Smokey KAD 300s

[paulrh]

smokey

white smoke means un-burnt fuel this is normal on cold engines when the engine get to normal working temp 88 deg then the smoke should go.

 

[zackary]

KAMD 300

Hello, I have twin Volvo KAMD 300's. -200 hours. The port engine smokes a little white smoke at startup. At full throttle the max RPM is 3500, and there is black soot mixed in the exhaust water...after the engine runs at full throtttle for about 20 minutes, the temp horn and light come on. This engine should run at 3950..I have checked out the turbo and plumbing, all is good and clean..I have replaced the belts, impeller, and both thermostats....Does anyone have any suggestions...Thanks

 

[zackary]

KAMD 300= RPM Loss, soot, overheats

KAMD 300

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello, I have twin Volvo KAMD 300's. -200 hours. The port engine smokes a little white smoke at startup. At full throttle the max RPM is 3500, and there is black soot mixed in the exhaust water...after the engine runs at full throtttle for about 20 minutes, the temp horn and light come on. This engine should run at 3950..I have checked out the turbo and plumbing, all is good and clean..I have replaced the belts, impeller, and both thermostats....Does anyone have any suggestions...Thanks

 

[gjgm]

I have 2 kad 300 engines on my boat.They have about 430 hours on each.Thay have always been a bit smokey ,but lately a bit more than normal i think.They seem to be running perfectly

Is this normal and is there anything i should be worried about.

Smokey when running and warm, or on start up?
If on start up, just sit back and admire the way the pontoon disappears in a puff of smoke. Magic. Then give them a good spin at 3800 rpm . You will feel better anyway.
Very hard to gauge this, but black,white or blue smoke? I think black is usually unburnt fuel, white- steam, and blue- oil. Obviously option 3 isnt so good.
I think they also seem to get more smokey on start up if they've been sitting about for a few weeks.Not sure that is very scientific, but always seemed the case on KADs I ve had. A good blast seems to help.
Of course,there might be something up, but worrying over smokey Kads is a bit like looking up an ailment on the internet. Before you know it, you only got minutes left to live.

 

[scubaman]

Of course,there might be something up, but worrying over smokey Kads is a bit like looking up an ailment on the internet. Before you know it, you only got minutes left to live.

You hit the nail right on the head!

I posted about smokey KAMD300's some time back as the port side of the bathing platform on our boat gets considerably more sootier than the starboard side.

We then went on to have the injectors replaced on the port engine, but much to my disapointment it made virtually no difference. So as everything else works fine, I've decided to got back to keeping a dedicated mop in the bathing platform locker for cleaning up...

 

[Al Dickson]

No smoking

Mine have done nearly 800 hours and are still on the original injectors - they smoke on idle whether hot or cold and its worse in prolonged idle situations such as going through a canal - but it quickly clears when a few revs are applied.

Perhaps its more an engine characteristic than anything - reckon there's nothing much that can be done unless its doing it under load in which case I would be thinking about a faulty injector, timing problem, low compression, faulty fuel pump or even air in the fuel system.

 

[Latestarter1]

I Have KAMD 300s (shafts). They have always left plenty of grey on the transom after an hours run even from new. Now done around 300hrs. A little grey smoke on start-up from cold, but don't really notice smoke going along but do get a fair amount of white water vapour.

I may be wrong but I suspect these are intrinsically quite dirty engines, but probably not generally noticed if the hydro/aerodynamics wisk the smoke away under water. I believe part of the reason for going to the D series common rail design was because the KADs would never pass the emission regs - but there are others on here that are far better qualified to comment. Doesn't make them bad engines, but you do need to keep the strong detergent handy to keep the backside squeaky clean....

Sounds crazy but white start up smoke and emissions are not the truly the same thing.

Big focus of IMO, RCD is on Nox, Tier II is more stringent however Nox is still large component, which is odourless colorless gas. Yanmar 6LYA3 Tier II smoke a little worse than non compliant 6LYA2 on start up due to greater timing retard.

Benefit of common rail is the ability by having true 3D timing table, so you have all the levers to pull, ambient air temperate sensing, etc and advancing the heck out of the timing to eliminate white smoke is all a bonus.

 

[ulyden]

Im not shore but i think the KAD300 at least have a possibillity to have 3D maps on the timing. I also think it is possible to connect a needle lift sensor to the nozzles to compensate for weare. The KAD44 and 300 have a two stage nozzle that can provide a pilot injection to reduse the sound at ideling.
Temperature can also be compensated fore. According to the product bulletin.

Ideling a engine like this in cold water you get very cold air to the engine.
Combustion temp is low and the nozzles are a not as new anymore.

Thats one of the problems with this engine. Its optimised to be able to run with high load. Big nozzle holes, large A/R ratio on turbo, low compression ratio. That means poor low load performance.

Commonrail helps here because of possibilities to have high injection pressure at low engione speed. On the KAD the fuel plunger speed is folloving the engine speed.

But on the KAD i often see blue smoke. Thats oil combustion and then the common rail dont help.

The nox emissions is not wisible. But the engine buliders are trying to reduse the nox by retarding the timing. To avoid increased fuel consumtion(Wich the plessure boat engine builder doses not seem to care about) the engine boulder increase the flow rate on the fuel nozzle. That is the reason for the part load smoke.

Common rail helps on this aswell but on larger ships the fuel consumption is to high when using common rail to totaly avoid smoke. The stability of the valves have also been poor. A lot of ships with smaller common rail engines have to turn it off when they are approaching some ports. I spoke to a man from AVL Large Engines dep some weeks ago. He told me that they were developing new large engines without common rail for the future. Also heard that Yanmar have started production of LH series?

 

[colvic987]

Did some one mention smoke.

So when its smogy around conway, we now know the culprit.

 

[ulyden]

I had smoke like that. By sealing the fuel system and increase the timing 1deg it disappeared totaly. I was so surprised that i did it i two times to be sure that 1 deg had so much influence. Air leaking into the nozzles over time causes large ignition delay and the diesel is injected to late. Lots of wihte smoke during startup.