New Engine Bid Awarded-Thank You For Helping

[MG3610]

We just awarded bid to build our new engine. I have gathered tons of information from many people on here via the forume and email. All of it has been immensley helpful. Thank you to all who have answered my questions and to those who continue to post relevent information.

Here is the summary. KME is the builder

• Length 380", WB 187", OAH 115"
• 400 HP Cat C9 motor
• 5 Sp. Allison Trans (EVS3000) with T handle shifter
• Meritor/Wabco ABS with ATC (automatic traction control) and RSC
• Mud/snow tires on rear
• "Barrier" cab doors
• 1250 Single Stage Hale Qflo Pump. Capable of 2000+ GPM from Pressurized Source
• Removable 1000 GPM deluge gun mounted at the left side over the pump panel. Able to be operated at zero degrees in full rotation.
• 500 Gal Poly "L" shaped water tank
• 30 Gal Class B foam tank
• Foam Logix class B system with 3 points of injection
• Roll Up Doors
• Seating for 5
• Compartments IPO rear facing seats with exterior roll up door access for EMS gear and Drivers PPE
• Low hosebed (no greatr than 60 inches from ground)
• 2 1/2" Discharges: one on Left panel, two on right panel
• two at tailboard (3" piping through to pump)
• 3" LDH Discharge on right panel
• two 1 1/2" discharges on front bumper (top of bumper)
• 3" aux intake valves with 4" storz adapters affixed
• Hinge open pump panel access on both sides
  
  Hose
  Bumper
• 100' 1 1/2"
• 150' 1 3/4"
• 50' 1" forestry Line
• 25' Intake 6"
  
  Rear Hosebed
• 250' 1 3/4" preconnect with additional 150 feet "dead loaded"
• 600' 3" set up for supply with double male adapter attached
• 1000' 4" High Pressure
• 300' 2 1/2" with 1 1/8 and 1 1/4" Smooth bore tips
• 400' 2" preconnect with break apart nozzle 1 1/8" SB with Fog tip
  
  Right Side Pump panel trough
• 100' 2 1/2" with Mercury Monitor Preconnected
  
• 28' 2 section ext ladder
• 14 and 16' roof ladders
• 10KW Harrison HYD. Gen
• 3000W Nightscan Tower
• 1000W Brow Light
• 1500W Pole LIghts
• FDNY style poly rub rails and rubber rear wheel fenderettes
• FDNY style convex mirror over right cab windshield
• Stokes and backboard compartment in place of crosslays
• Roll out trays in compartments
• LED body warning lights
• Mini lightbars on rear stanchions instead of single beacons
• Whelen 4500 Traffic advisor over rear hosebed
• Safety Chevrons on rear
  
  The rig will carry (Aside from typical Engine Co stuff)
• TNT C-25 cutter
• 28" spreader
• TLS-50 Ram
• Simo Pump.
• 2 sets of Swiftwater gear
• Ice suit and rope bags
• simple 3:1 rope setup and hardware
• Junkin Stokes,
• Tempest Ventmaster Chainsaw
• K12 14" saw
• Hydraram
• Assortment of hooks, including a tin/sheetmetal hook for ductwork fires
• Assorted Cribbing
• Some type of strut system for overturned vehicles
• Basic chain and come-along compliment
  
• Haz-Mat Supplies

[FWDbuff]

Sounds good. Congrats, I know what you are feeling right now.

Silly question- did you have to pay extra for the manual shifter? I was under the impression that pretty much everyone did away with them due to the electronic transmissions/engines?????

Good choice on the kitty Cat. Do you have many large hills in your area?

[RFDACM02]

[*]Removable 1000 GPM deluge gun mounted at the left side over the pimp panel. Able to be operated at zero degrees in full rotation.
[/LIST]

Is that the shaggy carpet option vs. stainless or black vinal? Looks like you've specced a nice rig. Good luck!

[TCFD12]

Silly question- did you have to pay extra for the manual shifter? I was under the impression that pretty much everyone did away with them due to the electronic transmissions/engines?????

