elective Cummins
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• Cummins will be giving truck operators a taste of the future at next month's Birmingham Motor Show when it shows a 14-litre engine fitted for the first time in Europe with its Electronic Controlled Injection (ECI) system.
The arrival of the ECI engine, predicted by Commercial Motor two years ago, is in response to forthcoming legislation on lower engine emissions.
The micro-processor-based fuel injection and engine management system includes cruise and PTO control, idle shutdown, adjustable low speed idle, self-diagnostics and an engine protection system. It also allows operators to virtually pre-programme selected performance characteristics into the engine to suit specific vehicle operations.
Although Cummins' electronically controlled power units have been developed under the generic term ECI, in the US they are currently marketed under the name CELECT, and according to Cummins Engine Co advertising and promotions manager Eric Hunt, the same name will be used on European versions.
CELECT is fundamentally different from similar electronically controlled unit injection systems, as used by Caterpillar and Detroit Diesel, in so far as the Cummins injector solenoid opens and closes against lift pump pressure only.
Cummins is in the process of shipping over the CELECT engine, expected to be a 343kW (460hp) Super E straight six. Hunt says that CELECT, which is already offered on both 10 and 14-litre engines in the US, will allow Cummins engines to meet tighter European emission regulations due in 1992 and 1996, and that a CELECT engine will be on the UK market before the 1992 deadline.
Commercial Motor understands that it will become available to UK truck makers around July of that year.