Diesel News 4.23.18

Engine of the Week

Four Digit Cummins

TSD’s Triple-Turbo UCC Engine

Longtime drag racer, first time UCC competitor Chris Buhidar of Truck Source Diesel is taking a stab at the Ultimate Callout Challenge crown this year, and his engine package is downright serious. The common-rail Cummins is packing gear-driven CP3’s and a DSR fuel pump courtesy of a D&J Precision Machine billet front cover, and a one-of-a-kind triple-turbo arrangement. Two massive BorgWarner’s sit perpendicular to the grille and serve as the atmospheric units, while a Garrett Gen2 GTX55 is employed as the high-pressure charger. As you can see, it makes for a very busy passenger side of the engine bay, but according to Buhidar, configuring the arrangement this way allowed him to make all the piping the same length. Knowing him and the guys at TSD, it will pay off.

Highlights

More UCC Prep

Race to the Finish

Up at Merchant Automotive in Zeeland, Michigan, it’s crunch time for Eric Merchant and his UCC-bound blue ’02 GMC Sierra. As a life-long, Duramax die-hard, Merchant will campaign this compound turbo work of art under the hood. Judging from the picture, he’ll be running a water-to-air intercooler setup (built by the folks at Wehrli Custom Fabrication), something we haven’t really seen a lot of at UCC. As a veteran truck puller, we suspect Merchant will turn in a strong effort when hooked to the sled, but we wouldn’t be surprised if he places high in the drag race and chassis dyno events as well.

Fresh out of Hibernation

Scheid Rail Goes 6.58 at 219 MPH

The Scheid Diesel rail made its inaugural trip through the quarter-mile last week, and driver Jared Jones piloted the Spitzer chassis, billet-block, Cummins-powered dragster to a 6.58 at 219 mph—not a bad start to the 2018 season. Scheid’s mid-6-second pass would yield a neck-breaking 1.05-second 60-foot and a 4.30 eighth-mile E.T. The test hits were likely made in preparation for the first Outlaw Diesel Super Series (ODSS) race of the year, Rudy’s Season Opener, set for April 27-28. Jones and the Scheid team will look to defend their ODSS Pro Dragster Class title this year, after handily winning the points chase in 2017.

Power Stroke Performance

The Life of a Highly Modified 7.3L

We’re often asked how long a highly modified, stock bottom-end 7.3L Power Stroke will last, and we never have a definitive answer. Well, we still don’t. The driver, the parts combination, the tuning, and the truck’s history all play a role in how long one will last. In Chris Hoover’s case, the factory rotating assembly in his old body style Ford gave up at the 332,000-mile mark. The 7.3L was packing 250/200 hybrid injectors, compound turbos and the truck was living in the 500rwhp range for 60,000 miles before it popped, and saw regular towing duty in that time. However, in true dyed-in-the-wool 7.3L fashion, he’s got a freshly machined 7.3L block already ready to go…

Light Duty Diesel Prowess

F-150 Power Stroke to See 30-MPG

Ford is wasting no time promoting the key strong suit of its 3.0L Power Stroke engine: it’s ability to make an F-150 achieve 30-mpg on the highway. Late last week, FoMoCo announced the diesel-powered F-150 has the best-in-class EPA-estimated fuel economy rating, best-in-class horsepower and torque ratings (250 hp and 440 lb-ft, respectively), and best-in-class towing and payload capacity. If you’re not going to spend your time out on the highway, the Power Stroke-equipped F-150’s are estimated to get 22 mpg city and 25 mpg combined. In torque production, Ford has singled out the 2019 Ram 1500 Hemi V-8, pointing out that its 3.0L diesel will produce more grunt than an engine nearly twice its size. Max towing checks in at a hefty 11,400 pounds, and payload capacity comes in at 2,020 pounds for XL and XLT fleet applications.

9-second Daily?!

Getting Kicked Out in Style

We’ve all heard stories of non-caged trucks being kicked off the drag strip for going a little too fast, but Chance McKelvie set the bar for getting into trouble even higher over the weekend. His standard cab, street-driven Ram clicked off a 9.84 at a blazing 138 mph on Friday night. The truck’s setup consists of a fully built 6.4L Cummins from Black’s Diesel Performance with 350-percent over (early) 5.9L injectors and a billet, 5-blade S480 from Stainless Diesel. Based on the truck’s heft and that trap speed, Chance is likely working with at least 1,200rwhp. Fun fun!