And to the EVO.
I read whole topic throught and noticed to part where it smokes.
That is known, all old d24smoke. But does it smoke on idle even a little blue smoke?
Dont know about USA but here on europe like everyone knows what is main issue on that motorfamily. "Pre-chambers" (word?:) ) cracks WITHOUT exeption always from the "mouth" . It isnt dangerous when it cracks normally (how can be something like part of engine cracking be normal ;) ) but there is change at it cracks to two pieces when it can drop out from head to piston. Catasthrope. But, when it is enoguh cracked and have too wide "chasm" i think the sprayed diesel will find it way to cylinder and on top of piston where it just simply burns without adding power and causes the smoke. But dont be too worried about smoke, mine smokes too but runs perfect. Smoke from d24 means its on good condition:D

2 gallons shouldn't be too much if you changed the filter. The system holds 7.5 quarts with filter change. 2 gallons is only 8. Thats exactly what I just dumped in my car when I changed the oil. Mine is about a quarter inch above the full mark. You have to overfill the engine by something around 3 quarts I believe before its up to the crank as IceV is saying.

The non turbo blocks were cast with a lower nickle content, which made them softer. Also the lack of the piston cooling jets wasn't helpfull either. On top of that, the earlier D24s had too tight of rod journal clearences, so very little oil was slung from the crank to lube the pistons and walls, which made wear problems worse.

Jason

As for oil pressure, it may have had too thin of oil in it, which kept the pressure lower when it was cold, so it looked more consistant. 15w-40 is a pretty thick oil, and pressure will be higher when its cold. 2 bar at idle is still plenty of oil pressure, thats something like 30lbs.

Jason

I loved it. I loved the choice you did.
Here on Finland where temperature is under 32`F on winter,
even the Volvos markrepairers recommendet the use of 15w40 to that engine.
10w was absolute limit and 5w was just "no". It works good on Finlands climation which is colder than americas excluding Canadie, so i believe it works on you too.

Hve you checked your pump setups EVO? I had a little problem which caused me to have pull throttle to start and few secs after it. If you go and screw pump, and touch to coldstart device (the one attached to pumps side) it gets really easy out of par, so when your engine is half-warm, glowplugs wont work or either coldstart device, which makes it hard to start there.
Have you checked it?

I just found out on my d24 that my cold start device was stuck on and I was told there known to fail. So when I replaced my leaky pump I rip out the cold start device out. When cold startng I just keep my foot on the gas for about 10 to 15seconds to warm it up. It works fine for me that way.