Retired trucker put 2,000,000+ miles on his small cam Cummins

[US6x4]

An old retired guy stopped by my yard sale a few weekends ago and starting asking about my M813. I was telling him it had a Cummins 250 and that is was a small cam version of the engine family. He stopped me there and said "Oh, that's a piston burner. That's what we used to call 'em" He was explaining how easy it was to get too hot and burn a piston in these so I told him I didn't have an EGT gauge installed yet. He quickly dismissed my comment and said " an exhaust gauge doesn't tell you how hot your piston is - your foot should tell you that!" He went on to say that he drove small cam Cummins over-the-road trucks for 40 years and put over 2 million miles on his without ever having to tear into the engine. Pretty impressive.

I tried to pry it out of him exactly how he massaged his throttle, but he was in a hurry to get home- Probably had some back pills to take...