1940 3 1/2 to 8 ton 2 stroke Diesel

Very popular on the oil drilling rigs I worked on in the 80's. They would have a left hand and right hand 6-71 coupled together. The engines would be close together with the blowers on the outsides.

 

The junkyard here in town has a big home-made four wheel drive tractor built in the late forties with a big diesel engine in it, articulated steering, etc. This thing was used for thirty years of more by the guy who built it. Lots of people, including reps of big farm machinery manufacturers came and looked this thing over. It was said to be copied by a manufacturer in the sixties - don't remember the name, other than they were yellow, not MM, though. Same guy also put a newer three cylinder diesel into a late forties, early fifties Dodge cabover.

 

With all the pressure from the blower, the side doors on the engine would leak oil, like crazy if they were a little loose. Don't ever remember seeing a Gimmy that did not need to be steam cleaned.Ice man

 

I thought it was Gray Marine that originally produced the 6-71 engine and that GM bought them out in 1939 or 1940.

Nonetheless, the high power-to-weight ratio really helped make the two-stroke diesels popular.

 

When I was in high school (class of '56), Us 41 ran right past the building, and if you were in a classroom on the North side of the hall you could look out the window at the traffic passing by. There was a traffic light at each end of the 2 block long campus on cross streets. So lots of times the big rigs passing by were accelerating away from a light and really bellowing. I remember that Terminal Transport had a bunch of new trucks with a Hydramatic trans with God only knows how many forward speeds. They never stopped changing gears as the passed by.
Later I did a stint in the oil fields of West Texas around Odessa. Remember vividly one day working as a roustabout at a new rig with BIG twin Jimmies, no mufflers and stacks that looked to be 6"-8" OD straight out towards where we were working. When that rig was drilling and working those engines hard it hurt your ears.
Don't want to start an arguement, but seems to me that sometime way back I read in Hot Rod Mag that the blower actually was used to scavenge the exhaust out of the engine. Perhaps it did this by forcing the intake charge in, I dunno.
Dave

 

AMEN brother!! Drove a log truck with 8-71 for years and our log skidder had a 6-71 in it.The exhaust pipe was on the roof and you did not get drunk on a work night!! that thing would kill you if you tried to run it with a hangover

 

Speaking of truck and tractor pulling i used to truck pull and a guy i ran with had a 70 ford dually with a 4-71 in it that thing would run off and hide from my 454

 

A 318 Detroit is a V 6-53. 53 cubic inches per hole and 6 of them = 318,...They run at higher RPM then 71 series. Somewhere near 3400 RPM. The 71's run around 22-2300 RPM.

 

This is exactly what the blower does. If you look at the picture i posted it shows a cutaway of the cylinder, with holes in the sides of the bore. When the piston is near the bottom of the stroke, the holes are uncovered and the intake air is blown in. The intake air pushes the exhaust gases out through the valves at the top.

So the blower or supercharger doesn't increase the volume or pressure of the intake air, it just takes the place of the intake and exhaust strokes. The term supercharger still applies, but not as we as hot rodders normally think of it.

 

When I was in the Air Force in NJ we had 2 things we pulled airplanes around with. I forgot what they called time but they were big and had 4 wheel steer. One had GM power and the other one had Cummins power. In the winter time we basically parked the GM powered one because it was such a bitch to start. I guess it had a 671 in it. It had glow plugs but that didn't seem to help. The Cummins one started every time no matter how cold it got. If it had glow plugs they were automatic. Also, I think that guy that holds the truck speed record at Bonneville in that Freightliner has a V16 Detroit in it. He also holds the Pike's Peak record.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ffkS37miQ
Twin stick video, thought you'd like it!

 

sorry, but this is not correct. The earlier post regarding the 8v-71 being known as the "318" due to that being the horsepower rating is correct. A 6V-53 was lucky to produce 200HP

 

Carl Heap and his 16:92 Detroit powered 47 or so International (I think might have been a GMC) truck went close to 300 at Bonneville.

 

The "318" did cause confusion because it referred to both the displacement of the 6V-53 and the HP of the 8V-71, I've heard it used both ways but most of the old timers that talk about a 318 are referring to an 8V-71.

 

hey, I resemble that remark!

 

They still used used the 6V-92 in NYC buses up until around 1999 or so then they retired the old ones and repowered the newer buses with the Series50. The old mechanically injected ones ran like a scalded cat if tuned right. If they were tuned wrong they smoked like locomotives and didn't have enough power to pull your socks up.

 

I have been toying with the idea of a 4-53T silver series in a jeep J20. That would be a hauler.

