Really!! Come on, let's at least compare fruit to fruit. Apples to apples is damn near impossible on this forum but fruit to fruit should at least be in the ball park. Please explain to me how you can compare OTR 900 cubic engines with 40-50qt sumps to the ISB? Look at horsepower:cubic inch, oil capacity:cubic inch, rpm band, and usage. They burn diesel and use the same spec oil but that's about where the servicing commonalities stop. Surely you have to know this, which means your throwing crap at the wall and hoping something will stick. It's just like trying to compare an OEM 480hp QSB Marine engine to a 325hp ISB in a pickup. The applications are so different that it's not really possible, even thou many of the parts are the same. As for the 650 hp ISB's those guys aren't ever making 650hp long enough to get the oil heat soaked. Most towing applications use about 375-450 at the most. 450 hp has long been considered the limit of the cooling and oiling system in these trucks. They don't have the ability to keep 650hp cooled and lubed on a sustained basis with OEM sumps and coolers. There have been some ISB's run high hp on the salt flats for land speed records and they have MASSIVE cooling systems for a reason. So again lets keep it fruit to fruit. They also help with a load applied. There is a visual difference in a stand alone oil pressure gauge when towing with synthetics. The dino doesn't ever get close to the minimum pressure; however, the synthetic holds pressure better. That means it handles the heat better, which is what we want in a 450 hp application that has 359 cubic inches and only 12 quarts of oil. It's not to say that dino doesn't work for most users but synthetic can do it better at the extremes. Sorry for all the edit's... the quote feature is driving me nuts the last few days.

The 3rd gen transfer cases are not syncro'd so the grinding is normal since you have a CAD truck. The 3rd gen's don't have hubs or CAD so the front driveshaft is always spinning and therefore no syncro's are needed. If you want shift on the fly you might have to eliminate the CAD or add a manual CAD switch and then hit the transfer case into 4. Looks good!! When you tow you will love that 0.79 6th. I really want to swap my NV-5600 for a AD G56 but I cannot justify the cost. The 0.79 makes my dad's 06 tow better in 6th than my NV-5600 and I have about 150-200 lb/ft more than he does. Larger tires will help with 6th rpm's but lower then in 5th too. Just have to look at your towing frequency and speed/rpm range. What hydraulics/clutch are you using?

Going back to your first post the Delvac SAE 50 is not what Mercedes reccommends, but rather is it close. However it carries a MT-1 designation and not GL-4 like the Delvac SHC that meets the Mercedes spec. The same oil that meets the NV4500 specs is the closest I have found to the Mercedes spec for the G-56. That's a 75w-90 GL-4. I like the Amsoil MTF as it also meets some of the crosses the SHC meets. The Delvac SAE 50 is a MT-1 fluid which is a different spec than the GL-4 that the G56 (and NV4500) want. Neither of those fluids share the GL-4 rating that the G-56 Mercedes specs indicate. Those are a MT-1 and a Syncromesh, which are different than GL-4. The biggest thing I see in common with all the G-56 fluid threads is that people think a gearbox is a gearbox and a 6 speed is a 6 speed. Any amount of research will indicate that it's not the case. Proper fluid is important. If a transmission was a transmission there wouldn't be so many spec's for fluids.

No there is no proof that the engine will last longer. There is proof that the oil will last longer and preform better in hot and cold environments, which is the reason many people run it over dino oil. This is also the reason OEM's require it in high performance engines. It handles the stress of high power better, whether that's heat, sheer, or tight tolerances. Even the OEM fill from Ram/Cummins is a synthetic. There isn't a dino oil I can buy that meets year round requirements here. Yes we all know Michael runs 15w-40 in -25° F without a block heater but . I wouldn't recommend that practice, and neither does Cummins. Oil is like batteries. There are only a few companies that make the batteries, or base stocks, but that in no way means that they are all the same. There are many levels of manufacturing from one manufacturer. You cannot buy the Amsoil base stock and additives in a Valvoline package so it's a mute point that they are made with products from the same company. If the $10 Valvoline was identical to the $20 Amsoil then yes you could do a smoke and mirrors comparison, but it's not. The most frustrating thing about all of these fluid threads is that they end the same way.. a LOT of misinformation. Call it what it is and if you don't want to run it then don't.. or if you want to run it then run it. But at least put accurate comments out there. I have ran both in my truck. There is a noticeable difference on the oil pressure gauge with synthetic oil and that's all I can claim. Synthetic builds pressure much faster in the cold and holds pressure longer in the heat (towing up a grade). I don't have any UOA with 15w-40 Valvoline Premium Blue dino as I only ran it for about 8K miles, but I didn't like it in winter and it was never even that cold with it.

