Common-rail is a modern way of injecting diesel fuel. It keeps fuel at very high pressure and then sprays it into the engine at the right moments, which can make the engine smoother and easier to tune for big power.
The “P pump” is an older diesel fuel-injection setup. It can make power, but newer common-rail systems usually give you more control when you’re trying to push the engine hard.
HX 82 is a turbocharger model commonly associated with high-boost diesel builds. The “HX” series is typically used for larger airflow and higher boost targets, and the host is comparing their setup to an older HX 82-based combination.
A “cast wheel” is how the turbo’s wheel is made. Different wheel types can handle heat and boost differently, which matters a lot when you’re pushing a diesel hard.
A turbo is a device that uses exhaust to force more air into the engine. More air can mean more power, but if it’s not matched correctly, it can also cause damage.
A flow bench is a tool that tests how well engine parts let air pass through. It helps you figure out what’s limiting airflow so you can improve performance.
Four-wheel drive powers all four wheels, which helps the car grip the track better. That can make launches faster because the tires are less likely to spin.
Nitro-methanol is a special racing fuel mix used for big power. It helps engines make more power, but it’s harder on parts because everything runs hotter and harder.
“12 valve” describes how many valves the engine has in its cylinder head. Different valve/head designs breathe and burn fuel differently, which changes how the engine performs when you add boost and fuel.
A “cage” is a metal safety frame inside the truck. It’s there to protect the driver if something goes wrong, and it’s often required for high-power racing.
A “dyno competition” is an event where vehicles are tested on a dynamometer (dyno) to measure output like horsepower and torque under controlled conditions. It’s often used to compare builds consistently, but results can vary with tuning, weather, and dyno calibration.
John Strato is credited in the episode with building the roll cage (“cage”) for the truck. The host also ties his approach to planning for future upgrades, implying the cage was designed to be expanded later.
“Black Tie Race Fab” is referenced as the shop associated with John Strato, implying they fabricate race components like roll cages. In this context, it’s a consumer-facing identity for the fabrication work being discussed.
Term
ultimate call challenge
An “ultimate call challenge” appears to be a specific competition format within the diesel performance scene. The host uses it as a reference point for a win, implying it’s a known event among enthusiasts rather than a generic dyno or track meet.
“24 valve” refers to a specific cylinder-head design on some Cummins engines that uses four valves per cylinder (24 total on a six-cylinder). Enthusiasts mention it because the valve layout and head design affect how the engine breathes and how it responds to fueling and airflow upgrades.
Concept
UCC 2026
UCC is a diesel-truck competition where people build trucks to race, usually in a drag-racing style. They’re talking about preparing their truck to follow the rules and be competitive in 2026.
A tube chassis is a custom frame made from metal tubes welded together. It’s commonly used in race builds because it can be lighter and stronger in the exact places you need for hard launches.
They’re talking about a minimum weight requirement for the drag-racing portion of UCC. Hitting the target weight matters because it affects how the truck performs and whether it’s allowed to race.
The “drag race portion” is the straight-line racing part of the event. They’re saying the rules—like minimum weight—apply specifically to that drag-racing section.
Sled pulling is a competition where a truck drags a heavy sled. The truck has to keep pulling under heavy resistance, so torque and traction matter a lot.
Drag racing is racing in a straight line for a short distance, usually measured by time. Getting off the line and keeping traction are huge parts of doing well.
The piston is the part inside the engine that takes the force of combustion. A cast piston is made by molding metal, and for big power builds it can be a weak point compared to stronger piston types.
An aftermarket block is a replacement engine block made by a company other than the original manufacturer. If the machining and fitment aren’t right, assembly can be sloppy and the engine may not hold up under stress.
A freeze plug is a small plug in the engine block that seals part of the coolant system. If it doesn’t fit correctly, coolant can leak, which can quickly become a big problem.
An OEM block is the factory engine block that came with the vehicle. They’re saying their custom-built blocks have held up better than the original factory one.
Valves are like doors inside the engine that let air in and let exhaust out. Bigger valves can help the engine breathe better, which can make more power—especially when the rest of the head and cam are set up for it.