The T-handle is a "fake", its all fly by wire now..........not an actual linkage.

[Rescue101]

Buff,Either.or option by preference.As I recall there is no money difference just some are used to/more comfortable with the T shift.Both are just electric controllers anyway. T.C.

[BoxAlarm187]

Congrats on awarding the bid! If I might ask, what were some of the factors that made you decide on this particular vendor?

[MG3610]

We basically started with a wish list, short and sweet. Max length, wheelbase, water, pump, seats etc. The rig needed to come equipped bumper to bumper with a few exceptions (equipment). Total budget, $400,000 including equipment.

We chose 4 vendors to meet with to do some research and see if they could build what we envisioned. They were KME, Seagrave, E-One and Marion. We met with each vendor once and took alot of notes, came up with alot of questions. A few of them got some concept drawings back to us for review. We then sat with each one a second time to talk details and can/can't do type stuff. After the second round of meetings, we knew that KME and Seagrave would be in the running. We chose to work with these two closer, as the other two knew they would be out of our price range. Credit to both of them though, for working hard and offering us alot of feedback. From the time the word go was issued and we had the specs completed was about 3 months. The total project time to bid award was just about 7 months.

We wrote a spec that could be bid by more than one manufacturer because price was a major limiting factor. We did like some of the options KME had, so we used our verbage to explain an option that would allow them and anyone who could provide option X at an equal or better comparison. When it went to bid, 6 manufacturers picked up packages and we got 4 bids back.

Our specs were drafted from scratch, not taken from a vendor and had our name pasted on them. Chiefengineer11 was helpful, allowing me to borrow some of their verbage. Some other sections we did the cut/paste from other specs we found on the net and such, but we wrote alot of it ourselves. A major limiting factor that limited bidding was cabinets in the cab in place of rear facing seats with exterior roll up doors. KME was the only one who offers this who came in in our budget range.

We did a ton of homework and learned alot. It was fun. I am excited to see it through the build process. Thanks again to all who helped.

[MG3610]

Sounds good. Congrats, I know what you are feeling right now.

Silly question- did you have to pay extra for the manual shifter? I was under the impression that pretty much everyone did away with them due to the electronic transmissions/engines?????

Good choice on the kitty Cat. Do you have many large hills in your area?

Thanks!

T-Handle because some of us prefer to downshift when driving and ,essing with those silly buttons sucks. Same price if I recall.

Cat was not chosen by us, it was the engine that they bid based on our minimum performance requirments.

[NewJerseyFFII]

Thanks!

T-Handle because some of us prefer to downshift when driving and ,essing with those silly buttons sucks. Same price if I recall.

Cat was not chosen by us, it was the engine that they bid based on our minimum performance requirments.

What fire department are you from in central New Jersey, also is " J B HUNT " your sales & service dealer.Our 2005 Kme came standard with a 400 hp Cummins motor, so far she runs very good !

[MG3610]

After the Harrisburg Expo this past weekend, we got some more ideas we will take to preconstruction. Most were in compartmentation configuration. Our goal is to go to the preconstruction meeting with an itemized list of questions and comments that references each section of the bid so we can make the meeting as efficient as possible. We have tried to make sure all the I's are dotted adn T's are crossed so far and it seems to be working. I'm sure we'll get snagged by something at some point though, seems like its been going too smooth!!!

A few more notes....

From the beginning, I was opposed to any type of air or electric valves for anywhere in the pump/plumbing. We kept with that theory, and all of our main intakes are handwheel controlled butterfly valves with the valves behind the panel. We eliminated the T handle discharge valve actuators and spec'd 4" handwheel actuators. At the show, Elkhart had a new handwheel actuator that has the position indicator in the middle of the wheel, sweet looking deal. We will try to get these instead of the Akrons we were quoted. Hopefully we can make some trades here and there to make it balance out.

Our plumbing is stainless and flex where necessary.

