How a Simple Engine Ran 4.99 in Pro Street Diesel
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Concept
4.99 seconds in the eighth mile
That “4.99” is how many seconds it took to run the eighth-mile (about 660 feet). Faster time means quicker acceleration and usually more power.
Concept
data log
A data log is like a recorded report of what the truck’s systems were doing during the run. It helps them see exactly how the tune and shifts behaved.
Concept
Hail Mary passes
That phrase means they were basically taking a chance and hoping the truck would make it through the run without breaking. It implies the car wasn’t fully reliable yet.
Term
torque converter lockup clutch
The lockup clutch is part of the torque converter system that helps the transmission transfer power more directly. If it starts dragging during a launch, it can overheat and wear out fast.
Term
band
A “band” is like a friction strap inside the transmission. When it grabs, it holds a gear; when it releases, it has to let go smoothly—otherwise it slips and makes heat.
Concept
it finally hooked everything
They mean the truck finally got good traction and started transferring power to the ground. Once it hooks up, the turbo can build boost the way it’s supposed to.
Term
six 20
“Six 20” is a quick way of saying the car ran about 6.20 seconds. That’s how long it took to cover the race distance from the start.
Term
overdrive gear
An “overdrive gear” is a gear that lets the car go faster without the engine screaming at high RPM. That can help for longer runs where you don’t want the engine to run out of steam or get too loud/hot.
Term
RPM
RPM tells you how fast the engine is spinning. If the engine can’t spin fast enough, it can’t keep making power as you accelerate, especially in a race like the quarter mile.
Term
gear ratios
Gear ratios are the “multipliers” between the engine and the wheels. Different ratios can make the truck accelerate harder or reach higher speed before the run ends.
Term
two, two 41 DLD transfer case
They’re talking about a specific transfer case model. The point is that this particular unit is part of why the truck can handle power and still work well with the gearing.
Term
Jagra
“Jagra” appears to be a name for a vehicle, driver, or build that the speaker is using as a benchmark for torque/load. The excerpt doesn’t define it, so listeners may need context from earlier/later in the episode to know exactly what it refers to.
Term
four low
4 Low is the “low gear” mode for 4WD that gives more pulling power at slow speeds. Removing it means the transfer case no longer has that low-range function.
Part
planetary
A planetary gearset is a compact gear arrangement used in many transfer cases to create different gear ratios, including low range. Removing the planetary gearset can simplify the unit and reduce weight, but it also removes low-range functionality.
Term
factory transfer case is 84 pounds
Weight is a major factor in performance and durability, especially in motorsports. The speaker compares the factory transfer case weight to their modified setup to show how much mass they saved.
Term
microseconds
Microseconds are just a very tiny unit of time. Here, they’re talking about how long the fuel injectors stay spraying fuel during each cycle.
Term
nitrous
Nitrous (nitrous oxide) is an add-on system that injects oxygen-rich gas into the engine to allow more fuel to burn. It’s commonly used in drag racing to create big, short bursts of power, and the timing/solenoid control matters a lot to avoid drivability issues.
Term
piston
A piston is the part inside the cylinder that moves up and down. It’s under a lot of heat and pressure, so builders sometimes use stronger pistons or add coatings to help it last.
Term
ceramic coating
A ceramic coating is a heat-resistant layer applied to parts like pistons. It helps keep the piston cooler and can make it last longer under hard use.
Term
total seal
“Total Seal” refers to a higher-end piston ring design meant to seal better. Better sealing can help the engine make more consistent power and reduce blow-by.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower is a number that describes how much power the engine can make. They’re talking about what the engine should be making based on the parts and the tune.
Term
dyno pulls
A dyno pull is when you run the engine on a test machine that loads it like it’s driving. It helps you see how the engine performs and whether it stays healthy under stress.
Term
good rods
Connecting rods are the parts that connect the pistons to the crankshaft. When an engine makes a lot of power, the rods have to be strong enough to survive the extra force.
Term
cylinder head
The cylinder head is the top part of the engine where combustion happens. Changing or upgrading it can help the engine breathe better and make more power, but it can also get expensive.
Term
30 more CFM
They’re saying the new head flows about 30 more units of air in testing. That extra breathing can help the engine keep making power at higher rpm.
Term
exhaust flow
Exhaust flow is how easily the engine can push out burned gases. If the exhaust can’t keep up, the engine can’t breathe as well and power suffers.
Term
wet
In this context, “wet” likely refers to a street-drivable setup (as opposed to a race-only configuration), meaning it can be driven on public roads. Drag builds often trade off between maximum performance and street usability—so “wet” here is about real-world drivability.
Term
belts
Belts are the rubber/serpentine drive straps that spin accessories. If the engine is turning fast and pulling hard, belts can slip or snap.
Term
transmission
The transmission is what sends power from the engine to the wheels using different gears. If the engine makes a lot of torque, the transmission usually needs stronger parts to handle it.
Term
cooling system
The cooling system is what keeps the engine from getting too hot. If it’s missing or not working, the engine can overheat fast, so the car can’t run safely for long.
Concept
heads
“Heads” are part of the engine that sit on top of the cylinders. They help control how air and fuel get in and how well the engine burns, so better heads can make the engine perform more.
Term
GT 55 style turbos
This is a way of describing a certain size/type of turbo. Bigger/higher-flow turbo setups can make more power, but they usually change how the truck/engine feels and how quickly it spools.
Term
Gressor 98
This sounds like a specific turbo model name people use in diesel builds. Without the exact spelling/part number, it’s hard to say precisely what size or spec it is, but it’s clearly part of the turbo lineup being discussed.
Brand
Garrett's
Garrett makes turbochargers that a lot of performance cars use. The point here is that even popular turbo brands can break when you run them at extreme racing settings.
Term
castings
Castings are metal parts made by pouring melted metal into a mold. The speaker is saying they need time and tooling to make those turbo components.
Term
compounds
“Compounds” means the engine uses more than one turbo. The goal is to get boost sooner and keep it strong, but it’s more complicated.
Concept
tree
The “tree” is the set of lights that starts the race. “Be on the tree” means you time your launch so you don’t jump the start and you get the best possible reaction.
Term
power windows
Power windows are windows you move with a button instead of a hand crank. For racing builds people sometimes remove them to save weight, but they’re convenient in real life.
Term
bed
The “bed” is the part of a pickup where you’d normally carry stuff. Taking it off can save a lot of weight.
LIVE
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the power driven podcast. Today's gonna be a fun day. This is kind of for us, I think pretty much fun. We're talking about technology, advancements in technology. What an amazing time we live in to have the technology that we do.
And this inspiration for this video is recently Meyer went down to a test in tune and 4.99 seconds in the eighth mile in his drag race truck scratch getting ready for ultimate college challenge.
Yep.
And that number is so fast. It's almost like the new that's not the new like it's like a thousand horse price just seem like crazy. Now it's like not not crazy for 99 is still crazy. It's to this day still crazy.
So in quarter mile terms, you guys that don't know a 4.99 is like a deep in the seven second quarter mile range. So this is a seven second quarter mile four wheel drive truck running in four wheel drive down the drag strip with four, you know, drag race tires in four wheel drive.
It's it's booking.
It's so freaking cool. I mean, honestly is I checked the data log and I really only floored it for like 5.1 seconds. So right after the eighth mile, I let out that coasted to an 840 coasting to a deep eight second pass.
That's the vehicle in the other lane next to you ran slower in the eighth mile and they ran a seven second quarter mile pass. Yeah, I was like in my brain. I was like running him down. I was like, Oh, this is stupid.
Like I just let out not do it. You were you were pulling the altered. You're pulling. Yeah, it's really altered and he ran. He ran good. He was a five oh one or something. Five oh four seven second. He was 133 miles an hour in the eighth and I was 146.
