start-up smoke and campground etiquette

[bevans6]

What do you do?  Maybe my 8V71 will clean up a bit when I'm actually driving it rather that idling it in my driveway, but how do you deal with lighting off in the campground in the morning when you are about to get on the road?  Even with airing up with an aux compressor and waiting till you get out of the camping area of the park to do your daily, you are still going to kill a lot of mosquitoes!

I've been considering an exhaust stack at the back to get the smoke 10 feet off the ground.  What do you guys do?

Brian

[Stormcloud]

Drive away fast, and don't make eye contact!.....

[Dreamscape]

I fire mine up, air it up and get the heck outa dodge! I have all of my disconnects finished, stuff inside ready to rock and roll.  

Besides, it's great for killing dem skeeters!

Course that is after I've done the pre-trip check!

Paul

[luvrbus]

Do like people do with the 855 Cummins and 3208 Cat engine pre heat the engine with your block heater.FWIW guys if your engine is in good shape and tuned good you should have very little smoke

good luck

[fe2_o3]

I see three choises here.
1. Start it at 3AM. They will be so pissed about loss of sleep the smoke becomes a non-issue.
2. Use a block heater to get it closer to running temp and cutting down on smoke.
3. Rebuild the engine.
    I use # 2......Cable

[Airbag]

My 8V71 does not smoke at idle only if you mash the throttle so I try to pull away using as little throttle as possible. In the campgrounds that's easy to do. I've never met a camper that did not like my bus.

[gus]

My 671 only smokes if it is 50*F or colder.

When it is I use a small squirt of starting fluid into the air box and it smokes very little.

My first attempt at cold starting was in WY in the high 20s and the smoke was a real embarrasment, I never did it again!

[Len Silva]

Make friends with all your neighbors.  They will be much more forgiving.

[bevans6]

No one gets the exhaust up off the ground?  seems like a simple, if possibly odd looking, alternative.

Brian

[WEC4104]

Before I had my 6-71 in-framed, if I started the engine under 50 degrees, I could pretty much count on a significant "smoke event".  I could avoid this of course if I used the engine block heater.

But there were a few times when our travel plans changed suddenly, or for some other reason I didn't do the preheat.   If I was in a campground, often times I had already met the neighbors, and chances are they had already come over and toured the inside of the bus. For those folks, I would extend a courtesy of letting them know what was about to happen.  I explained that a cold start meant lots of smoke, and that it would clear up in a few minutes. I suggested they close any windows and that I would leave as absolutely soon as I was able.  I got a few confused looks from folks, but most said "thanks for the heads up" or "no problem".

On my 4104, it would take me 2-3 minutes to air up if I had been parked a couple of days. That was the biggest issue since I had to sit there smoking away until I could release the brake and get rolling.  I contemplated rigging a compressor to air up before I started the engine, but the number of times I would have to use it was really pretty small.

I also discovered that if I started the engine and left it at it's normal idle (~500 rpm) it took forever to stop smoking.  But if I kept my foot on the pedal slightly to make it idle at 800-900 rpm, the smoking would clear up much faster, sometimes immediately.   If I took my foot off and let it drop back to 500, it would start smoking again.   So if I got pinned in a campground cold start situation, I'd keep the RPMs up, which also helped me air up faster.  

I have another suggestion, too.   You might try starting your engine and only letting it run for only 10-15 seconds, and then shut it down.  That will create a smoke event of hopefully minor proportions. Then let the engine sit for 3-5 minutes to let some of the created heat warm the block and engine components.  My thinking is that when you do the restart you should have a head start on the warm up process.  

Another possibility would be to open the engine compartment and perform the starting process from back there.  You could crank the engine for 10-15 seconds with the fuel feed to the engine off. This would use the engine compression process to generate heat without dumping fuel in there to turn into volumes of gray smoke.   Let the heat spread for a few minutes, turn the fuel back on, and start it normally.


 

[buswarrior]

As you posted, once you get that coach on the road and get that engine working, the smoking on start-up might stop....

As a courtesy, unless I am at a busnut rally, I will air up the coach with an electric compressor, pack up, un-plug, stow etc, start engine, and immediately on engine start-up, pull away with as little throttle use as possible.

You will immediately separate yourself as special from just about every other camper, busnut or otherwise, in that your clean and efficient get away was over and done with without bothering anyone any longer than necessary.

If your coach smokes less warmed up, turn the block heater on (wired inside for easy activation) have breakfast, do the rest of the clean up chores, the block will be warm for the start.

Build that air compressor in and make it quiet. A noisy air compressor might be more irritating than the big Detroit! Also activated by a switch inside.

With some creativity, almost an entire pre-trip can be done silently in the camp site without starting the coach.
Air up with an onboard electric compressor, block the wheels, release the parking brake, lights on, round you go, check the tire pressures and listen.

Please do not pump down the brakes in a campground, or otherwise do loud or smelly stuff. You'll get the rest of us banned!

I am fortunate that my coach does not smoke when being driven regularly, but I prefer to be as invisible as possible.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[Charles in SC]

When I park at a campground I try to do it in such a way as to aim the exhaust with the next start up in mind. If this is not possible wait til the neighbors are not there or just start up and get the H--- out of Dodge without making eye contact as suggested above.

[TomC]

One of the many reasons I bought my AMGeneral transit is that it has an up exhaust stack built into the left rear-hence no smoke at ground level.  Good Luck, TomC

[gus]

My 671 smokes very little when cold if I use starting fluid. If I don't, it is hard to start and this makes huge clouds of smoke once it starts The more it cranks without starting the worse the smoke will be.

The fuel in a 671 is automatically always on when there is no air pressure to shut it off.  If there is no air press it will start even with the engine run switch off. I presume an 8V71 is the same?

So, it seems to me the secret is to get it started quickly and idle it fast. It is much worse at slow idle.

Block heating or starting fluid seems to be the answer!

[BG6]

I do three things:

1)  Plug in the block heater the day before the move

2)  Use a compressor to air up (Harbor Freight cheapie, cost me about $75 and useful for air tools, etc)

3)  EVERYTHING is done, unhooked, etc before hitting the starter, then after one minute of idle, I idle my way out of the space toward the front.  I'm not worried about the smoke clouds once past the gate, they go away after a mile and they discourage tailgaters.

I don't see how moving the exhaust would do anything other than distribute the smoke over a wider area.