Term
waggler rods
Connecting rods are the parts that connect the pistons to the crankshaft. Upgrading them helps the engine survive harder use or higher power.
The camshaft is like the engine’s timing controller for the valves. Changing the cam can change when the valves open and close, which affects how the engine feels and where it makes power.
Main caps are the parts that hold the crankshaft in place inside the engine. Stronger main-cap hardware helps the crankshaft stay properly supported when the engine is under heavy stress.
Term
14 mil
“14 mil” here sounds like a specific fastener/stud size they used. Stronger or correctly sized fasteners help the engine stay tight and stable when it’s working hard.
Sleeves are like extra hardened layers inside the cylinder walls. “No sleeves” means they didn’t install those liners and instead used the factory cylinder surfaces.
“Stock engine” means they started with the factory engine and didn’t redesign everything. They mainly changed a few key parts to make it stronger and better for competition.
A “long block” is a more complete engine package than just the bottom end—it includes the main internal parts and the cylinder head(s). It’s often what people mean when they talk about swapping an engine assembly.
A “short block” is the engine’s bottom part without the cylinder head(s). It’s useful shorthand for what parts were reused in a build.
Term
piston wall
This is about how closely the piston fits inside the cylinder. They adjust/fit the pistons so the engine has the right clearance for heat—too tight can cause damage, too loose can hurt performance.
A “personal best” just means the fastest or best run you’ve ever done. In drag racing, it usually comes from better times or speeds than your previous passes.
A “four link” is a suspension system that uses four metal arms to hold the rear axle in the right position. It helps the truck launch straight and stay stable, which matters a lot in drag racing.
A “tune” is changing the computer settings in the truck. It can make the engine add fuel and respond differently so it runs faster or more consistently for racing.
“60 foots” is how fast the truck gets down the track’s first 60 feet. In drag racing, that early launch time often decides whether you’ll have a good run.
Leaf springs are a suspension setup that uses layered metal strips. For racing launches, they can change how the truck hooks up and squats when you hit the gas.
Pistons are the parts inside the engine cylinders that move to turn the crankshaft. When you make a lot of power, pistons have to survive a lot of heat and pressure.
In drag racing, the “eighth” means the track run is measured over an eighth of a mile. It’s a shorter distance than the quarter-mile, so it’s often used for testing and class rules.
Josh McCormick is a helper who came out to support the team and even drove the truck down the strip. The point is that the truck can be driven by someone else and still work reliably.
The TV lever (throttle valve lever) is an adjustment on certain automatic transmissions that controls line pressure and shift timing based on throttle input. Changing it can make shifts firmer/softer and alter shift “flare,” which is when the engine revs rise briefly without fully engaging the next gear. In drag racing, dialing the TV lever helps the transmission hit the right shift feel and reduce time loss.
The valve body is the hydraulic control center of an automatic transmission, directing fluid to engage clutches and bands for each gear. If the valve body calibration or setup causes a shift to “flare,” the engine revs can rise before the gear fully locks in. That can cost acceleration and can be a sign the transmission setup needs adjustment for the application.
A trans brake is a drag-racing trick that keeps the car from moving while the engine revs up. Then, when you release it, the car launches quickly and more consistently. It helps you get a better start on race day.
A drag slick is a race tire made for drag racing. It has little to no tread so it can grip hard when you launch. If it gets punctured or slowly leaks air, the car won’t hook up the same way.
The track calculator is the drag strip’s computer estimate based on your run. It’s not a lab dyno test, but it gives you a rough idea of how much power you made.
An aftermarket ECU is a different engine computer (or tune) than the one that came from the factory. People use it to change how the engine makes power, especially for racing setups.
They’re talking about the factory engine computer used in 2006–2007 trucks. Their claim is that they didn’t need a custom racing computer to get the results.
“Micro records” means smaller wins—like being ranked highly in a specific group or class, not necessarily the absolute fastest overall. It’s about beating benchmarks that matter to that category.
Term
slide pull chassis
A “slide pull chassis” is a sled-pulling chassis setup designed to let the truck’s structure move or slide in a controlled way under load. The goal is to manage traction and weight transfer so the truck can put power to the ground more effectively.
