Ceearedeedriver wrote:
I think starting performance varies a lot from vehicle to vehicle for a number of reasons and trying to correlate performance to a particular glowplug setup is potentially going to lead us to the wrong conclusion. Ideally we need to try the different options in a problematic starter to see which, if any, gives the best performance. Cevans, I don't think you should be writing off the 5V plugs without also trying the Etecno's. I suspect you might have issues with both.
But for sure it is a lot easier to develop a well behaved system around a programmable element that can be tuned to the glow plug than try to design glow plug that will work in an existing system. As far as I'm aware a metal sheathed plug simply cannot heat up as quickly as a ceramic plug so original 7V programming is never going to be optimal for the Etecno plugs. Is it good enough? I don't know.
Something else to consider. Running 5V plugs with the GDE tune? Not sure if their algorithm is the same as the official Chrysler programming. Maybe we need to separate 5V Chrysler and 5V GDE? Maybe GDE can comment on whether they developed their own programming for these plugs?
I'm currently running 7V ceramic but will install 5V Bosch with 7V programming soon. I don't mind then trying the GDE 5V tune to make a direct comparison on a vehicle with known starting performance.
Ceearedeedriver - thank you for the great feedback.
My thoughts are similar to yours. My intention with this poll isn't to determine which combination is *best* for cold starting. It is actually to confirm my current belief that the cold starting issues are not strictly glow plug related. I have spoken with thousands of CRD owners and worked on a few dozen with different 5V/7V combinations, none of which were great. Some cars started fine, some were terrible.
This poll and thread was spurred on by a customer who was strongly convinced that going to 5V plugs would solve his cold starting issues. I told him that my CRD with 5V was terrible, but, he wasn't convinced and is going to proceed with the 5V swap. I'm concerned he will discover that his cold starting is just as bad with the 5V plugs.
So, back to your point, I'd like to conclude that the 5V/7V issue is a red herring and that the actual cold start issue is due to something else. I *think* I may be on to something, actually, as I've put my Jeep through some odd tests and have discovered some very interesting behavior, which includes but is not limited to the fact that it starts GREAT at the end of a 8 hours work day, even when in the teens. To be sure the block has fully cooled down and there isn't any leftover heat, but, I can always get home from work no problem. Mornings are the worst. This suggests to me that there is something else going on...
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