Cummins Engine - Indiana and India

Cummins Engine company at one time made a four cylinder version of the engine we usually see in heavy trucks as a six.

The last listing I had seen of the engine was in the 1963 Diesel Engine Catalog section of Diesel Engineering Handook, 11th edition
published by Diesel Publications, Inc.

The model number is NHC 4 The bore is 5 1/8" and the stroke is 6". Like it's six cylinder brothers, it is a 2,100 RPM engine. The NHC 4 is rated at 130 HP @ 2,000 RPM

Yesterday in my travels, I saw one of these engines and was very much suprised that it was made in 1989, had a turbocharger and the name plate said that the engine was made in India. This baby was rated at 170HP @ 2,100 RPM.

I figure that a 5 1/8" by 6" four cylinder engine has to be One Nasty Cuss. At 494 cu in. displacement, that thing must really rock and roll.

We Americans went to six bangers in that displacement long ago. I guess the Indians like a slower speed heavy engine and don't have the EPA breathing down their necks.

Has anyone had any experience with Cummins engines made in India?

Are they ratty like most of the stuff coming out of there or does Cummins keep a tight grip on the quality of the engines bearing their name regardless of which plant they were made in.

Intresting.
I have a friend who was sort of an expert on the 4 cyl cummins. He put one in his late '20s chain drive Mack Bulldog and used to drive it all over the country to truck shows.
Treven.

I bet the viberation is awesome.

Yeah, a whole lot of shakin' going on.

I'll bet they didn't have room in the block or the crankcase for a set of balancers.

The four cylinder Cat engine in the D7 up to the Series E (5 3/4" x 8") had balancers. The D320 and the D330 had them. They were little engines at 4" x 5" and 4 1/2" x 5 1/2".

What I want to hear is that Cummins exhaust with straight pipes!

I bet that four cylinder does shake a little. My six cylinder shakes a little. I do know that some of the 5.9's that were cast in Mexico had bad castings. Had a thin spot in the water jacket and prone to leaking. These blocks were from about five years ago. So I wonder if that might mean the Indian engines might be prone to problems also?
Michael

Local company used to install 4 cyl. Cummins in Ford pick-ups. Shake rattle and roll, it would shake the fenders off of even a Ford pick-up. Don't know if that was the same eng. but sounds like it. Some had a 2 speed that was mounted between the hogs head and transmission.

Cummins is alive and well in the U.S. making engines for the U.S.. Cummins is one of the largest producers of heavy duty diesels and it would make sense that they would factories in other places of the world as well.

My husband and I are on our second Cummins 4BT repower project. The first was a 1980 diesel IH Scout, the second is a 1954 Willys wagon. Both engines, 1982 and 1992 were made in the U.S.. The Cummins 4BT are still available and can also be found in the ISB and ISX versions similar to the ones found in the 3rd gen Dodge trucks. In fact, many of the 6BT parts are interchangeable with the 4BT. Parts availablity is not a problem.

Yes, the 4BT produces quite a bit of vibration, but we resolved that problem by drilling a few small holes in the engine isolators.
http://community.webshots.com/album/36408486GWpUjm

Has anyone had any experience with Cummins engines made in India?

Are they ratty like most of the stuff coming out of there or does Cummins keep a tight grip on the quality of the engines bearing their name regardless of which plant they were made in.

Click to expand...

If it is GENUINE CUMMINS you can be assured it meets their specifications and levels of quality control no matter what country it was made in.
I have run a Cummins in my Kenworth for 23 years now. Replacement parts state what country they came from on the packaging, and I've never gotten a bad Cummins part no matter where it was made.

Linda,
Cool Cummins conversions! Are you the one who was talking about a Cummins converted scout or bronco that gets 30 mpg or somesuch? If not, what kind of mileage does the scout get?

I learned to drive on a 1969 Chevy C-50 flat bed that my Dad bought special order new with a GMC Detroit Diesel 4-53. That was a 212 cubic inch four-cylinder two-stroke with a roots blower. Gawd was that thing loud! I don't know a conversion between two- and four-stroke displacements, but it certainly performed better than a 212-CI four-stroke. The noise was horrendous but the vibration wasn't too bad because it had balance shafts. When ordering the truck with that engine you had to upgrade from a standard 7,000-lb front axle to a 9,000-lb axle. That engine was very tall and very heavy. It turned out to be not particularly reliable. I wonder if being driven by a teenage kid had anything to do with that? I worked the 4-midnight shift on my summer job. I'll bet the neighbors hated me coming home at 1:00 AM with that big roar. You had to run it at a fast idle to cool it off before you could shut it down.

I just love big nasty engines, the uglier the better.

The Cummins I am referring to is somewhat unusal in that it is in the samll power range but is made out of genuine big bore Cummins Diesel parts. The NHC 4 weighs 1860 lbs. A bit heavy for mid range trucks.

Most engines manufacturers will make a four and a six using the same cylinders, rods, etc. The Cummins BT's are a current example as are the small Cats.

The older D7 Cats had a four cylinder engine because Cat used all the parts from the D8 motor that they could. Cat heads are cast in two's and three's for that series of engine. The series had a four, a six and a V8. Pretty smart, huh?

Yes the Cat four is delightfully ugly.

Cummins had the advantage in having two-cylinder heads. They just cast a four hole block and used only two of their regular heads on it.

The Cummins BT's of course, have individual heads, they can make a three cylinder Diesel if they want.

The Cummins BT 4 is jolly well big enough for any pick em up that will be used for anything but a Viagara substitute. Look at the Sooo Zoooo four's in the 10,000 lb GVW box trucks.

