Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
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���Kermit��� is what the folks at Westport call their 2012 Peterbilt 367 daycab tractor equipped with the Westport 15L, a 475-horsepower high-pressure direct-injection natural gas engine. CCJ TEST DRIVE: Westport HPDI natural gas engine 475-hp 15L easily handles a hilly haul N atural gas truck engines are on everyone���s lips these days, and Westport is clearly the technology leader in this field. The company is probably best known today for its partnership with Cummins and the resulting ISL 8.9G ��� and the soon-to-beunveiled ISX12G ��� natural gas engines. But the company also produces its own proprietary line of natural gas engines, including the Westport 15L, a 475-horsepower high-pressure directinjection natural gas engine that I was in Vancouver to take into the Cascade Mountains. As with the Cummins-Westport family of natural gas engines, the Westport 15L uses a Cummins ���donor��� engine as its foundation. Rest assured ��� according to federal and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency law ��� that, once modi���ed, these engines are considered entirely Westport products. Last year, the company began repainting its engines a distinctive orange color and will brand 26 By JACK ROBERTS input; the shot required for ignition is a constant value. The morning of my drive started out at Vedder Transport in Abbotsford, B.C. There, vice president Fred Zweep told me how Vedder is running a ���eet of 50 Peterbilt 386 and 367 tractors with 475-horsepower Westport 15L engines on tough drives into the Cascades ��� the same run I���d be making myself later in the day. The trucks run in a slip-seat day-and-night operation and have accumulated more than 3 million miles since inception little more than a year ago, with only a few fuel injector failures hampering operations. ���Kermit��� is what the folks at Westport call their 2012 Peterbilt 367 daycab tractor. It���s an apt name: Kermit is painted in the muted neon green Peterbilt reserves to convey a not-so-subtle environmentally friendly message to the public on alternative fuel vehicles. After you open the hood and take a look at the engine, the Westport 15L doesn���t look all that different from a conventional diesel. Granted, there are a few component and routing differences, but you���d have to be an expert technician ��� or at least have two engines side by side ��� to spot those changes at a glance. Things are a bit different on the chassis. Kermit is equipped with two large 120-gallon LNG tanks, and there���s also a much smaller 50-gallon diesel tank and the smallest possible 9-gallon diesel exhaust ���uid tank. LNG is a cryogenic fuel; them with ���Westport��� badging this year. (Cummins-Westport engines will continue to sport Cummins red.) While Cummins-Westport engines are spark-ignited, Westport 15L engines rely on a small shot of diesel fuel to initiate combustion. The company says that out of the total fuel capacity on a Westport 15L-powered truck, 95 percent of diesel fuel is replaced by lique���ed natural gas ��� with 5 percent of diesel remaining to initiate combustion. The resulting engine allows trucking companies to employ natural gas engines in severe-service applications, says Stephen Ptucha, director of product management for Westport. Fuel costs are reduced drastically ���Kermit,��� Peterbilt because natural gas ENGINE: Westport 15L makes up nearly all HORSEPOWER: 475 hp of the fuel burned, TORQUE: 1,750 ft.-lb. and the diesel fuel is FRONT AXLE: burned at a constant 13,220-lb. (Dana Spicer) rate and does not REAR AXLE: 44,000-lb. (Dana vary with throttle Spicer 4:10 ratio) dual axle 367 extended daycab TRANSMISSION: Fuller 13-speed TANKS: Dual 120-gallon LNG tanks, 50-gallon diesel tank LENGTH: 40 ft. WIDTH: 102 in. HEIGHT: 13.5 ft. COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | APRIL 2013 0413_Equipdept_Jack.indd 26 3/19/13 3:40 PM