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Anyone have experience with high idle hours?

H3LZSN1P3R

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I have a 2016 2500 5.7 SLT that I am planning on Idling for a few hours at a time because I have a Search and Rescue K9 in there. Is there anything I can do to help the truck? I already do many oil changes. I have had the rig for 2+ years and only put 5k miles and have done 3 oil changes. It is also used to tow every so often. I am thinking about installing an auxiliary fan. Money is not really a concern as we just dropped 40k in upgrades to make this a SAR\Overlanding Rig.
The best thing to do is rig up something so you can bump the idle up to 1000rpm or so that will help the engine with long idle hours
 

himesandseek

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The best thing to do is rig up something so you can bump the idle up to 1000rpm or so that will help the engine with long idle hours
OK. It seems like that's a common solution I am seeing. Any thoughts on how to go about that?
 

Icky

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My 13 megacab diesel you can hit the cruise control button and turn up the rpms with the "set" buttons
 

H3LZSN1P3R

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My 13 megacab diesel you can hit the cruise control button and turn up the rpms with the "set" buttons
Thats a diesel feature not available on the gassers to my knowledge
 

jetrinka

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I've read an idle up feature is available for Hemi and Cummins equipped chassis cab trucks which I'd think should be able to be activated with AlfaOBD (?) but haven't read anything equivalent for the 5.7.

Also I believe Power Wagons have this feature that automatically bumps the idle up when voltage dips below a certain point for high load applications like winching. I know that when I ran my truck without a belt on it to try and track down a noise the idle went up to about 900 RPM - no alternator spinning = no charging = high idle to try and compensate.

I'd be curious if your 5.7 would do the same thing?
 

himesandseek

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Thats a diesel feature not available on the gassers to my knowledge
I know the Chassis have a factory high idle you can get as an option but the upfitters says its not available for the standard 2500 hemi. I wonder if you can use Alfa OBD.
 

himesandseek

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I've read an idle up feature is available for Hemi and Cummins equipped chassis cab trucks which I'd think should be able to be activated with AlfaOBD (?) but haven't read anything equivalent for the 5.7.

Also I believe Power Wagons have this feature that automatically bumps the idle up when voltage dips below a certain point for high load applications like winching. I know that when I ran my truck without a belt on it to try and track down a noise the idle went up to about 900 RPM - no alternator spinning = no charging = high idle to try and compensate.

I'd be curious if your 5.7 would do the same thing?
I should have read your post before I wrote mine about that article
.
 

himesandseek

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I've read an idle up feature is available for Hemi and Cummins equipped chassis cab trucks which I'd think should be able to be activated with AlfaOBD (?) but haven't read anything equivalent for the 5.7.

Also I believe Power Wagons have this feature that automatically bumps the idle up when voltage dips below a certain point for high load applications like winching. I know that when I ran my truck without a belt on it to try and track down a noise the idle went up to about 900 RPM - no alternator spinning = no charging = high idle to try and compensate.

I'd be curious if your 5.7 would do the same thing?
I am putting in 2 206AH batteries so which is 100A if they need a Bulk Charge. The alternator puts out 200A at idle so I don't know if that will up the RPM or not.
 

troverman

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I'd be pretty surprised if a factory alternator was putting down 200A at idle. Usually the alternator rating is peak power when the alternator is cool and the engine RPMs are fairly high. My 2500 has the 220A alternator and I'd guess more like 150A at idle, probably less when everything is really hot.
 

himesandseek

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I'd be pretty surprised if a factory alternator was putting down 200A at idle. Usually the alternator rating is peak power when the alternator is cool and the engine RPMs are fairly high. My 2500 has the 220A alternator and I'd guess more like 150A at idle, probably less when everything is really hot.
It's a Mechman 370A aftermarket
 

MCRDS-18

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Or maybe because in the manual it provides for a different oil change interval for higher idles times rather than mileage...
Im a operator for a natural gas/oil company in MS i have a 21 Ram 6.4 hemi its got 86700 miles on it 2048 idle hrs 2416 driving hrs i change my oil every 130 to 150 hrs which equals around 5000 miles r once a month ive always run PUP 0W40 and a srt filter no issues at all with lifter tick its just as quite as the day i bought it
 

silver billet

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Just because someone resurrected an old thread I'm going to leave my pair of pennies as well.