I still don't get why they would recommend a lighter weight oil than OEM for a manual transmission. Seems to me like it's to guarantee repeat trans business I'd sure be nervous towing with it. Especially when the proper grade top shelf synthetic can be had for cheaper.

It'll buff out.

I just sold 3 quarts of Amsoil GL-4 MTG to a guy who is going to mix it with 2 quarts of Delvac 50.

Isn't a 50wt a LOT thinner oil? Doesn't seem like an improvement in a transmission... but that's my 0.02. Maybe I am missing something. IIRC guys use the Delvac 50 in the G56 to get an oil that is between the standard GL-4 in the NV4500 and the ATF from the factory. It probably wont hurt anything, but seems odd at an initial glance. I never worried about mail order on things you have to replace every 50K miles, or more... just seems like an excuse and nothing more. Besides I could have gotten you the amsoil 5 gallon pail for $20 less to your door.. tax and shipping included. So which oil is the expensive one? At least you have enough oil for another 200K miles :-)

The ELF is black and the DBL is blue... that's it. While many of the filters did improve with the DBL transition the 7349 already had their top of the line full flow media. www.filterspro.com

The I wonder who I am thinking of that had to replace an engine to break the million mile mark??? Oh well. Impressive indeed, but not comparable to over 99% of pickup owners. It all depends on the filter application. The ISB application doesn't call for a drainback valve, but many vehicles do. TBN is the oils ability to fight the effects of combustion. Even the tightest of rings allows some of the combustion residue down the cylinder walls and into the oil. Combustion creates an acidic enviornment so the TBN (Total Base Number) is what fights that. Generally speaking the higher the TBN the longer the oil can last. Acidity starts to degrade oil as soon as you start the engine after an oil change. This is the reason for the rating of 6 months on most OCI's. This comes up fairly often and I would have figured you would remember the info better Michael. A higher filtration rating doesn't mean a lower flow rating. Filters are designed to meet certain specs, such as filtration and flow. In fact the Donaldson ELF7349 has better flow and filtration than the OEM and Fleetguard Stratapore filters. The Donaldson is rated for 15µ at 20 GPM, while the Fleetguards are only rated at 8.72 GPM. The ISB oil pump is rated for 20.5 GPM at 4200 rpms, so the Donaldson will outflow nearly everyones rpm band; however, 8.72 GPM isn't all that much and 2500 rpms could easily exceed the filters rating and flow. Personally I don't see why anyone would run anything but the Donaldson.

Thread got big in a few days so I am just going to jump in here... I run synthetic for 3 main reasons. 1) Cold temperature performance. I have seen the published specs and done my own test at -5°F. I would NOT be running non-synthetic 15w-40 below 0°F on more than a very rare occasion. It simply doesn't flow fast enough to do what it needs to at startup. 2) Hot temperature performance. I tow thru the mountains all summer long and with coolant at 215° and EGT's at 1150° on steep grades the oil is bound to get warm. I see a pressure drop from 55 to 42ish on long pulls. That's hot oil and I want the best performance I can get at those temps, and IMHO that's from synthetic. A caveat is that I monitor oil pressure in the cam journal above the ECM so I will see a bigger pressure change from heat there than someone who is monitoring pressure at the oil filter head. 3) Drain interval. These days I only get about 9-12K miles a year on the truck and I want the oil to last a year. Synthetic is what I will run for that time frame. Dino can make the miles but since oil deteriorates sitting and driving I need something with a higher TBN and additive package to make it 12 months. Dino oil's just aren't known for being much more than 6 month oils. As far as CajFlynn's 1.3 million miles. IIRC he was on the 2nd engine right? Still an amazing feet; however, none of us in here use our trucks like he did and therefor cannot even use his truck as a comparison. It's a very different duty cycle when you hotshot. As for filters I run the DBL/ELF 7349. It's got the best rating, 15µ absolute, of any full flow oil filter available for these trucks. All the filters drain back to about 1/2-2/3 full, at least AFIK, even the OEM ones. There is no drainback built into the filter based on how/where it sits on the block. Don't believe me, then check out the bigger forums. There are always threads popping up about filters being 1/2 full at the oil change. Oil pressure still comes up VERY fast and it's not an issue. I see pressure within 2-3 seconds on the far side of the block from the oil pump even when the truck has been sitting a while. I never prefill my filter. Virgin oil is not as clean as you think. Oil fills the filter very fast and pressure builds only negligibly slower with a 100% dry filter. It's not worth my time to prefill thru the outer holes only. Filling the center hole means sending unfiltered oil thru the engine. I remember when pre-oilers where big. They went away as advancements in oils were made. Basically the oil clings well enough after shutdown and flows fast enough as startup that it removed the need for the pre-oiling systems.

Looks good! Why not the gauges that match the dash? I think I have one of those gauge pillars lying around I would have given ya... I took it out due to how much of the view it blocks vs the single pod.