Hands down the Detroit Diesel Series 60 is one of the best diesel engine ever produced. Cool fact- the Detroit Diesel Series 60 was mostly developed by John Deere. In the early 1970s GM’s Detroit Diesel had roughly 41% market share of all diesel engines sold in America. By the early 1980s that number had shrunk to roughly 4% market share. GM knew the company was in trouble and sought out help from John Deere engineers to re-establish their reputation. There was a proposed joint-venture between the two companies that didn’t pan out however JD engineers purportedly designed the ring-system which fixed a lot of issues the Series 60 had with oil leakage problems as well as developed the cylinder head design. The main caveat of the Series 60 was the introduction of the first electronically controlled engine with the proprietary “DDEC” or Detroit Diesel Engine Control technology. The proposed company was to be known as “DEDEC” or Detroit Engines, Deere Engine Company. However the joint venture never came to fruition but the engine control technology took off.
The first diesel ECM was wildly popular with consumers due to its ease of use and updates in real time to the driver. Functions in the DDEC system included engine diagnostic functions, shutdown timers, progressive shift functions, fault history and record keeping, speed limiting governors, cruise control and automatic stall preventing. The cruise control technology was particularly popular with fleet managers due to its fuel-saving function but most notably DDEC system allowed the operator to download engine management reports regarding use of the engine, provide record of over-speeding, excessive idle time, hard breaking and other parameters. The system was easy to operate and diagnostic codes were displayed to the driver in real time: red indicator lights signaled a major problem while a yellow light was less of a serious issue. Detroit Diesel did not invent the modern day ECM but rather adapted General Motors ECM technology from the early 1980s into diesel technology.
The Series 60 became the most popular selling diesel engine for Detroit Diesel and the company went on to produce the DDEC I, DDEC II, DDEC III, DDEC IV and 14L/DDEC V hybrid engines from 1987-2007. There are millions of Detroit Diesel Series 60 engines still on the road today and it is extremely easy to remanufacture Detroit Diesel Series 60 engines due to their unrestricted open source design. For 20 years Freightliner and Penske trucks all had exclusive contracts to include Series 60 engines in their trucks. All heil the king of diesel, may it continue to live in the history books as the best diesel engine in the world.
The Specs:
• Engine Type: Four-cycle, six-cylinder, inline
• Displacement: 778-855 ci (12.7- to 14.0L)
• Bore and Stroke: 5.24×6.61 in
• Fuel Delivery: Unit fuel injection
• Aspiration: Turbocharged
• Governed Speed: 2,100 rpm
• Maximum Power: Up to 515 hp
• Maximum Torque: Up to 1,650 lb-f
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