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Tuning a dozer

jjhdozing

Active Member
Joined
Feb 5, 2015
Messages
43
Location
Nebraska
Hey guys. Was just randomly thinking today. So I always see a lot of companies or people who do tunes on combines tractors ect. And they claim they get better fuel consumption and maybe gain 30 horse or something like that. Has anybody done this to any construction equipment or looked into it?
 

funwithfuel

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2017
Messages
5,600
Location
Will county Illinois
Occupation
Mechanic
valve adjustment is routine maintenance. It should not be neglected. 30 hp? Never! A little less smoke. A touch more economy, maybe. Plus you have the opportunity to see whats going on in the valve cover. Is there soot build up, are the valves getting beaten to death, is the cam ok. Stuff you wouldn't normally see in a service of say 250 or 500 hrs.
 

John C.

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2007
Messages
12,870
Location
Northwest
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Machinery & Equipment Appraiser
The only thing really tunable is the hydraulic system and since it's only the blade and maybe the steering system it would only account for comfort. Even that now days is electronically controlled and the only thing adjustable there is the gain on the control handles.
 

walkerv

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 21, 2016
Messages
1,125
Location
wingate nc
valve adjustment is routine maintenance. It should not be neglected. 30 hp? Never! A little less smoke. A touch more economy, maybe. Plus you have the opportunity to see whats going on in the valve cover. Is there soot build up, are the valves getting beaten to death, is the cam ok. Stuff you wouldn't normally see in a service of say 250 or 500 hrs.
I do believe he means tune as in tuner , mnmillenium farmer on you tube just purchased a tuner for his equipment and is ramping everything he has 100hp.
 

Delmer

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 3, 2013
Messages
8,891
Location
WI
It depends on what kind of engine you have. What they're usually "tuning" is removing the emmisions so it doesn't break down at the worst time.

Tractors or dozers usually have engines that are also used in other industrial applications, in other applications they might have a horsepower rating double that of the tractor/dozer rating. So, yes there are engines that can get an extra 100HP and better fuel economy. The tradeoff is obvious, an engine in an excavator at 100HP will have a good reputation, and the same engine in a fire truck or pleasure boat with 300 HP will be called the worst engine the company ever made. That tuning could be a software/chip type of thing, or on older stuff it's "turning up the screw" in a lot of cases (turning up the screw won't get you all the way there...)
 

bam1968

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
533
Location
IA
Occupation
Excavating Contractor
I have ran a few dozers that seem pretty 'sluggish' at times compared to others of the same make, model and series. So, like Delmer said, a "turning of the screw" on a sluggish machine would likely give you a few more ponies and make the machine a little more responsive. But, too much power and you seem to be constantly fighting spinning your tracks all the time.

I have 2 Komatsu D65's. One seems to run just as it should and the other will spin the tracks in a heartbeat if run at full RPM's and it burns significantly more fuel than the other one. I'm guessing the one dozer was 'turned up' by the previous owner. A little too much. Just my $.02
 

John C.

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Joined
Jun 11, 2007
Messages
12,870
Location
Northwest
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Machinery & Equipment Appraiser
I saw that video with the farmer and the combines and there are some things that weren't made real clear. First of all they were working on an engine that had many applications which had more horsepower than that used in the combine. What I understand that they did was an aftermarket company put out software that apparently changed the engine settings to one of higher horsepower use. They dance around warranties and don't mention the legalities of the changes at all. The didn't change anything with the emissions on camera. Software was down loaded directly from the supplier's server after the necessary hardware was installed in the machine.

Dozers and wheel loaders for the most part are engineered pretty well so just getting more horsepower in most cases does a lot of early wear and premature component failures. I can say for sure that any changes made on construction machinery of that type would definitely make obtaining warranty coverage very difficult is not impossible.
 

JD955SC

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 13, 2011
Messages
1,357
Location
The South
I can adjust certain parameters in ET but messing with anything engine performance related requires a factory password. Sometimes doing a flash file update for the engine ECM will change these parameters and you have to get a factory password too.

Unofficially I don’t know what software could be used. I don’t see a lot of deletes and tuning with cat equipment I see more advertised for JD ag stuff
 

StanRUS

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2016
Messages
767
Location
Cal
Unofficially I don’t know what software could be used. I don’t see a lot of deletes and tuning with cat equipment
Bootleg factory pass code generator. Not really a need for construction equipment. On-road truckers with Cats tweak everything. They're very knowledgeable using different flash codes, cams, turbo configurations, ECMs etc. Typical trucker; 'I've got 1,450,000 miles, can I add 150hp by using 800hp cam'? Crazy
 

oceanobob

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 13, 2010
Messages
751
Location
oceano california
Occupation
general contractor
And here I thought it had to do with the vertical alignment of the front idler to the plane of the rollers on the track to reduce the 'rocking'....
 
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