 

RacerRick have you seen the one's on utube? Click on this and see! If you are ever looking for a particular engine sound or an usual car, try u-tube, it will keep you busy for hours. The radial engine's are something, try 3350 or Rare Bear. I hope you enjoy it. Lucky http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0o1o5W_f6o

 

---------------------
318 was a very common mid '60 to late '70's horsepower rating for a lot of 8V71 truck engines. So common in fact that that a lot guys simply referred to all 8V71's as "318s", regardless of what horsepower they were originally set at The blower you want/need
for a car supercharger application is the one from an *inline* 6-71. The keyword here being "inline", as these blowers used a mounting flange on the case that will bolt to a commercially availble blower manifold. The V series blowers ( 6V71, 8V71, 12V71 and
16V71 blowers dont have a conventional mounting flange and instead use thru bolts
and clamps to hold the blower in place in the Vee between the cylinder heads. The inline 6-71 came in numerous horsepower ratings over the years from less than 125 to well over
500 hp for some specialized marine aplications, but a common truck rating was 238 hp.
Tell your uncle you need a blower from an old "238 Jimmy" and he should know what
you're talking about!

mart
===========================================

 

----------------------
A lot of truck and industrial 6V53's were rated in the low-200 hp range but the military used a 265 hp version in the M113 armored personal carrier. And this 265 hp ratng has since been superceded, uprated first to 275 hp and finally to 400 hp in the latest 6V53TIA military verson. To my thinking, 400 hp's not too shabby from a little 318 cubic inch V6 diesel turning 3200 rpm!

mart
===================================

 

Nothing rare about a 71 series detroit. Only one way to drive one, First you slam your fingers between the door and door jam, all this does is piss you off and now you can drive any 2 stroke detroit.

 

Ouch!!! What happened to that poor old GMC 'Crackerbox'????
mart
========================================

 

anybody here ever have the misfortune to experience a gm/detroit ''runaway ?''

 

best time i had as a kid was my dads new 1972 transtar 4300 with a 318 and 13 OD trany, i was only 13 at the time and me and all the other boys my age got the drive or dads logging trucks offroad, by the time i was 19 and got my class one he had a 8V92, a 435hp, come fall he and i trucked Xmas trees down into the new england states, down through the airline or the hainesville woods, A TOMBSTONE EVERY MILE, as the song goes, the last 8V92 was a 475, the silver tiped grizzly they called it, i think i can still here one fireup from miles away.

 

not a runaway, but have be in when the throttle return spring broke and dad drove the truck home useing the fuel shut off to shift. they runaway when they run backwards?

 

A ''runaway'' is when the injector linkage goes way over center and the throttle takes off; you can't stop it. Throw a rag or blanket over the air intake and it gets sucked in. Shut off the fuel valve and the engine feeds off the oil in the crankcase. Old timer mechanics say when an engine does a ''runaway'', YOU RUN AWAY !

 

wrote a song about it, here it goes..lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aFz...&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv&feature=player_embedded

 

As I understand it you can find 1-71 Detroits on old train-car refigeration units, I thought it would be fun to set a small diesel record at Bonneville with one.

You want a blower off an inline Detroit so the bolts go straight through to mount it, getting a blower of a V motor will make it much tougher to fab up an intake.

Carl Heap went to a top speed of 286 MPH in his 1947 International with a 16V92 with 4 turbos, I saw it, he was in bad shape from cancer when he did it and has passed away http://www.ugofadini.com/phoenixstory.html

I rode in a Greyhound in 1994 that had a 8V92T, no idea when they stopped putting 2 stroke diesels on the road.

I used to drive a 1976 Ford F250 with a 6V53T and 15 forward gears several times a week, I liked to load it up with a few thousand pounds and then get the Cummins Dodges to race me up hills.

The guy that races at Pike's Peak did drive the 16V92 Freightliner at Bonneville a few times but never set the record, the current record in that truck is held by Art Dick Jr. http://www.dieselpowermag.com/events/0612dp_2006_bonneville_salt_flats/photo_07.html

 

One of the oldest records at Bonneville was held by a 2-stoke GMC (Detroit) diesel. B/DS (B-Diesel Streamliner) was held by the Thermo King Special at 236.034 set in 1973 with a 6-71. The record stood for 34-years untill 2008 when it was finally broken in 2008 by a Duramax.

The Modified Diesel Truck (MDT) record held by "Joint Venture" (red & silver, pictured below) is still held by a 16V-92 GMC (Detroit) diesel at 224.163 MPH.

The 'Unlimited Diesel Truck' (UDT) is held by a 1947 International KB-8 called 'The Phoenix', (green, pictured below), powered by a 16V-92 GMC (Detroit) 2-stroke diesel at 272.685 MPH.

GMC Diesels were offered as optional equipment from the 1950's through the 1980's in Kenworth, Peterbilt, International, GMC, Dodge, Mack, Ford, Freightliner, White, and other HD trucks.

The most common in trucks were the inline 6-71, and V-8, 8V-71. A few trucks were sold with the V-12, 12V-71.

The Ford pickup pictured below, at Bonneville, had a GMC (Detroit Diesel) 12V-92 (somewhere around 900-HP) installed in it!!

The 2-stroke GMC's (Detroit Diesels) were phased out of highway truck use by about 1988, primarially due to emissions (noise & smoke) and the fact that the newer 4-strokes got better fuel economy.

JG

 

That was a 16V144 tugboat motor in a International. Two blowers, four turbochargers.

I worked for a large truck fleet, did an in chassis rebuild, new mains, new cylinder kits, liners,pistons, and rings, and a reconditioned head, in 8 hours. I did 5 a week for years.

The early 6-71 was rated at 150 hp.from 1960 to 1980, most of them were rated at 238 hp. there was also a turbocharged version, turbo into a blower, that was rated at 270 hp. We used to advance the cam timing 5 degrees, one tooth over stock, install bigger injectors, and could get them up near 300 hp without a turbo.

A 6-71 is 426 cubes, as is a two cylinder John Deere model G.