'Mericuns don't want their fat asses shook up, so when Dodge made their Ram trucks (lots of male appeal in that name!) they had to go with an engine that is so big that it is used in road graders.

When I was living in D.C. on Woodley Road, one of the stationary engineers at the Sheriton Park Hotel next door had a Mercedes Benz four cylinder OM 314 Diesel in an International pick up.

The six cylinder version is the OM 352 and was used in the Mercedes mid range trucks. The six was docile and well mannered, the four vibrated a little bit more but sounded like the hammers of hell even at idle.

I loved it, even though the engineer worked on the night shift and I knew when he started up his truck to go home in the wee hours.

Over the years there have been a lot of guys that have dropped Diesels in small trucks. The Diesels don't like it at all. Diesels like to run almost fully loaded, otherwise, shut them down.

Billy-Bob will crank up his fierce Diesel drive pick up and go to the Seven-Eleven for a pack of smokes and a quart of milk and then wonder why he is having trouble with his mighty engine.

Concerning the small Cummins motors. Wasn't that design originally a co operative project with Case?

The new engines replaced a hodge podge of smaller, heavier Cummins engines and gave Case a modern Ag. and construction machinery engine series.

Fortunately the Dodge advertiing campaign made the market for the six cylinder more, let us say, Turgid.

Dodge had to go with the six, it is supposed to be the average size. Nobody wants to admit to only a four.

Of course we ll know that Ford still brags about their eight. Fat as the eight is, it isn't as "hard" as the Cummins industrial six.

My biggest problem with diesel pickups is not the engine itself but the lousy electrical systems they use. You'd think they could design an alternator that would keep the battery charged well enough to allow someone to turn off the engine and restart it. at least a few times a day.

Greg:

What you are faced with is an industrial engine applied in a domestic surrounding.

A "proper" electrical system would add maybe another thousand dollars to the price of the small truck.

It's just that I feel sorry for all those diesel owners, having to leave their engines clattering away in drive-though windows or while they are at tha car wash or or any other time they are not parking the vehicle for the night.

GregSY, you just keep feeling sorry for me while my diesel is putting over 800 ft lbs of torque and 400 hp to the ground and getting 18 miles to the gallon. And no spark plugs to replace and/or computer to go bad. Not to mention an engine that will never wear out. I wasn't aware of any electrical problems.
Michael

while its true diesels are a waste for short trips with constant shutoffs, I have never had problem restarting either my dad's '93 Dodge Cummins ( complete with the 225HP banks kit), the 2000 F350 dually powerstroke 7.3, or the 2004 Powerstroke 6.0 after stopping at a drive thru or any other time I really wanted to..... Maybe the older turcks had underrated batteries and alternators but my experience in that area has been good. The powerstorkes run dual batteries and a " truck sized" alternator, The cummins is the easiest to " crank the pump" up on..

OK.... I was making a joke about diesel drivers who seem to have a hard time turning off their diesels...they leave them idling constantly.

You know what I mean - you're in a drive-thruand the jamoke behind you is idling away and you're having to yell just to be heard.

Or some guy comes to talk to you at the shop and leaves his truck running...for 35 minutes....and once again you're yelling just to have a conversation.

A local fab shop here has a sign posted outside the bay door that says 'Welcome - now go back and turn off your damn diesel!'

Sorry about that GregSY, I didn't get it. Yes, I understand what you mean about people being unconsiderate and they are. Personaly, I absloutely never use the drive through at the bank because of the noise of my truck. I have done it a few times at restaurants though but always shut it off.
Michael

Michael:

This is not the first time that you mentined having a 400HP Diesel engine in your truck.

Are we talking about a truck tractor?

It takes something like 460HP to get 400 to the ground, maybe more.

The maximum rating for a Deisel is for five minutes, and can be as much as 5% to the minus for any production sample.

400HP and 600 ft.lbs. torque seem to me to be incnsistant. What speed is your engine running when developing it's maximum HP?

Diesel engines wtih ratings of more than 325 HP usually have radiators with 1,000 sq.in. of frontal area. If this engine is't in a class 8 truck, how does the engine keep cool?

I don't know a singe ring and pinion set that will transmit 400HP at highway speed, you have to be running a tandem.

At 600 ft.lbs. torque, you could get away with a Fuller 6610 RoadRanger, but you might burn it up going fast enough to transmit even 350HP.

Tires and brakes? I won't even go there.

Just what kind of truck is this?

I have a 6BT cummins in my IH scout. It gets 28MPG highway and has 2.72 gears with an overdrive. It turns 1200 rpm at 55 MPH.
Here are the photos:

http://community.webshots.com/album/44268533sCvIJm

The 6BT will eaislily put out 1000 lbs of torqe and 400 HP. The engine will turn 3,000 rpm all day long no problem. The marine version is governed and rated 370hp at 3,000 rpm by Cummins. This has been well established by the diesel hot rodders. With twin turbos and 80 to 100 psi intake manifold pressure they will put out 600 - 800 hp.
You are correct that in your observation about axles and radiators. They are not big enough! The diesel hot rodders are really are just using that kind of power for short bursts of acceleration and sled pulling. The engine doesn't make much heat unless you are down on the hammer for longer periods.

I did have mine tuned to make 400 hp and 800+ ft lbs of torque. It would spin the rear wheels in 4th gear! I detuned it after having to replace the ripped apart clutch plate in my cousin's drive way on a trip to Losangeles among other dirve line repairs. It is still very fast and will out run most cars.