We were pretty big. Yeah, I was I was going to be great. I almost got him. I was like, Okay, no, I'm not gonna do this.
And why this is a discussion technology is what is in Myers engine is remarkably simple compared to what we would have thought was needed to run 4.99 at 146 miles an hour.
So just a quick benchmark like five years ago, if somebody came to like a performance diesel shop and said I want to run 4.99 in the eighth, it'd be like, do you have a quarter million dollars to burn? Because that's probably the cheap side of what it's going to take to build a truck to run 4.99 in the eighth mile.
Yeah, I mean, the transmission alone four years ago, five years ago, you're kind of stuck with a roster a few guys maybe I done with 48, but you're like burning him up every past. Yeah, you're doing a Hail Mary passes like I remember that with, I mean, it's just even you guys and Josh and everything like five years ago we were going down the track and just hoping that the transmission would survive the drag race.
Yeah. And now, yeah, great. I mean, I have great. I ran five passes in Arizona, like three of those were 520s and there was like 1718 our horsepower down the track. And I pulled the transmission apart and it looked great.
The band had a little bit of heat in it, but like could have reused it almost. I put anyone in there just because why not. So I was like really excited about that. But I've talked about this before.
The band, what are you talking about? The second year band. Yep. And the pain looked great. Like it could have done many more passes. So I was really excited. Well, there's some new stuff I wanted to try. So we put some new stuff in there. New band.
I haven't taken it apart since, but I have, I have a lot of, I have basically pressure on every single servo and every single clutch pack so I can watch the pressures increase, decrease, see how they increase and see what pressure it starts to suck the engine back down at.
Because I mean, let's just random numbers. If it starts to pull the engine down at 150 psi of line pressure in the third gear clutch pack, I know that that is, that clutch pack is not happy.
Something, it's starting to slip in there. It doesn't have the coefficient of friction that it used to have. When it's a fresh clutch pack, it takes about 100 psi to start sucking it down.
And so I know, okay, 100 psi, that means that thing is great.
And every, none of them have changed at all. The second gear, all those, they're still sucking down at the same pressures. And I can watch the drum speed in the data log as well. And I can see it come to a stop.
And it's like second gear grabs, it's come into a halt. And so it's not like it's a Hail Mary. It did that same thing three times. I mean, I ran one 499, but then the passes before the tuneup was the same.
It was the same power and everything. I just let out early because it had, it kicked the tires really bad or whatever else. And the one, it flared the shift a little bit because we need to make some adjustments.
And so I did it three times and it's holding in there. And I don't think we're, this is not the be all end all, but it's the next step. And we just, we keep making, trying new things and trying new things.
Are you running out in overdrive or are you staying third?
Staying third. So technically the Rossler guys, they don't have an overdrive. So they're a lighter transmission. It's about 30 grand for Rossler setup with a Neil Chance converter.
That's a turbo 400 for those who want to say Ross are referring to a turbo 400.
Talking to top of it, there's only about two people that really build those Rossler and Eminem that I know of. Maybe there's another guy, but pretty much there's two main companies that people use at that level.
This would be like a street outlaw car, a pro modified car. You see these pro mod cars and the fastest diesel trucks and dragsters use these Rossler transmissions.
They've abandoned the factory 48RE. Well, since we build 48REs, we're very reluctant to abandon them for two reasons. One, we want to make our 48s better over time.
47RE, 48, same thing. We just call them 48s.
Four speed dodge transmissions.
Four speed dodge because they're all kind of the same components, just different planet opinion counts and stuff, but they're basically all the same.
Two, they're very expensive like Meyer doesn't have 30 grand to burn on one. Todd and I don't want to spend 30 grand on one.
Yeah. I mean, I think at some point, I mean, Rossers aren't indestructible either. People tear them up too. I do think at some point it would might be a good idea to like Todd, if you put a roster in yours and you could get a whole season out of it and refresh it once a year.
I think that could make sense in some situations, but for me, I'm too stubborn. I want to make the 48 work and it's not like, I mean, it's like with anything, it's not like we're just going down to the track and constantly having some random issue.
If it's just the whole system is not capable and like breaks in random ways every single time, that's really hard to just identify and say like, okay, yeah, I'm going to keep trying to throw random stuff at this to fix it.
Like the problems we have are the same problems over and over and they're kind of few and far between like we all raced in Arizona. No one had transmission issues.
I put five went down track five times and I could have done it again. I'm confident if I just not touch that transmission and gone down to to test and tune, it would have done the same thing.
Like the transmission looked great. And so I know there's a couple key in the at this higher level. There is a couple key weak points in a 48 47 and I think they're addressable.
I think we can still make them better. I think they've come a long ways and I think we can keep making them better.
Should we talk a little bit about what are these key points? There's obviously people going what what really fails at this power level?
I would say the first problem I'll just throw out there is the torque converter lockup clutch drags when you're building boost at the starting line.
If you get burned down by the other guy and you're at full, you know, launch boost for 10 seconds, there's going to be debris in your pan because the lockup clutches start dragging.
Very quickly once you're at boost and then however long you're on there is how much heat and damage happens there.
And so yeah, people know anyone's raised a good amount of time. You don't want to sit there on your converter forever or any longer than you have to because you'll sit there and you'll burn up those lockup clutches before you even hit lockup.
So when he says you want to sit there on your converter, what that means is you're on the brakes or trans brake and you have the you have boost.
You're sitting there at 400 horsepower to launch.
You're sitting really, I think it's an RPM thing. Yeah, but like, yeah, you're sitting there at 3000 RPM. I mean, at idle, those frictions aren't going past each other very fast, but really the turbine in there that's flinging fluid everywhere.
There's fling off on it and that is at lower PM. You're not really, it's not the, it's not really splashing into the lockup clutch at higher PM, the higher RPM you are, the more it splashes and like throws it.
It's like a jet of fluid pushing and lockup clutches.
And so it's not like applying, but it's, it's, I mean, it's like you took a water hose and like, you know, had a clothesline and you freaking took a water hose and shot one of the shirts.
It's like, it's going to fling against the next one and the heart of that water hoses or the one with the wind, whatever you want to call it is, is shooting it.
It's going to try to rub and when those things are going past each other at 3000 RPM, it's going to create some heat.
Now stock converter has a single lockup lining on the piston and so all it has to do is float off that one area.
There's oil coming through there, kind of keeping it.
When you have a multi-friction lockup or a triple disc like you need for racing so that it actually can lock up and hold the power.
Now you have more clutch discs in there in that tight zone.
And just like more likely to drag to explain that a little bit better.
When the converter is unlocked, the valve by sending fluid through the input shaft and floating the clutch, it's forcing the single clutch to be floated.
And when it's a single disc converter, that works great.
You have one disc and it's being forced to stay disengaged.
Perfect.
And that lasts a very, very long time and it's great.
And when you have a triple disc, now that fluid is really only forcing one clutch to be floated.
It could be any of the three, but only one is being forced to float.
And so those three can be sandwiched together.
And maybe that those three aren't pressing against the backing plate, but the three are pushing against each other or whatever happens to be.
And that will cause them to burn up.
And this isn't like a real problem.
Like at 2,000 RPM, like in below or even 2,500 below, it doesn't seem to be something that causes a problem.
But when you get these higher stalls with this higher RPM, that's when you really seem to have that issue of burning up that converter, just sitting at the line.
Like many times myself.
I've burned on many converters.
I think that's the number one thing on race drag race transmissions.
It's failed or warrantied or whatever.