An axle swap means replacing the axle assembly with a different one. Builders do it to get better strength or gearing for how hard they’re pushing the truck.
Term
miniature subframes
A subframe is a smaller frame inside the vehicle that helps hold key parts. A “miniature” one usually means they made it smaller to fit the build better and help the truck handle the pulling forces.
They’re using extra tires on the back—two tires on each side—so the truck can grab the track better. More tire contact helps when you’re trying to pull a heavy sled.
They used a big truck front axle (from the Ford F-700 line) instead of a smaller one. The point is strength—sled pulling puts a lot of twisting force through the axle.
The differential has gears inside it, including a big gear called the ring gear. Bigger ring gears can handle more force without wearing or failing as quickly.
“High pinion” describes where the small drive gear sits in the axle. The placement affects how the gears push against each other when you’re pulling hard, which can make the axle handle stress better.
Dana 60 is a type of heavy-duty axle used in many trucks. Here they’re using it as a baseline to compare different axle designs that handle hard pulling differently.
“Low pinion” means the drive gear sits lower in the axle. That changes how the gears are loaded when you’re applying power, which can matter for strength in hard pulling.
This is about how the axle’s gears fit together. With the right setup, the gears press against each other in a way that resists separation when the truck flexes under heavy pulling.
U-joints are the joints in the driveshaft that let the power keep flowing even when parts move at angles. Hard pulling creates big twisting forces, so stronger U-joints help prevent driveline failures.
A steering box is the part that turns the steering wheel into steering movement. They tried using the normal, factory one, but it wasn’t the right strength/fit for what they were doing in competition.
A sub-chassis is like a smaller extra frame they add to the truck. It’s used to hold the sled-pulling parts more safely and keep the heavy forces from stressing weak connection points.
Shear means a part is being forced to slide sideways relative to another part. They’re worried bolts could snap under that kind of stress, so they’re using welding to make the structure stronger.
A drag race chassis is the frame and suspension setup built mainly for quick acceleration in a straight line. The goal is to put the weight and parts in the right places so the truck can launch and stay stable.
The hitch is the part that connects the truck to the sled. In pulling, it matters a lot because it has to handle the pulling force and fit around the truck’s other parts.
A drive shaft shield is a protective cover around the spinning driveshaft. It helps protect the truck and people if something goes wrong, and it can get large in heavy-duty setups.
Term
SCS
SCS is a component name (an acronym) that the builder needs to fit near the driveshaft. They’re saying it takes up space, which changes how other parts like the shield and crossmembers have to be built.
A ladder bar setup is a rear suspension design that uses two parallel bars (often with a solid axle) to control axle movement. It’s commonly used in drag racing because it can help keep the axle from wrapping and improve traction during launch.
Spring rate tells you how stiff a spring is. “1000 pounds per inch” means it takes a lot of force to compress the suspension by just one inch, so the truck will feel very firm and controlled.
A coilover is a suspension setup that bundles the spring and shock together. Putting coilovers on the front helps the truck stay more stable when it squats, lifts, or leans.
They’re talking about building the truck’s frame out of square metal tubing. That kind of frame is strong and lets builders weld everything where they need it, but you have to plan carefully so the suspension fits and works right.
When the drivetrain is “spooled,” it can act like the wheels are tied together under power. That makes it hard for the truck to turn because the tires don’t want to rotate differently.
A full hydro steering kit uses hydraulics to help you turn the wheels. On a heavy or traction-limited truck, it can make steering much easier and more responsive.
This is the hydraulic “muscle” that pushes and pulls to steer. Because it works from both sides, it can move the steering more strongly and more precisely.
The orbital valve is the control part that decides how much hydraulic fluid to send to the steering. That’s what helps the steering feel smooth and responsive instead of delayed or jerky.
Term
drag ship
They’re talking about the drag track area where the truck runs. They watched how it behaved while accelerating and noticed handling problems they wanted to fix.
A weight box is basically where the truck puts extra weight. Where that weight sits can change how the truck grips and how stable it feels when it’s launching or pulling hard.
It’s a steering system that uses hydraulic pressure to help move the front wheels. That can make steering feel more controlled when the truck is under big forces, like during drag racing or sled pulling.
