Diesel guys, need explaination

[Bigjay73]

Was driving down the interstate last night, and a guy in a Chevy diesel had to pull over because he had a 4ft flame shooting out of his exhaust. It didn't go out when he pulled over, he tried throwing a water bottles contents on it, which seemed comical. What caused that to happen?

 

[SD_Prairie_Goat]

Was driving down the interstate last night, and a guy in a Chevy diesel had to pull over because he had a 4ft flame shooting out of his exhaust. It didn't go out when he pulled over, he tried throwing a water bottles contents on it, which seemed comical. What caused that to happen?

my guess, he's running it rich, so there ends up with a small amount of unburned fuel in the pipes. Eventually it builds up enough and the exhaust gas gets hot enough to ignite the fuel built up in the pipes.

Just a guess with my limited knowledge on the subject

 

[fachries]

my guess, he's running it rich, so there ends up with a small amount of unburned fuel in the pipes. Eventually it builds up enough and the exhaust gas gets hot enough to ignite the fuel built up in the pipes.

Just a guess with my limited knowledge on the subject

+1

 

[Bigjay73]

That makes sense. It looked cool as hell lol, hope it didn't do any damage to his truck

 

[Schism]

Ford had the issue on a few diesel pickups in some of the first DPF equipped models. I haven't heard about the issue with other manufacturers and they've had quite some time to tweak the DPF systems.

My guess would be the fellow above had a tuner on his pickup which led it to run rich as explained by @SD_Prairie_Goat. If the DPF was still present and the pickup went in to regen, the unburnt fuel ignited and created the flame, similar to what Ford had happen in the early DPF days.

 

[Ajax2744]

Yup unburned fuel that ends up in the exhaust will get super heated from the exhaust and once it hits oxygen outside of the exhaust pipe it'll instantly ignite.

 

[338 win mag]

If it was a newer truck with DPF emissions equipment, it was more likely a malfunction with it burning out soot in the filter. It is possible it was un-burnt fuel but probably a little less likely. Coming from my truck and tractor pull day, he was running some pretty high EGT's if theres was a flame coming out his exhaust

 

[Elkmagnet]

07 and newer diesel trucks have a diesel particulate filter in the exhaust. When the filter gets plugged the truck asks for a regen where you drive above a certain speed for a specific time and the truck puts extra fuel into the filter to burn it out. a malfunction or Ignoring it for to long and the potential is there.

Diesel particulate filter - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

.

 

[diamond hitch]

Had 4. Never seen that!

 

[dan.kirkpatrick]

most likely in a regen mode situation,,or the extra injection cycle for the regen ""basically injecting diesel into the exhaust manifold got stuck and is injecting still" is in a stuck situation.