And it got to the point where like torque converter manufacturers, a lot of them, they had lifetime warranties and they just realized like, we can't lifetime warranty this because if you drag race, you are going to burn up your lockups.
And actually, is it one season or is it one race?
It depends on the stall speed, how long it's at boost and the line pressure.
There's a couple of factors.
But they're all the same.
Every single one of these factory torque style torque converters, they will eventually fail drag racing.
And so we're trying some, some newer stuff in there, some newer technology in the converter, which it seems to be working pretty well.
Don't have enough like time on it to know that it's actually surviving, but it's working, which is awesome.
That later.
Yeah, for sure.
The next week is the week this link at the converter is the band, the second gear band.
Yep.
And explain this really quick how the second year band works.
So in first gear, so the second year band is it gets applied onto the outside of the direct drum.
So in first gear, the direct drum, it kind of freewheels, it spins backwards.
So it's freewheeling backwards.
Cool.
In second, the band grabs it and holds the drum to the case.
And so then that's holding the drum and that's, that's kind of locking out one of the planetaries.
You just increased your gear ratio.
And so that's your second gear.
When third year, the band comes off and the direct clutches grab, which that connects the direct drum to your input shaft and that just locks out the whole planetary.
And the direct drum is the one that you're holding.
So in second year, you're holding the drum and third gear, the band releases and the drum immediately has to start spinning inside the band.
And so you have a timing bind up, a very essential trade-off that happens there every time you shift under power from second to third year.
Yeah. And there's definitely some, I don't say some, like, I think a lot of people think like, oh, the band is just bands are terrible technology, clutches are way better.
It's just not enough.
Like a band will always be weak.
I don't think that's actually 100% wrong, but I don't think that's really the full problem.
I think the second gear band is at a disadvantage from the beginning, but it's the only clutch in the whole transmission that has to slip twice.
It's got to slip on the apply.
It's not going to grab immediately.
It's going to make some heat.
It's going to slip.
And then when you grab a third, it's got to slip again and release.
And if that release isn't well timed and isn't clean, you're building heat twice.
When you're racing, that shift is one and a half seconds apart.
So you built heat in the drum and the band on the apply, and now you're making even more heat.
You look at a second gear band, they don't wear out.
They burn.
And there's burnt oil, burnt material, and that's what ends up killing the band.
On a high performance transmission.
On stock ones, they do wear out after 200,000 miles.
Yes, but like any kind of performance, you're not wearing out the band.
You are burning it up.
And so there's, there is some technology there that we're playing with and I'm playing with to a keep the band cooler.
So helping force it fluid to keep it cool and free fresh.
And so it's not just eating the same hot oil, burnt oil all the time, but also technology there in trying to get that band to come off as cleanly and quickly as possible.
Because if that band is grabbing or the whole purpose of a band is it only really grabs very well one direction.
And so if that band is still kind of applied and then the direct drum comes on, direct drums is going to win that battle.
It's going to grab.
You're going to keep going down the track, but that band is sitting there burning itself up.
Not a lot.
Just enough to do that a couple of times.
You've burnt the band.
And so it's, that's, that's what's really cool about some of this pressure monitoring and speed monitoring we're doing is that after the past, I'm looking at the data logs and I can see what that band did.
And then how and understanding more what's going on to understand more, how to make it better.
And so that's like, that's the exciting part for me is traditionally to measure the speed of the drum.
All you have is the engine RPM and maybe an output shaft speed sensor.
That's all you had.
There was never any way to read the speed of the drums.
So you've modified yours so that you can actually see the shaft, the speed of the drum, which speed of the drum.
And that's another thing too, is that because anytime anyone that's racing and this is more of a race strategy and anyone can do it is a lot of, it's very, very common to have lockup come on with the second gear band.
And so you have lockup on at the line.
The moment you go to second, it locks the converter.
Well, now you're, you're having two of the, you're having the second gear band grab at the same time as your converter.
Well, the converter is going to win that battle.
And so the second gear band grabs first and then it's almost fully applied and the lockup clutch comes on and it rips it out again.
So it's making it grab twice.
So a simple way to make your band survive longer is just to not stack those shifts.
And really the only reason people have those shifts stacked is kind of laziness because they don't have a good way of controlling it all.
And so having some kind of a delay system in there to where it grabs second and then half a second later, it can grab lockup.
It's better for racing because you don't, you don't like suck the engine RPM way down like that, but it's also way better for band life.
And so just doing something simple like that really helps.
So most guys to kind of dumb that down more on a racing transmission, there's a torque converter lockup on a stock four speed dodge like in the older, you know, 12 valves and early 24 valves.
It only locks the torque converter in overdrive, never locks it in third.
If you have overdrive off, then it will lock it in third gear in racing.
We want to lock it in second gear because when the torque converter is locked, there's another 50% more power making it to the ground through the wheels.
And so generally guys will ground the lockup selenoid, which commands lockup, but the valve body hydraulically cannot lock in first gear.
So the lazy guy puts a toggle switch in there that they flip on at the starting line and it would lock the, it would lock the torque converter if they're in second, but they're in first gear.
Every guy does.
And so I launch in first gear as soon as I hit my shifter in a second gear of the track or if it's an automatic as soon as it grabs second, boom.
He hits second locks all at once. Huge demand of fluid that's not there.
So they kind of apply second gear with low pressure applies lockup with lower pressure than it should.
And if you're a sub 700 horsepower truck, it'll do that for a couple of years with no problems.
Oh yeah, it'll do it till something else breaks.
Like it'll do that for a long time, but you junk or drag truck did it for years.
No problem.
Exactly.
7800 horsepower, no problem.
When you start getting above 1000, you have to be more mindful of those things.
And you start, I mean, track calculated.
We averaged about to call it 2000 horsepower, smidge over depending how you do the math, a little over 2000 horsepower going down track.
Like that's a lot of power and it hit it very quickly.
Like that's one thing that was just shocks me about having like we did, we spent a lot of months.
I don't know exactly how long it was, but I think it was almost, it was a four or five months that I was here every single night building a chassis.
And it's so cool to watch it work because we're leaving the line, not crazy hard, but we're hitting full power within about a half a second after we have tire spin, we're going full power.
And the chassis is taking it.
I mean, the transmission is having to shift under all that the bands having to grab 2000 horsepower.
How sweet is that?
The converter, like the, I mean, all every part of it and it's working.
So back when we used to race the Godfather, that's Todd's four wheel drive green truck that blew up a couple years ago.
When we would look at data logs of that when we're racing, it would, the boost would not be as high in second gear and we get this huge boost spike in third gear.
We finally figured out it would never fully grab in second gear.
So he would launch, grab second gear and it would try to be making big power, but it was just this controlled slip.
It didn't have as much load on second gear.
It was like a continuous slip.
And then we add third gear and pick up like 60 pounds of boost and we're like, we're like, why is that?
Oh, that's cause it finally, it finally hooked everything.
And you were, you're, you're making some steam back in the day, but I don't know if it's like really that much more.
I mean, I'm not.
Yeah, I mean, no, but it was just, we didn't have the, the trans couldn't take it.
Maybe it was a came a little harder.
Maybe the torque, I don't know what it was.
And I mean, you're making a lot of power.
Lots of power.
I mean, you did 146 miles an hour.
Eighth, that's freaking amazing.
I'm very what you did.
You used to see, but you're like, man, I ran a six 20, but look at that mile an hour though.
I think you went 130.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You weighed 6,000 pounds though.
So that's, yeah.
60 foot was like a 1.8 or something.
Yeah.
Like it, like it made it all up the back half.
It's like, all right.
Basically third gear.
The whole bunch of Monarch.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
So yeah.
So the transmissions is amazing because what, what we're able to do now with the expense,
you don't have to, you know, take in like the roster is still expensive transmission.
