Million-mile EcoPower teardown

Outlaw Kustoms hosted Safety-Kleen's EcoPower teardown event in the "showroom" bay within its year-old 46,000 sq. ft. facility in Mooresville, NC.

All the components from the two 455 hp Cummins 15-liter engines used in the EcoPower million-mile test were in part displayed on two green steel tables fabricated by Outlaw Kustoms just for the teardown event.

The pistons and cylinder liners were removed from both engines to provide observers with a clear view of how little wear and tear they suffered during the EcoPower million-mile test -- which took neatrly 5 years to complete.

Parts from the million-mile engines were displayed alongside brand-new components to show how well they held up over a million miles of operation.

Third-party testing firm Infineum handled the million-mile program for Safety-Kleen and established a 40,000 mile drain interval based on regular analysis of the EcoPower motor oil.

Curt Knapp, Safety-Kleen's senior VP and chief marketing officer, noted the million-mile test was necessary "to satisfy the demands of the fleet manager; we know we need to be competitive on price and service, but also in terms of engine protection as well.”

Barry McCabe, director of marketing for EcoPower, added that the test "should provide more ammo" in Safety-Kleen's discussion with fleets about how a recycled and re-refined oil shouldn't negatively impact their operations.

Pat Fetterman, Infineum’s industry liaison advisor, said the two tractors in the test typically accrued 6,000 miles during round-trip runs from the East Coast to the West Coast and back in team-driver operation -- with both trucks averaging 6.2 mpg hauling between 65,000 and 80,000 lbs.

Fetterman showed that the million-mile bearing on the left only suffered the accural of minimal "dirt" when using EcoPower, in comparsion to the brand-new bearing on the right.

Though two EGR coolers and two DPF units were replaced per each engine over the million-mile test, the rest of the components held up well enough to used to reassemble the engine and put them back in Cooke's tractors, Cooke Trucking plans to sell both of them once they are reassembled and all data downloads are completed.