We spec'd the FRC Pump Boss. Having so little time to do research, we knew we didnt want a controller that had flat faced push buttons. The only unit on the market we knew of that had a rotary style throttle and built in pressure governor was FRC. After playing with it at the booth in Hburg, its a sweet unit. I think we'll be happy.

I got my twin Mars 888's, a victory for me since thats the only real fluff thing I wanted for the many hours of hard work.

We got alot of truck for our money. We have about $22,000 for equipment.

I wouldnt go as far as calling this a squad pumper, but we will have quite an assortment of gear. Seeing a body at the show with the same compartment sizes on the left side reminded us that we'll have alot of space to set it up nice. I'm looking foward to the build.

[Rescue101]

Mg,What was your thought process on going rotary throttle instead of push button?Both are connected electronically to the confuser and not that you'll probably appreciate this but: I've got three with rotary and one with push button.Care to guess which one(s) gives us the most problems? I'll give you a hint,it's NOT the pushbutton govenor. Do as you will but ours will NOT be rotary from this point foward.Ask around before you make that final decision,you've still got some time left.If you stay rotary,the Pumpboss is a good unit. T.C.

[MG3610]

Mg,What was your thought process on going rotary throttle instead of push button?Both are connected electronically to the confuser and not that you'll probably appreciate this but: I've got three with rotary and one with push button.Care to guess which one(s) gives us the most problems? I'll give you a hint,it's NOT the pushbutton govenor. Do as you will but ours will NOT be rotary from this point foward.Ask around before you make that final decision,you've still got some time left.If you stay rotary,the Pumpboss is a good unit. T.C.

Thanks for the insight. We don't like the flat faced push button style governors. We have a bunch of them now, Fire Commander, Class 1, and some older ones on the 94 rigs (detroit/class 1, I believe). I hate them. Its easier in my opinion to have a rotary knob that you can quickly turn to increase throttle than have to click the little soft spot on a flat face type pad. Personal preference I guess. After looking at the Pump Boss, I was as satisfied as could be.

What brand are you having issues with? Class 1?

Thanks again for your information. Your writings and knowledge here are also very helpful. I have read alot of them and used bits and pieces here and there.

[Rescue101]

The one we have GOOD luck with are class 1.The problem children are ones that look like an old vernier style.I'll have to go look at the back of one to tell you the brand. T.C.

[MG3610]

Preconstruction is coming up soon. Here is a drawing of the rig.

[NewJerseyFFII]

Preconstruction is coming up soon. Here is a drawing of the rig.

What body material are you using? 1/8, 3/16 Alum, 12 ga Stainless , Gavaneal , poly !.....

[MG3610]

3/16 aluminum

[CooterRob]

What fire department are you from in central New Jersey, also is " J B HUNT " your sales & service dealer.Our 2005 Kme came standard with a 400 hp Cummins motor, so far she runs very good !

Yeah CAT is a good motor, but I love Cummins... our new rig will have a Cummins ISL 400 in it. Cummins was our choice mostly b/c we have them in every rig and b/c they're the most fuel efficient. Congrats to the one from Central NJ on the new KME.

[hfdchiefone]

MG3610, congrats on your new engine, some simlar to what i just delievered about two weeks ago, i have to say, our guys love, love the pump boss with the knob on it, we have a push button on our 2002 and the guys just can't use to it, they started using this and they love it, best of luck again, if you care to view any pics of our engine go to www.hazletoncityfire.com

Who is your sales engineer at KME if i can ask???

Stay Safe

[NewJerseyFFII]

MG3610, congrats on your new engine, some simlar to what i just delievered about two weeks ago, i have to say, our guys love, love the pump boss with the knob on it, we have a push button on our 2002 and the guys just can't use to it, they started using this and they love it, best of luck again, if you care to view any pics of our engine go to www.hazletoncityfire.com

Who is your sales engineer at KME if i can ask???

Stay Safe

Is your new 2007 Kme pumper built on a " SS Predator Chassis " the square grill looks like a Spartan cab ? Nice looking rig, good luck & stay safe !... NJFFII

[MG3610]

Who is your sales engineer at KME if i can ask???

Stay Safe

Brian Connely