Don't get us wrong.
For sure.
What we're building here is very expensive for four dates, but we're talking like half
as much as a roster only is top in as, you know, turbo 400s.
And it's only going to get better.
Yes.
Like, and as we start figuring out more things, like, yeah, I mean, I'm excited for it because
it's really, I mean, it's, it's cool and satisfying to like try new things and have it work, but
it's also exciting because of all the data we're getting.
Like next time that transmission comes apart, it's going to be different again.
And a lot of diesel racing is traditionally eighth mile now, but if you ever want to do
a drag and drive event that's quarter mile, you can't run that in a turbo 400.
You need an overdrive gear and they don't have that.
You don't have the RPM on the diesel.
And so it's like, if you want to run quarter mile, you kind of need an overdrive.
You're already, we're already at the limits of the third gear.
I'd have to start regearing the truck.
Like to go much faster than he's going right now.
You'd have to put different.
Yeah.
Regear the truck or put like an SES and overdrive the SES or something.
Yeah.
Like a billet transfer case that you can put different gear ratios in.
Which is cool.
Yeah.
It's great, but I'm not there yet.
That's what's fun to me and I made a comment to someone and they're like saying like,
it's cool because the truck's very under built for what it is.
But then he's like, is it really though?
And I'm like, I don't know my brain says it is, but he argued.
And I do think that some of his opinions are right.
Like it's got a nice chassis and it's got a bunch of like four link front and rear.
Like not a lot of trucks, I guess are like that.
Like they'll four link the rear, but not the front and stuff like that.
But like the parts in it are very, very modest.
That's got a freaking two, two 41 DLD transfer case is why not?
It's got a, it's a four back in the day.
Guys thought the light duty transfer cases would not hold up to Jagra.
I see because in sled pulling the light duty, they say once you got about six,
700 wheel horsepower in a sled pole, it would break the DLD transfer case.
You needed a two 41 DHD or a heavy duty.
They had a little bit thicker chain and a little bit bigger output shaft on them,
you know, going to the drive shaft in the back.
And so guys who do that, you Myers running the two 41 DLD cause it's lighter weight
one and two, it's holding the power.
So why?
Yeah, I mean, really the, the main difference that I am, I'm not saying I'm
super worried about, but the output shaft on the DLD is considerably smaller.
I don't know if it's going to be a problem one day or not.
My brain should be fine.
So we'll see.
I'm sure one day it'll fail on me and I'll regret my decisions.
But for now it's working pretty good.
And it's, and I got rid of the, I got rid of the four low.
So it doesn't have a planetary in there or anything now.
So it's just kind of straight through and it just has a shifter that you can select
for high or too high.
And so I got rid of, I think that factory transfer case is 84 pounds.
Like as reference, a DHD is a hundred pounds or 98 pounds of two 71, like a third gen
transmit transfer case is 104 pounds and that thing's now 70 pounds.
So like it's just a little bit of weight there saved.
I mean, it's 30 pounds kind of tangent there, but I'm caring about weight.
Another thing that's amazing, like the transmission technology is amazing,
but also the engine stuff, like what we've got in that engine.
It's, I've said it from the beginning ridiculous.
So this is my favorite part about that whole engine.
So I've gone, I've gone around telling everyone it's a tow truck motor.
I didn't want to push it too hard and it's true.
It's a tow truck motor and I didn't want to push it that hard.
It wasn't supposed to do that much power on the drag strip.
I don't know.
Like I checked the tune.
It's like check the data log.
It's only the fuel was the right amount.
Like it was the 1,050 us or whatever 1,050 earth, 1,100.
I don't remember 1,050, I think.
And there's people that don't know what us.
You're talking to microseconds how long with how long the injectors are pulsed on.
Yep.
How long the injectors pulsed on for?
So it's about a thousand seconds and max of you at 1,800 seconds.
Microseconds.
Microseconds.
So those are 500% over DDPs.
And for reference, when I was doing fuel only stuff like dyno, trying to hit, you know,
1,800 horsepower on the Northwest dyno circuit, dyno, the fuel only, that was 1,600 us.
We're at 1,050.
Yeah.
Considerably less than those injectors.
You're about two thirds power on fuel first.
Yup.
And then I had, I didn't have the nitrous all the way on.
I had one.
So two 375 solenoids, one going through a dash four line.
It was my spool kit, no jet or anything.
And that one went full on 0.7 seconds, 0.6 seconds in or something like that.
And then the big kit, which was a 375, like nitrous expressed solenoid, that was on a
dash six kit and it was at 40%.
That's all it was.
And I was like, I don't know what it'll be, but according to our dyno should have been,
I didn't dyno the exact setup, but I was guessing it was going to be like 18 something.
No, apparently it was a little bit more.
But what's my favorite part about all this is that once this motor is done, which I think
I'm done with it.
I don't know.
I might do more, a little bit more testing.
It's going in Ruby.
The tow truck motor is going in the tow truck.
It's great.
Yeah.
As it is, like we're going to pull it apart.
That's just so fun about this thing.
Like we do have some things we're testing, but not expensive.
Like we have some coated pistons.
We're kind of starting to play some pistons.
So we could, we fight cut them a little bit for the cam and truth, truth coated them.
Yeah.
Truth be told, the block was a little bit tighter piston to wall than I, than I originally wanted.
And so I could have thrown it in the home and just opened it up a little bit more.
But I was like, hmm, like I could also just try to coat in these pistons and see what happens.
Yeah.
It's holding up so far.
So good.
We're excited to get when we pull it out, we're going to kind of take the head off and
like the bottom.
Yeah.
For sure.
This is a factory block.
Not filled.
It's one of our blocks.
Yes.
The power driven like stage threes or like that 14 millimeter top, 14 millimeter bottom.
Yep.
14 top and bottom.
That means the head studs are 14 millimeters and the main studs are also 14 millimeters.
And it's in the stage three block that we offer.
Yeah.
And that's really why I didn't want to have to touch it.
It's cause we had, it's actually a block we were playing with block coding on.
And so I didn't want to have to go put it back in the home to, and then have all the block
code.
And so I was like, well, I'll just coat the piston as well.
You know, that makes sense.
But yeah, it's literally like basically straight off the shelf.
So it's a factory block.
We've drilled the main studs to 14, the head studs to 14 from 12 where they started.
We did address the, on those stage threes, we do have the steam port holes.
We've reinforced those.
Reinforced the steam port holes.
You have those cracked many, many times.
First place to crack is the steam port.
So we braced them up a little bit, which that's, we'll see how it's working.
There's any cracks there, but it's not leaking right now.
So you know, at least it has the same crankcase pressure.
So I monitor coolant pressure so I can see if it's starting to crack there.
I also monitor crankcase pressure and everything's the same from the first fire.
Like going down the track, it was the same 1.3 PSI.
It was in Arizona.
So then it's just a factory.
It's not even an OEM comments.
It's an aftermarket replacement cast piston, you know, very affordable.
We played with our coatings on there.
Like you said, we got a little ceramic.
We're playing with on the top.
Yep.
A little bit of slick stuff on the coat.
Did we do different rings too?
We tried.
The rings we haven't tried before, but they're a factory replacement ring.
They're not a total seal or anything special there.
You don't want to try those.
And you got waggler rods.
Yep.
You have the PDD crank in there.
That's the most powerful we've made so far with that thing.
You're the fastest I've ever done.
I don't think that's true.
Who's made more power?
So the dyno didn't read, but I took a PDD crank.
I threw a lot more than that 3000.
Like if that was, let's just say that was 21.
No, it wasn't 3000.
If that was 2100, the fuel quarry nitrous alone should have pushed it to at least 25.