Tick welding means putting short weld spots instead of one long continuous weld. It can help keep the metal from warping while you’re building or modifying a frame.
MIG welding is a common welding method that uses a wire feed and gas to make strong welds. It’s often faster and easier to do consistently than some other welding styles.
John Schrotel is the person doing fabrication work on the truck. The hosts are crediting him with helping build and weld parts for the competition setup.
LIVE
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the PowerPoint podcast today is a crazy day
because we're filming this Tuesday morning. This is going like live Tuesday
afternoon. Like this is like we're behind schedule. That's all your fault.
Yes. Six months ago, a year ago, when I decided to do this ultimate call
challenge, I made a mistake. Yeah. I'm like, Oh, don't do a minor. Don't do it.
Now we're a week out, right? We are a week out. We leave a week from today.
So we got a lot to do the really year and you're in better shape than we've ever
been. Yep. And that's what I keep telling myself. It feels like there's a lot to
do, but yeah, we're doing pretty good. So I want to talk today kind about what
you have built, what you've been building this past 68 months, engine
stuff, sled, pulling stuff, all kinds of stuff. We want to, we hope you guys, if
you're thinking about coming out to CCC, hopefully you watch this and say, I got
to go see this because my heart's built an amazing vehicle. Okay. I don't
competition thing. No, it's cool. It's cool. So this is just people that ultimate
call of challenge is June 4th, 5th, 6th. Yep. That weekend. So it's Friday,
Saturday, Sunday. Yep. Friday's drag racing. Saturday is the big dyno
competition and Sunday is the sled pole, but there's also other drag racing.
There's the 72 fast class burnout going on. The 72 fast, which is a huge class
and what's the purse for that class though? I think combined, it's like a
hundred grand. Take first place gets 70,000 and there's some second and third
get, get that 30 grand split there. And then there's all these contingencies.
Like if you're Duramax and you put a Cummins on the trailer, you get next
to like 1000 per round and 10,000 if you win, which I love it, which is kind of
funny because like in the seven, like the 72 fast rules are, you have to weigh
6,000 pounds. It's, it's, it's pretty open, but also very, very limited.
LeVon did a great job writing those rules, but basically you could take a
street truck off the street, make it weigh 6,000 pounds minimum and put a 72
turbo on it and go race it and probably have a decent chance and it's instant
green. So there's zero reaction time, but we're not here to even talk about 72
fast, but you can win $70,000 and I'm the idiot over here doing ultimate call
challenge, which is everything goes really well. I can maybe do half that.
So go me.
You're saying six months of work. You could maybe win 35, 40 grand.
Everything goes perfect. I mean, I haven't done the math because that's
like, you know, race drug one to one. You don't look at how much you have spent
on it. If everything goes extremely well, I might be able to get half of it
back. That's great.
So if ultimate call challenge is dead next year, blame LeVon and Firepunk
for starting 72 fast. I mean, I think that I think the whole premise of that
event is cool. So I don't, I'm, I'm all about it, but yeah, I think a lot of
the people that were doing the UCC like Spencer at dark side, he was going to
do UCC and then 72 fast came out and he's like, yeah, absolutely. That sounds
like a blast. And it is like, it's, it really levels the playing field. And
anyway, I'm not going to go about 72 fast night now, but we're doing an
ultimate call challenge. And it's been, I think I've said it a couple of times,
but ever since like November, I want to say like the 12th of November, it's
been pretty much every single night trying to just make progress. And I guess
that's where we're start is like where, where the truck started.
So you, yeah, you started this truck, which is scratch scratch truck,
common real power. It's in the background. You can kind of see behind you
there. Yeah. So people, I don't know. It's actually the 440,000 mile poppy
source. And then we'll put it out to pasture and I took out a pasture and
we, we purposed and put a new engine in there. Common rail swapped it and you
got rid of the P pump. I did get rid of my people are offended, but I have to
admit poppy source ran terribly. Josh and Meyer built it for me and it was a
piece of crap. It was, it scared will so much that 800 horsepower fury scared
will so much because I didn't have an air kill yet. And so I actually, I was
the only one that actually took it down the drag strip cause I was like, I'll
drive it. And it was terrible. Like I didn't have a HX 82, an old one with a
cast wheel and had a 480 and had some unknown 13 mil. It was the worst by far
the worst engine build combination, turbo combination, fuel combination I've
ever seen. And that was like one of our tests, those test cams that were not
good. And then ahead that before we had the flow bench. So it was probably also
not good. Like it was just literally like, I drove it down the drag strip and it
went faster than the shorty like on that no prep, but that's because the 60 foot
was better with four wheel drive. Like I back half better with my daily.
