Been around the Diesel stuff for almost 20 years now. How the heck is that even possible? :rofl: It seems like yesterday I was setting the timing on my 1997 Cummins in the driveway that I purchased new at 28 years old. That is when it all went down hill. :roflmao:
We quickly proceeded to break a bunch of trucks. Our own and plenty for other people along the way. Bigger power through fuel and air has exploded this industry. We worked hard with ARP on the Cummins side to seal up head gaskets back in 2003. Turbo guys who never built a diesel charger in their career had to be convinced back then to make a turbo that could give us 60psi and not grenade. Never mind compound stuff. Nathan and I spent literally months of phone time going back and forth on what the heck to do to work out countless issues. I spent so many hours talking to Corky, Pius and Gerhardt alone.... I could never add it all up. We put the first air to water intercooler on a Dodge in 2003. Did it help? Not really for drag racing. Back then we were all at 600hp and the extra 200lbs of core, water, ice, charge tubing and pumps proved too much to haul down the track.
The DHRA. We really tried to help this grow in our region. Too bad it was a total mess. Then the NHRDA got going. Again, we helped and at one time were the official injector of the NHRDA. Whatever that meant. LOL
EFi killed the Cummins dominance for a few years. Tomac smoked the Diesel Power Challenge Dodges in most events and Coddens learned more on how to tune a fast drag truck than many ever will. I watched from afar and got instant updates as things progressed. 11's turned to 10s and 10s to turned to 9s. I literally had tears in my eyes in 2012 when he went to Edmonton and broke his own record from a month or so earlier. A 9.65! Torrey and Spooner both nipping at his heals. The crazy thing was, we were building/running some little injectors back then. You guys wouldnt believe me if I told you the size anyway. Terrible things, they were.
I remember calling BHJ to get a torque honing plate made for the Cummins after chunking a rod and needing to build an engine. BHJ sold me the first plate they ever made. #0001. LOL. They told me Mopar reman got numbers 2 and 3.....that infamous plate is at a premier engine builders shop now. It was a loaner from me to them and we just keep laughing between one another if I will ever get it back.
Some big things; The piston and rod durability issues! Draining the rails. Our duration is too long! ( I was dragged, kicking and screaming into making anything larger than 100% over back then, btw ) Broken cranks. Most of this has been fixed now and new industries and companies have popped up all over. Its a good thing. Everything is a trade off though and with the gains we have incurred some losses too. Expense is one of them. Sadly, many are squeezed out of our hobby for this reason alone.
So many contributions from so many people....
In the end I am humbled to be in the mix. It beats the heck out of being a fire protection engineering technician. My previous and often boring career. Stamping blueprints can only inspire a person so much. The bad part is, my oldest son became an engineer and would rather work on Diesels too. :hug:
Finally, we were denied a diesel power challenge win until 2019 came around. Richard Coker changed that. Tuning by Top Notch, Forced Ind turbo spinny things and some good old fashioned luck as Richard calls it. We could win individual events as an injector company like dyno or drag race, but never the overall. It seems like this late in the timeline to be a small thing to some people, but when you really wanted that win for 13 years, it is kinda big to me. Sure UCC over shadows it now, but that gets back to the expensive part I talked about earlier. A regular guy can compete, have fun and make some friends at DPC. That was the original intent of diesel racing anyway
We quickly proceeded to break a bunch of trucks. Our own and plenty for other people along the way. Bigger power through fuel and air has exploded this industry. We worked hard with ARP on the Cummins side to seal up head gaskets back in 2003. Turbo guys who never built a diesel charger in their career had to be convinced back then to make a turbo that could give us 60psi and not grenade. Never mind compound stuff. Nathan and I spent literally months of phone time going back and forth on what the heck to do to work out countless issues. I spent so many hours talking to Corky, Pius and Gerhardt alone.... I could never add it all up. We put the first air to water intercooler on a Dodge in 2003. Did it help? Not really for drag racing. Back then we were all at 600hp and the extra 200lbs of core, water, ice, charge tubing and pumps proved too much to haul down the track.
The DHRA. We really tried to help this grow in our region. Too bad it was a total mess. Then the NHRDA got going. Again, we helped and at one time were the official injector of the NHRDA. Whatever that meant. LOL
EFi killed the Cummins dominance for a few years. Tomac smoked the Diesel Power Challenge Dodges in most events and Coddens learned more on how to tune a fast drag truck than many ever will. I watched from afar and got instant updates as things progressed. 11's turned to 10s and 10s to turned to 9s. I literally had tears in my eyes in 2012 when he went to Edmonton and broke his own record from a month or so earlier. A 9.65! Torrey and Spooner both nipping at his heals. The crazy thing was, we were building/running some little injectors back then. You guys wouldnt believe me if I told you the size anyway. Terrible things, they were.
I remember calling BHJ to get a torque honing plate made for the Cummins after chunking a rod and needing to build an engine. BHJ sold me the first plate they ever made. #0001. LOL. They told me Mopar reman got numbers 2 and 3.....that infamous plate is at a premier engine builders shop now. It was a loaner from me to them and we just keep laughing between one another if I will ever get it back.
Some big things; The piston and rod durability issues! Draining the rails. Our duration is too long! ( I was dragged, kicking and screaming into making anything larger than 100% over back then, btw ) Broken cranks. Most of this has been fixed now and new industries and companies have popped up all over. Its a good thing. Everything is a trade off though and with the gains we have incurred some losses too. Expense is one of them. Sadly, many are squeezed out of our hobby for this reason alone.
So many contributions from so many people....
In the end I am humbled to be in the mix. It beats the heck out of being a fire protection engineering technician. My previous and often boring career. Stamping blueprints can only inspire a person so much. The bad part is, my oldest son became an engineer and would rather work on Diesels too. :hug:
Finally, we were denied a diesel power challenge win until 2019 came around. Richard Coker changed that. Tuning by Top Notch, Forced Ind turbo spinny things and some good old fashioned luck as Richard calls it. We could win individual events as an injector company like dyno or drag race, but never the overall. It seems like this late in the timeline to be a small thing to some people, but when you really wanted that win for 13 years, it is kinda big to me. Sure UCC over shadows it now, but that gets back to the expensive part I talked about earlier. A regular guy can compete, have fun and make some friends at DPC. That was the original intent of diesel racing anyway