And the dyno didn't read.
So this time you're at 2100 horse, but you feel like you've done 25, maybe 2600 on a PDD crank,
on a separate different engine you played with a few months ago.
Just, I mean, on the math, when I set that tune up in that engine to try it, it was going
to be 25, 2600.
And then looking at how much fuel and nitrous I did going down the track versus how much
fuel nitrous I had on that pole.
Yeah.
It was definitely higher.
Definitely 25, 2600.
But who knows?
But I mean, we don't even have a girdle in this thing.
It's a 14 millimeter main caps with 14 millimeters studs.
And the caps that came with the block, they're not billet main caps.
We'll see what they look like.
On these pass motors, we've seen a little fretting longterm without a girdle in there.
But, and this is, that wasn't our block.
That was a, we saw the fretting.
Was that a OEM block you're playing with?
Basically every engine I've ever pulled out of that thing has threaded the mains a little bit.
Like not, not dangerous.
Like the shorties was when I finally blew that motor up and I had done so much crap to that
thing.
It was super fretted.
Basically engine, I mean, just no girdle means the mains.
You guys don't know.
Fretting means the mains are stretching the main set a little bit when the power hit
happens.
And it's just getting a little bit of a movement between the main cap and the block enough
to kind of friction weld and transfer the little metal.
And it just doesn't look good longterm.
You would think that could cause problems.
The problem would be bearing failure because the bearing wouldn't be staying straight and
true with the crank.
But for all we know, maybe the crank is moving and maybe that's helping the cap to stay in
line with the crap.
We don't know until you're having bearing problems on the mains.
Haven't had bearing problems yet.
It's kind of like a, I've yet, I've put a lot of dyno pulls through a motor with those
like the different motors I've done, never had a girdle.
And I've yet to like, I understand that fretting the mains is a sign that something's not right,
but you have to have a problem because of it.
So I'm just kind of like, whatever, like someday that problem will come.
But yeah, so, you know, back in the day, like you said, five years ago, you're making a
499 motor.
Nobody would even, their mind would attempt it with a cast piston.
Like that's the demos you've ever heard.
You have a forged piston because you have this RPM.
So today money you're talking $4,500 set of pistons versus $1,200 set of pistons.
Right?
Not even.
Yeah.
A thousand dollar set of pistons.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's called the whole part.
The thousand dollar pistons have that forged steel ring land.
So you can, you can drive it on the street and it's not going to work.
That's a million mile piston.
That's why you're calling it a tow truck motor.
Yes.
Same rods on both.
You need good rods at that power level.
Yep.
Why good rods on that?
The cranks, not really any different than a stock one.
It's just a factory.
You don't need a billet crank or anything.
Religious clearances.
We have enough clearance, but you said you've been tight on the pistons.
But I think I was about the same as your last Ruby engine.
Oh, wow.
So yeah, that's surprise.
That's nice.
Yeah.
So far it's been great.
It's been awesome.
And then the cylinder head, that's another fun thing for us.
It's like, you can spend, we had, we had a whole podcast on how much money you
can end up spending in cylinder heads, like crazy amount of money with the,
you know, side draft, intake cut off, crazy valves.
And the, now your head probably right now is the highest level head.
Will's ever done.
Cause we did actually on this one.
It's the first time you've actually put bigger valves in it.
Yeah.
It has bigger valves in it, but it is still a factory shelf.
So it's a, it's right at 250 CFM our normal stage two hot street head that
you would normally run is like 220 CFM the ones off.
So you, you got 30 more CFM of intake flow.
And all that really does is that lets the engine efficiently turn another about
500 RPM.
And then really it's, you know, that's really all you're getting there.
Exhaust flow is actually in the realm.
Might even be slightly less on this one than the last one.
So it's trying to be more stage two numbers basically.
Yeah.
I think maybe you touched better.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think his last head, I modified his stage two a little bit.
And I think it is exhausted on like 250 or something.
This was like 240, but in our stage two, it's like 230.
So it's a little bit more exhaust, but not as much as he's ran before.
And it was just more me like, Hey, Meyer's going to put a lot of nitrous in this.
I want a big fat valve seat.
So I'm not as aggressive on the valve job to see if it'll be more reliable.
Not that we'd had a failure before, but I also knew that we are upping the power,
upping the nitrous, upping the, the Annie, so to speak.
And so I just wanted to, to test, but this is one of our induction heads.
Yeah.
So don't have to worry about seats falling out, which is pretty sweet.
That's great.
Very excited about that.
Yeah.
We increased the, we increased the valves a little bit and we put better valve springs
in there than we've ran before.
Or did this have race conicals?
Race conicals.
Oh, race conicals.
Yeah.
I was like, no, I'm just, I forgot if we put those special waggler ones to know.
So it's very race conicals.
Yeah.
So it's like, it's very satisfying.
Like I'm, there's a lot of companies that sell a lot of things.
It's very satisfying to use basically all of our own parts and not, I mean, DDPs with
the injectors, waggle with the rods.
There's a lot of things that we don't make, but we have a lot of parts in that engine.
Like it's majority blowing PD block, crank head, all that stuff and have it just work.
It's like, yeah.
Yeah.
Works so good.
It seems like it seems, I don't know what we're doing, but it seems to be working.
And it's great.
There is a lot of truth in like you have a good chassis and you got the weight down.
Yeah.
But it doesn't, the mile an hour and weight doesn't lie.
You're north of 2000.
What is your weight?
4420 is what I believe it to be.
It's within 20 pounds of that.
So a little over 4,400 pounds.
So you did save some weight, but I mean, this is a wet, you could drive it on the street
motor.
The reason I was saying it was a quarter million dollars to build a truck like this years ago
is you would have a hundred thousand dollars in the engine years ago.
Oh yeah.
It'd be a deck plate, you know, billet this and that cylinder head.
I mean, a hundred thousands of little, I mean, I guess with injectors and fuel and everything,
like it's probably 40 some for, for a long block.
No.
Yeah.
Those hazely super B engines were 80,000 back in the day.
Yeah.
I think a drag race motor.
I think you'd have a billed aluminum head on there back in the day.
Just ask Ryan Milken, those guys, what they ran on their, their four second cars back in
the day and they had big dollar motors.
Yeah.
It is crazy.
Yeah.
Like I say, it is very fun to watch.
You can say very satisfying.
I have a lot of our own parts of the cylinder heads.
Very fun.
Cause this is something will just like taken over the past couple of years and just just
we're not done.
I'm like, I know we can get to 400.
All right.
Someday we're going to have 400 CFM head.
Like it's super fun to watch it happen because like, I tell people, like this is a shelf
on head with an intake.
Well, the same one that came out of your, anybody's tow truck.
There's nothing special about like you open the hood and look at it like this.
It looks like the engine.
You have the plastic valve cover.
You have the factory valve cover.
Works great.
Broke go fix it.
Bill ones are probably heavier, right?
I actually didn't weigh it.
I just budget cuts.
I mean, there are some things on there that are super nice.
You have a very nice gear case on.
Yeah.
You didn't have to do that, but it sure makes it nice having both P CP threes in the case
not a belt eliminating belts was huge on cause you're turned a lot of RPM on this engine.
Really the main reason I did it, which it's partially cause drag racing, everything else,
but the main reason is the sled pull.
When we do UCC is, I mean, I don't have to show you tell you guys how many belts were
laying on the track after common rails were pulling.
Like it's, I'm going to say half of them, but quite a few.
Yeah.
And so having a belt driven like higher PM sustained for 20 seconds, like you're going
to throw a belt.
And so it's just nice to not have to worry about that anymore.
And now the belt is really simple.
It's just a freaking crank in an alternator.
