Thread: fuel injection pump tweak question

I have a little smoke issue - or should I rather say my 300tdi does

first of all: fuel economy as well as power is allright... I am running a D-gas system and have replaced the fuel injectors recently.

However it does smoke A LOT at low speeds...
over time I have learnt to deal with it - keep revs fairly well above 1500 and change gears around 3000 usually does the trick - BUT apart from the usual bad start up smoke (which I can live with) it does it for example after idling at traffic lights for a bit as well (we're talking deep black smoke by the way).

So I have thought to myself I should tackle this issue sometime.
After a lot of reading I have located the so called "smoke screw" and am about to give it a crack as described here:
Turning up the pre 94 Ram diesel injector pump

My questions are: Can I do more harm than good by fiddling with it - and can I solely adjust the screw without worrying about idle speed or anything else?

Thanks in advance for any help....


Oh and I have replaced the timing belt too recently, and all timing marks have aligned perfectly - dont know if that is of any importance to my question....

Probably doesnt hav much to do with it because you hav a boost compensator that controls that initial smoke but just out of curiousity check your boost pressure! Black smoke is better than white or blue smoke it probably wont be any problem having black smoke just for a brief moment on takeoff due to having lesser boost but thats where the adjustment might be to benefit if the smoke is that bad but if it has adequet power down low and runs good it is fine.