It was like sad. I was like, dude, so no crimes were committed in DP pumping that
truck cause it was, it was terrible. It was, it was 440,000 miles. It lived its
life as a P pump. Okay. It's glory days or when it was stock and we put parts on
it and made like, what was that video? I think it's got a couple of thousand
use the nitro methanol video. We blew up like a dozen turbos on that stupid 12
valve. Like the top of the pistons were dimpled. We were the OG.
I've lived a happy life. It got a, it's send off after 440,000 miles of hard
service. It got to eat 12 turbos before it got laid to rest. So 12 valve guys
rest assured that we took good care of that engine, but it's now as a common
owner. I want to get onto the build cause I want to start talking about, so you
did up a common rail swap, but you're real like massive changes when you really
went to the cage. You did a full massive cage. When was that like?
So I, so I common rail swapped it and first time out, I actually won the dyno
competition and made like 18 56, which I don't believe that number, but that's
the number that dyno gave that, that day. That's actually the most horsepower
that trucks ever made. I've done so much crap to it since it's never made the
same number. Slightly aggravated, but then I'm 1800 and you're like, dude, you need
a cage. If you're, you know, you're the one that made this power. Like you did
this to yourself. You need a cage. And so we had John help or really just do it.
He put a eight 50 cage in there, but it was John Strato from black tie race fab.
Yep. And he was smart and he knew that someday I didn't know this, but he knew
that I would someday want to go to the next level. And so he built the cage in
a way that made it easy. It was like a baby 25, six cage. So all the hard bars,
the bars that weren't necessary for a 50, but would have been really hard to add
later. He did. And so he's like, now all you gotta do is add a couple of bars
here, here, here, here and cut the back wall of the cab out so that way you can
weld some bars in the back there. And, and I was like, man, that's super extra.
Like when am I going to go faster than 535? But we did hit a 25, six cage. And so
that was, I don't know when that was. That was 2022, 2023 probably the original
cage. Yep. And we rocked that for a while. And then last year, Josh did the ultimate
call challenge and he won it. Josh McCormick or Sturks diesel. Just a comment
on 24 valve. He did or Josh from YouTube also. Josh from YouTube. Just don't know
who it is. Just Google him. Anyway, he did it. And I was like, dang, like, I mean,
no, if I over view on yourself, I have it's depressing. One time I looked at
Chris Patterson and said, Mr 3000. And I was like, isn't there a movie about
some black actor baseball guy, Mr 3000? But apparently Chris Patterson is now
Mr 3000. Yeah, I did on Josh. It's like, yeah, Josh is a legend in the diesel industry.
I was like, yeah, who's, who's John Strato? And he said like, oh, John
Strato, whatever, like all this great stuff. I was like, who's my stump? And it's like, who?
The best thing to come up with is like a stump removal company. But so the reason,
the reason you're going to UCC is so that there will be a grok AI overview of my
I needed that. My ego could not take it. No. But anyway, Josh did it. And I was like,
I was like, man, I was there always felt like UCC like back when we did it was like this
elite competition. And it is, but I kind of like started feeling about it. Like,
I could do this. Like Scrat's not that far off. Scrat was always going to be a KOS truck. But
then I kind of decided that it's not the KOS truck. It's like, it's like a wolf in sheep's
clothing. If it's a KOS truck, like you're as king of streets was more of a street competition.
Yeah, it's supposed to be a street truck. I think this is not my street truck. I can make
it fit in those roles. It's not my street truck. Right. And so I decided to got it and everything.