That's it.
Yep.
And so that's super nice.
That's a nice part, but and that's a little spending, but not like, I mean, I was having
so much fun in Arizona when you're racing.
And everybody gets like, these guys have more money in their transmission than your
whole entire engine.
Like, I don't mind their head.
I don't want to be super boastful, but Arizona was great for me because they're, I don't
want to rub anyone the wrong way, but there was a guy.
So Josh broke and he thought he heard his engine, but turns out he just, he just threw
a rocker bridge.
He has a stretch and bolts, whatever, but he's broken.
And there's kind of a common etiquette that you have when you're at the end of the track
and you had a good pass, but the guy that you raced did not.
And he's broken.
You just don't like brag about what you just did.
You're like, Oh man, that sucks.
Like whatever.
Well, this guy apparently he'd been shooting for a certain time for a while and he, he
hit it.
So he's happy and he's like talking to Josh who's broken.
And he just like didn't have that common etiquette.
And maybe I didn't see the whole situation, but he was Josh was like, obviously pretty
frustrated and trying to be happy for the guy and everything.
But I was like, yeah, that's kind of sucks.
Like Josh is broken.
He thinks he's just heard his whole motor is his weekends done.
Like, don't go over.
Well, then the very next race, I raced that guy.
He had an aborted pass cause he had issues and I ran faster than that personal best that
he's been shooting for for three years.
And he was waiting at the end of the track to get towed back cause he's solid or whatever.
Doesn't have cooling system.
And I was like, man, thanks.
Just go off to the pits.
Super fun thing.
Like, like everybody in your class, like have these solid blocks, billet blocks, whatever,
they are all getting towed to the line and towed back from the finish line cause they
can't run cause I have no coolant and you're just driving around.
I mean, like you said, you could have towed something home with that engine literally
like just fine.
I mean, it's just so, so there's too many people that says podcast.
Oh, so it's powered driven.
Think to the best engine builders in the world.
I mean, no, I mean, you, you build this engine yourself.
I did.
And I don't think I'm the best engine bill in the world.
I'm really just excited that the parts that we sell, like I can feel very confident in
them now.
Like, I mean, we were confident before we did a bunch of measuring, but it's like nice
to like actually put the, you know, or the pen to the paper or not pen to paper.
What's that?
What was the road?
Whatever the cliche you're saying is like, yeah, it works.
Yeah.
And so I, yeah, I don't, I don't think I'm the best.
I built that.
I'm just excited because this is a level of bill that's way more attainable than it was
five years ago to a large, much larger group of people.
Like if you want to run fast, it, yes, it's still expensive.
I'm not saying it's not and the amount of time you have in this is insane, but the investment
you have in it is so little compared to what it would have been five years ago.
And that's super fun for me.
That's like the industry moving forward.
It's not only our stuff.
Like DDP is a feeling side.
Oh yeah.
I mean, they're awesome.
Yeah.
There's a lot of things that had to come together and they have made huge improvements for
the past five years.
That's wondering.
So like we're, we're all benefiting not just us, but anybody can benefit from that.
The Stoneman program that Will's been figuring out is amazing.
Like we're getting all kinds of flow through way less expensive heads than we've had to
in the past.
Oh yeah.
The block is, there's nothing special there.
It's a quality casting with quality parts, but it's not like crazy over bill.
It's just good parts, good cam, good rods, praying.
I mean, really it's nothing special.
Anybody could build that.
Yeah.
And that's like the cam, just Colt stage four cam.
That's not even like the big five, but yeah, we're trying to not fly cut the pistons to
see.
So I don't need to get any valve relief.
He just, on fact, I actually forgot about the family thing.
And so we coated the pistons.
I was like, well, I guess they're not valid at all.
Now you're going to ask me, now you're going to ask me what my piston valve was.
I'm like, dude, I bought, I built that in less than 24 hours.
So I have no idea.
I did sink the valves a little deep when I was working on it because I knew he probably
was going on the time.
So I told you there's a little, a little extra built into the, which doesn't help the flow.
No, but it does.
But it helps reliability a little bit and protecting the valves.
And then two, it protects the builder from, from not having valve release.
And I mean, I think no valve release, if you can run the engine like that is good or at
least very little valve relief.
So that's cool.
There's definitely like a thought currently that, you know, it's better to keep the piston
bowl as was designed and not run fly cuts and, you know, either sink the valves deep or
do something to get your cams that you need, but try to keep that bowl as was designed
for the factory.
And that's, I mean, it's kind of funny that you're actually doing that.
I didn't, I didn't, I, I thought for sure you had Valverly.
I would have had Valverly if I had thought about it.
So you had to drop the cam down, but good thing you had a high flowing head.
Yeah. Cause I was originally like, but when I started to build this engine, it wasn't
going to have those pistons in it.
And so we changed the pistons.
I didn't even think of like, Oh, I should probably Valverly those too.
Yeah.
And they go, yep.
It's just, it's just, it's really fun.
I didn't realize it until they were coated.
And I was like, I'm not going to have like the coating guy would a hundred percent come
in on a weekend and do this for me.
I don't want to ask me to do that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Another nice thing about it is the, um, how much money you had spent in turbos in
the past?
Oh yeah.
Like, I mean, I've spent a ridiculous amount of dollars in turbos.
And it's one of the, one of the reasons I really have pushed hard for these Garrett,
you know, all these GT 55 style turbos, the Gressor 98, there's a few, there's a
few companies making them now.
And I really wanted a high quality ball bearing unit that was affordable because
sometimes you blow up turbos.
I mean, I've blown up Garrett's.
I've won.
I mean, everything can, everything can get blown up.
There's nothing invincible out there.
And so to not have it be such a huge drain on your bank account when it happens.
Oh jeez.
It's awesome.
For sure.
And yeah, it's got one of our Gressor 480s on the manifold and it's been in there for,
it's been hanging out for a long time.
Yeah.
It's the same one from, I mean, I've have, I don't know how many dyno balls on that
one and drag race passes and super high GTs.
Like my back in the field when I was doing fuel only stuff, like 2400 degrees was pretty
standard going down the track.
And everything took it like, like I've tool up the valves in the head, the stock valves,
indestructible stock valves.
I had to tool up those turbine wheel on the 480 mint.
No problem.
And now you're a, you're a 57 on the big turbo, which we don't offer that yet.
Hint, hint coming soon.
So we're, we're excited about offering even the bigger stuff.
So we can actually race all of our own turbos, which I'm very excited about.
Yeah.
It will be sweet.
Yeah.
So turbo and, and there's other affordable turbos out there, which is great.
So for the guys out there asking when the chargers can be done, when Todd gets me G57
turbos, it'll be done.
I don't think that's even true.
I guarantee you that's not true.
I'll bet you comment below guys, if you even know what I'm talking about when I say the
chargers, half of you probably don't even know the charger.
It's such a long antiquated project.
What a file.
Sad deal.
Yeah.
But so the 57s are coming hopefully, hopefully by UCC be fun.
If we can run those for UCC, but it takes a while to get parts and development and the
molding for like, for the castings and all that kind of tooling we got to get figured
out.
So however, getting the turbos affordable has been a big goal of mine because I have spent
so much money on turbos and that really hurts.
And when you have compounds, you don't just hurt one.
Yeah.
You lose multiple turbos.
Sometimes three.
True.
Inner coolers behind it and so much stuff.
So yeah, like having, having all this stuff, like bring the cost down so more and more
people can get up to these high levels because it's so fun.
And honestly, I am like incredibly excited about the pro street class of NHR to gain.
Like there's quite a few trucks that are in that.
It's gonna be the bopping class.
Yeah.
I mean, they got a lot of good trucks in there, really good trucks.
