8.3 Cummins Gleaner?

+1 on the 433TI and fuel economy  

I recently went from an F3 to an L2 with a 426 and while I love the extra capacity and smooth 426 power, I miss the fuel economy.  Sounds like an 8.3 Cummins would ratchet up from there. 

I find a couple of these posts a little bit off from my experience.  I run a R52 with a Deutz.  If I use more than a gallon per acre, then I must have been in corn that was flat on the ground at less than 1.5 mph.  I normally see about .9 gallon per acre maximum.  If an F2 is using close to 2 gallons per acre there must be something out of wack there, I would think, but I never ran an F2...I do however have a one owner 6060 with over 10,000hrs on it and I can tell you that engine does not use fuel even when you are working it to its knees...I doubt an L2 with a 426 would use more fuel than and 8.3 powered R52, and you will have a bit more capacity with the R52, a R62 will out work that L2 without even breaking a sweat!

One thing I can not grasp is why I see farmers with  big capacity combines like R62 or larger size machines with a 6 row corn head, talk about an inefficient set up.  I never got a good consistent sample from my 52 until I put an 8 row on it, and did some modifications to it.  And if you really want to save fuel, you put a grain buggy under that unload auger.  I went from  no buggy and a 6 row head at 5+ mph to a 8 row at 3.5mph with the  buggy and found my harvest fuel consumption ( including the 305 on the buggy's fuel ) cut itself by 35%.  

The 8.3 is an excellent engine, but the trade off for making power is fuel, the energy has to come from some where, But if you have your combine set up incorrectly, and with the rotary combine this seems more critical, you will be working your engine harder than it needs to be working, using more fuel.  My advice is to spend time with your combine getting to know how to adjust it and try different settings out to see how they affect all aspects of the machine.

The larger machines are not necessarily any more fuel efficient, but in time efficiency they cover so many more acres than the smaller machines...

We had a recent issue with a late R62 that had the CAPS pump on it.  The engine would turn over but not fire but if you give it a sniff of ether it would fire and run.  Had a Cummins repair shop work on it for the customer.  We ended up replacing every electronic piece on the engine.  When I asked the customer if he had welded on it recently, he said yes and he did not unhook the battery and the problems started after that.  He did not put them together until I asked.  

Fun times.

Jim