Idling itself doesn't kill the cam (as in, it gets lubricated well enough while idling), but as mentioned already Ram explicitly states that cars/trucks which idle a lot fall under severe duty usage and need their oil changed every 320 hours.

Biggest take away is, don't try long oil change intervals when you own a hemi, or even the 3.6 which also has lifter tick/failures. And if you idle a lot, definitely keep those OCI's short.
 

AH64ID

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The idle hours on my 22 are counting faster than on my 18, so something appears to have changed and I don’t think it’s my driving style.

It seems like the idle hours used to count while stopped only, and now they count at low speed too (such as when a keypad is not limited on the Uconnect, or EVIC programming is available).

They will absolutely count in drive, I’ve seen them roll up in traffic and I don’t use park at a stop light.
 

MCRDS-18

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Just because someone resurrected an old thread I'm going to leave my pair of pennies as well.

Idling itself doesn't kill the cam (as in, it gets lubricated well enough while idling), but as mentioned already Ram explicitly states that cars/trucks which idle a lot fall under severe duty usage and need their oil changed every 320 hours.

Biggest take away is, don't try long oil change intervals when you own a hemi, or even the 3.6 which also has lifter tick/failures. And if you idle a lot, definitely keep those OCI's short.
U r right alot of folks go strictly by the oil change indicator and dont read the fine print in owner’s manual as to what classifies as severe duty applications which most folks don’t fall into that category their have been times I’ve idled my 6.4 18 to 20 hrs the oil psi stayed at 33 psi
 

troverman

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The life indicator should take into account everything and give an accurate picture of oil life. It should take into account the number of hot-cold cycles, idle time, low speed driving, etc, etc. Not just number of miles and days since the last reset.
 

AH64ID

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U r right alot of folks go strictly by the oil change indicator and dont read the fine print in owner’s manual as to what classifies as severe duty applications which most folks don’t fall into that category their have been times I’ve idled my 6.4 18 to 20 hrs the oil psi stayed at 33 psi

The separate normal service and severe service maintenance intervals no longer exist. It’s all rolled into one for gas and one for diesel now.

Does the Hemi OCI not account for hours?

The verbiage about the Cummins indicator makes it sound like it will account for hours, miles, or other factors that reduce it from 15K/500. It is known that it doesn’t account for months, which is dumb.
 

H3LZSN1P3R

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The separate normal service and severe service maintenance intervals no longer exist. It’s all rolled into one for gas and one for diesel now.

Does the Hemi OCI not account for hours?

The verbiage about the Cummins indicator makes it sound like it will account for hours, miles, or other factors that reduce it from 15K/500. It is known that it doesn’t account for months, which is dumb.
The diesel counts for everything but time which i like in the winter my OCI does not follow just the millage as i typically get most of a year on an oil changes lately when it hits winter months and increased idle time also low speed plowing the % drops at a faster rate in the summer the % seems to match the km very close
 

MCRDS-18

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The life indicator should take into account everything and give an accurate picture of oil life. It should take into account the number of hot-cold cycles, idle time, low speed driving, etc, etc. Not just number of miles and days since the last reset.
It should and probably does do everything u talked about vehicles nowadays r alot smarter than me i guess im just old school as of today i got little over 1500 miles before i hit my 5000 mile mark on this oil change and my indicator showing 48% left
 

troverman

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The diesel OCI takes into account the number of active regenerations the performed, as this process ends up adding some diesel fuel to the crankcase.
 

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