And, and I just think it's more attainable than it ever has been.
Yeah.
And so if you're thinking about getting the pro street diesel now's a good time and help
you out or like to help you out, but it's not as expensive.
We can be as expensive as you want.
Oh yeah, you can spend a lot of money.
If you build a lightweight truck, a tow truck motor can take you.
I mean, if you can run a 499 on a, at an NHRDA event, you're like, you know, number one
qualifier or, or right there really close to where you're competitive.
Whether Philip Franklin shows up.
That's it.
Even if Philip shows up, if you've run 499s, he's nervous when he's lined up next to
you.
He's like, I've got to be on the tree or this guy's.
Yeah.
It's a race.
Like it's fun.
There's, there's going to be, and there's, there's multiple trucks that are in the
deep, deep fives now.
Summer.
I mean, you're in the forest.
Franklin's the forest.
More going to start dropping in that four second range.
Man, I did four one time.
I wouldn't say that's a consider myself in the force.
Maybe you did it on an oil slick track.
You were all over the place, man.
If you had a good truck or you hook up, who knows?
It was like a 498.
Yeah.
Who knew?
Yeah.
So that was one thing that's funny.
And I guess I'll just go back to it really quick.
But like, I talked about the tow truck motor.
Multiple people have mentioned, mentioned me like, dude, if you had a real motor, think
about how fast that would have been.
I'm like, okay, so let me tell you something about that.
Drag should pass.
I trapped at 146.
I was doing a burnout until 125.
There wasn't a lot of room for more power.
You're right.
You're right there.
The whole time.
That is a fun feeling.
I mean, it's not like the ideal.
You want to be hooked the whole time, but it is very interesting to be floating to 100.
Definitely less boring.
I think going straight.
It's quite the ride.
Yeah.
The power of power is not your issue there.
And I mean, it's not, we don't know how much probably that lock into it.
I don't know.
You probably not even push any harder than you have.
I was going to go again and I was like, man, I did this once.
It's probably unsafe.
The truck drives.
It's probably pretty unsafe to try to do it again because I did not mean to put that
much power in.
If I had known it was going to be that much, I would turn it down.
And so I was like, what am I going to do?
Go slower?
No.
Just put in the trailer.
Like the event wasn't even over.
I was like, okay, put in the trailer and drive home.
Anyway, it's just, it's just amazing.
And I saw that time slip.
I was like, just at first you send time slip and it was a 49 and a 501 or something.
I'm like, well, which one are you?
And I saw the 60 foot of the altered was like a 1.0 or something.
You're the slow one who was fast.
It's great.
Yeah.
Cause you're so far behind the 60 foot and you totally reeled them in your fast.
What was your 60 foot on that?
126.
Still very good.
I mean, great.
Not my best, but decent.
The track.
I had to pull so much.
Like the so much change I made all day was pulling power out of the leave because it just was
all over the place.
And so in Arizona, I had, I was able to leave with more and did a better 60 foot.
Yeah.
It's just really exciting.
And I just, I, every day in the job, I just go, look at it.
I'm like, look at this stupid truck.
This engine is not, it's so simple.
There's a plastic off cover on it.
There's an intake horn.
I like, so you're on freaking boots.
I am on boots.
Boots.
Boots.
You're not even, not even Van Jens boots.
Hey, they're working great.
I know.
It's crazy.
So I want to like, so a couple of years ago when I want to start with drag racing,
I really wanted to run a five because no one in the shop had ran a five yet.
And so I was like, if I can be the first one of the five,
I can really just stick it to Will and Todd, these drag racing masters, you know?
Yeah, we're masters.
Not real.
We love it.
I wouldn't save a master.
Jack.
Jack.
Jack of all masters.
So I was like, oh, I'll just like, I like math.
It should work out.
I should be able to run a five pretty easily.
And I actually had to go drag racing a couple of times before I was able to do it because
I was kind of nervous because you were working on the comments card.
I was like, dude, nothing's so light.
All it takes is one decent pass and he's there.
Like he's got them.
He's got more power and he's got like a thousand pounds on me.
Like it's not even close.
And so apparently around a five and I was like, I felt pretty good about myself.
I was like, yeah, I got a 590 contender.
Will was still struggling to run a five.
And so I was like, man, I've got a pretty legit unit here.
Then you ran and you ran a 540 like out the gate.
And I was like, I came back and I was just like almost demoralized.
I was like, I can't even hang with that.
I was like, I have to put so much money into this stupid thing.
Like I like racing and it's fun to push the limits and try new things,
but that's a, that's an ungodly amount of dollars that I have to spend in order to get there.
And I was like, I don't mean that in my brain, it was to compete at that level.
I was like, I'm going to need a, you know, a deck plate engine, which we were talking big money, big money for that.
Trans like transmission, I guess I had most of the parts, but I was like, I think in axels
and I was thinking all this fiberglass everywhere.
And I'd have to get rid of my power windows, which power windows are awesome.
Cause when it's Vegas and you're stuck in the lanes cause someone bounced off the walls at 98 degrees,
like not having to have someone open and close your doors for you is just great.
Like I was just like, man, there's so many dollars with the things I'm going to have to spend money on to get there.
It's like, it's unachievable.
And I was like thinking of different options and just whatever and like what I really wanted to do.
And like almost was like, want it willing to like accept defeat.
Like I don't know, maybe as fast as Todd, like, sorry.
Then I was like, okay, let's just start with a spreadsheet.
So I made a spreadsheet of what the truck weighed and I started making a list of things I could do.
I could get rid of the bed. That's probably 300 pounds.
I could get rid of the, I could do this and cut this out of here and cut this out of there.
And I could back half it. I could front half it and like just started going down the list.
And before you knew, I knew it.
It was the number was 4,600 pounds.
And I was like, that was your weight.
And I was like 4,600 pounds.
It seems oddly achievable.
And I was like, as a whole, it's like this huge big dollar hungry thing that I was going to have to do.
But when you dissect it, I was like, I can do this pretty cheap, like a bedside or a grand.
I was like literally sitting poolside in and I bought those bedsides.
I freaked me out first because I thought I was going to be like $5,000 for shipping.
It was pesos.
So I was like, I can do that. That's fine.
And so it's like $1,000 for, for bedsides.
And like, I just chopped like, I don't have any fiberglass anywhere on it.
I just chopped out the hood supports and it's eight pounds here, five pounds there, whatever, penders.
So you have a full steel truck that weighs 4,400 pounds.
Yeah. And like the doors still have both power windows in them.
Like, and I was able to get down and wait.
And I was like, and now my back half turned into a little more excessive than I was originally thinking.
I was going to chop it at the back of the cab.
I ended up going a little further and that really added a lot of work to it.
But like it's, I mean, obviously it is a lot of work to get there.
Like it was months of just being here every night, trying to get this thing done.
But it's, if anyone's willing to do that, that fab stuff themselves, it's extremely feasible and it's not even that expensive.
No, did you have a fancy chassis table when you cut your truck up?
I did not. And I almost, I would, I don't know if I'd do it.
I would, I might send more time making sure everything's level before you start.
Cause then you're having to like account for the 1.3 degree angle that the whole truck's at the whole time.
And every measurement you do and you angle, you set, you have to make sure it's 1.3 degrees above or below, like right angle.
But you did not have a chassis table when you did it.
You're able to just do it off concrete floor.
I did concrete blocks with jack stands.
Yep. And, and so if you're willing to put in the time and like the dollars of it.
I mean, the tubing material was a couple of grand.
The anti roll bar was about a grand.
The brackets, four-link brackets and all that stuff was, it's all the four-link brackets for in front and back is probably about a grand.
Bars, tube ends, whatever, call that another grand.
Like, it's a lot of money.
It's a lot of money.
But it's not, not a lot of money for what it's doing.
Like, I would say, yeah, I mean, in the chassis and the whole backup front half, all that stuff, there's definitely less than 10 grand into it.
Yeah.
Which is, I mean, 10 grand's a lot of money.
But in the scheme of performance, that $10,000 in these trucks at this level is nothing.
Like, some of these trucks are multi-hundred thousand miles.
Like you're talking about putting a turbo back in the day, you're over 10 grand for that.
Yes.
Because you take out two, well those are $5,000 chargers.
Yes, exactly.
That's pretty spendy.
So yeah, like, well, okay, grand and grand adds up.
Yes, I know it adds up.
But at the level you're competing with, your budget is just, you're able to do it at such a little budget compared to what's been done.
And, I mean, yeah, so the 48 still, so that's obviously, you didn't have to go and buy a Rossler.
It's got an 849, like your ECM out of your 0607 truck.
Factory ECM.
I mean, you can pick those up.
I mean, if you have it already, awesome, but if you don't, you can pick up that in a harness for like 800 bucks.
Talking, what, $150 of credits on EFI Live.
100 bucks for EFI Live.
Yep, to tune it.
You have to learn how to tune yourself, but if you paid somebody enough, they probably would give you an Unlocked Tune so that you can make some changes.
But honestly, you don't really need to change the tune.
No, that tune started as the, because it's an 0607, like that year, like you can pull the tune out of it, make changes and put it back in.
You don't have to pay for anything.
Now, obviously you're starting with, from scratch.
So you got about a bunch of these dumb limiters and crap they have to work around and fix and whatever.
So it's like, not perfect idea.
If you were to buy a base file that was changed a little bit at a good starting point, that'd probably be a good idea if you're really new.
But yeah, absolutely.
I mean, most people aren't trying to start at 1500, 2000 horse.
Like if you're willing to start at the 1000, yeah, it's very achievable.
You can make small mistakes and your machine, your engine will survive.
Yeah, it's, I mean, I don't know if I'd want to go through and add up how much the whole project actually costs, like from start to finish, because that's kind of,
You should never do the three strokes.
Never do that.
It's a bad idea.
But I think I could look at what I've spent it in the last six months and I think I could forgive myself eventually.
Yeah, especially if you, yeah, let's do well UCC, maybe I'll recover some of that.
Well, my goal for UCC, as you guys know, like I, like I saw how successful you got to 540s and I was like, man, it's like, I should be able to do the same.
Like I wanted to run a 540 before UCC.
I wasn't like, I kind of told myself it was my go-no-go.
If I can't run a 540 before UCC, I'm going to have a really hard time telling myself I should go.
Yeah.
Because like there are going to be people running like last year, the fastest person was a 540.
And so if I can do 540s, I can at least be competitive.
Yeah.
First time fourth pass off the trailer.
Yes.
526.
And I was like, okay, we're going to UCC.
It's great.
I think there's some, there are some bigger, there'll be, there'll be many trucks faster than 540s.
Oh yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
I already know that.
I mean, there's, yeah, there's multiple trucks.
I think the one that's like Kenny, Michael Brown is going to go and he hasn't gotten a 540 yet,
but he's got a very capable rig.
He should be able to, he should have been able to last year, but they just had some gremlins.
Kenny Bruner, he's ready on a 512.
So he's solid.
Isn't Ziegler coming?
Ziegler.
I've heard multiple accounts.
Whether he's going or not.
And he's been 480s.
469.
That seemed very, very fast.
He's, he's fastest way, the fastest time at UCC was a 495, but he's gone better since then,
but he's also lightened up.
So you'll have to add a little bit of weight back for probably not a lot.
So he's going to be, I, I would guess he's going to win the drag race.
Like I, if I can be close to him, hell yeah, but we'll see what we can do everywhere else.
Cause we got 48, 48s.
We can, we know with Josh's dyno stuff, we can hold power.
Yes.
And that is definitely a big advantage because of what you and Josh have done before you,
like, yeah, you'll hold the power just fine.
You know.
Hopefully.
I mean, yeah, you never know for sure.
Math be math and we'll be able to do it.
Well, it's super impressive and it's super fun.
What, what you've done and what, what the industry has allowed to happen.
Like it's not just us, like the industry partners, you know, like different people, the technology grows everywhere.
And a lot of people are so willing to share.
Like, like, I mean, if you're trying to do the same thing, I guess my recommendation would be like, you see something like that.
I'm like, oh, that's so unachievable.
It's a hundred percent achievable.
Make yourself a freaking spreadsheet and see like all the little steps because it's, yeah, it's way easier to do 10 little steps than one big like thing.
We could all have to do this whole entire thing.
Yeah.
And so just do that and ask questions.
Like most people, like, I mean, I could say for me, like, I'm so excited about the crap that I've been able to do.
Someone wants to know how to do the things I did.
I do.
I'd love to talk about myself.
Are you serious?
Of course.
And so, yeah, it's awesome.
And this, yeah.
Well, it is fun racing.
We always talk about it.
We do racing podcasts and we hope we see you guys somewhere someday.
Come say hi.
We met some of you in Arizona, which is super fun.
Yep.
I hope to see other events we go to.
Obviously you see, I imagine we'll see a bunch of people there.
Yeah.
That's going to be a very fun event.
First week of June.
Plan on it.
Yeah.
Put on your calendar.
Get out to Indianapolis, to Lucas Oil Raceway and.
Yeah.
Now to be fair, we're not taking the truck motor to UCC.
We do have some bigger stuff planned for UCC.
I might be a spare.
Yeah.
But the fact that it did it is just amazing and super fun.
So anyway, guys, I think that's our time here for today to wrap us up.
So thanks for joining us today.
Talk about fun stuff.
Myers amazing truck, the truck, the tow motor that could and the tow motor that could.
It's amazing.
All right.
Thanks you guys.
Please share, like, subscribe.
Let us know what you want to hear about.
Help this channel grow.
Show us with your friends.
We'd appreciate it.
And yeah, we'll see you next time on the Parisian podcast.
Also guys, in the last podcast, right after I ran that four second pass, I did see a lot
of you guys in the comments congratulating me on my accomplishments and I appreciate it.
So thank you.
About this episode
A pro-street diesel truck hits 4.99 in the eighth mile, and the discussion focuses on how it’s possible without “quarter-million-dollar” complexity. The hosts break down the real tech: transmission durability at extreme power, why the 2nd-gear band is the weak link, and how pressure/speed logging helps tune shift timing and converter lockup strategy. They also cover the “tow-truck” engine approach—factory-based parts, smart coatings, and head/valvetrain choices—plus the cost/attainability shift in diesel racing. The episode ends with plans for upcoming UCC competition.
Original notes
Myer's drag truck just ran a 4.99 in the eighth mile, and the engine making it happen is almost offensively simple. On this episode of the Power Driven Podcast, Todd, Will, and Myer break down what it took to get there and why the technology available to diesel builders right now is changing what is possible at every level of the sport.
The guys dig into what that number actually means in context, where the money goes in a build like this, and why high level diesel performance is more attainable today than it has ever been. The conversation covers everything from drivetrain decisions to turbo costs to cylinder head development, all through the lens of what it took to put a tow truck in the fours.
Pro Street diesel is growing fast and the boys make a strong case that now is the time to get in. Multiple trucks are running deep fives and dipping into the fours, the parts are better, and the price to compete has come way down compared to even a few years ago.
Everything the guys talk about in this episode is available at PowerDriven.com. Links below.
Shop Power Driven Diesel: https://www.powerdriven.com
Power Driven Podcast
Power Driven
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