I was like, wow, this could be a UCC truck. And so last year, Josh won it. And I was like, you know
what, I want to throw my hand in the ring. That's what I want to do. And so that's when we kind
of started planning it. And then in November, we started really like hitting it much harder. And
since then, um, we put a 25, 6 cage in it, which got sorted. You're basically a tube chassis minus
what a foot 32 inches, 32 inches of frame row. Well, yeah, because I was like, I got to make my
whole master plan is I needed it to weigh 4,400 pounds, like right at the minimum, just for
first of all, like it's stupid to sling weight down the track unnecessarily. No, I 4,400. That's
the minimum weight of UCC for the drag race portion. And you guys don't know 4,400 pounds.
They trim the weight. Remember our lightest weight competing at UCC. We're at over 6,000.
Yeah. Right. We rolled over the scale. I think it was 6,018 pounds. I took a picture of it.
That was our lightest UCC truck. The guy was heavy. And like it goes for days. It was crazy.
And I've said this before, but, um, when I started thinking about how I'm trying to lose
weight with the truck, I was like, man, it's like impossible. I was like, that's so much like so
many dollars of parts, fiberglass everywhere, trying to do all that, try to get down to 4,400.
And I made a spreadsheet and I started math and out like, okay, back half front half,
you know, trimming this off the fender, that getting rid of this,
that. And I was like, I'm there. I got, and so I was like, cool. Now I've got my plan. And so we
did it. And it was very, very close. I, it was a couple of like 50 pounds heavy because I had to do
the 25 six stuff. And so that added all those bars back in. But now we're at 4,400 pounds. We did
a back half of front half. Um, and what's cool, like we started in November, I think we raced it
in February. Yes. I have to put the chest. Like I need to get some testing. So let's go
race it now. Cause that was my biggest, that's what I was most nervous about. I felt like
dinoing. I have a decent amount of experience and Josh is out there helping China with the,
with the recipe for dinoing sled pulling. Like I would love to have experience sled pulling,
but I kind of feel like it's more like you can do pretty well. You're not competing against
legitimate sled pull trucks. You're competing against drag race trucks pretending to be
sled pull trucks. And so if you do decent, that's good enough. But drag racing was the hard one
cause drag racing is where I felt like really like the science comes in and a lot of those
guys are actual drag racers and they'll, they have way more passes on their, their rigs.
And so they'll be able to do way better. I was like, last year, the fastest truck was a 540.
I was like, that's my goal. I was like, I kind of said, I was like, that's my go no go. Like
if I can't do a 540 before you should see, I don't even know if I'd go still. Um, because I felt
like I don't want to like every year, like, um, when we went, we knew we were going to be terrible
at drag racing, but we were hoping that we could make up for it on dyno or make it up on a sled
pull. We didn't know we were going to be terrible. We just had this thing. We're like, oh, we'll just
throw a bunch of power at it and we'll, we'll, we'll get lucky. We were terrible at drag racing.
Yes. We were terrible. That is true. Um, and then Josh went and I mean,
Josh had lightened up the truck a bunch and he had aspirations, but he hadn't gone fashion
like a 580, 590 with the truck and, or since last UCC actually. And so he ultimately, I mean,
he went 580, I think again, and luckily with how well he did on the dyno and how well he did on
the sled pull, like that was able to make up for it. But again, he had to like overcome the issues
that he'd had in one class and another one. I was like, if I'm going to go, I want to have a,
I'm not saying I want to be able to win them, but I want to have a good shot at winning
any one thing. That way I'm not trying to backpedal my way out of the, uh, out of a bad score in one
position or I'm not relying on everything going perfectly in order to do well. Um, so anyway,
so I got the chassis done, like I think it was in February. Um, we took the cast piston motor 48
and now we are, we have built a much better engine, but at this point in time, we did not have that.
Yep. We're still getting it. Cause this is, I mean, what was in the truck was a cast piston
motor. I could, I slapped it together really quick and easy just to get some testing in and I
could put rounds on that engine a little bit because I even have like close friends that call
and like, Oh, you broke your main engine. No, let me, so let's like the very
gist of it is it's a stock PDT. It was a seven block. It was like a spare parts motor if you
worked at power driven. Um, so it was a one of our blocks, which I've, I got a shout out our blocks
because I've put together a couple of them now and they're awesome. Even Josh put one together
this weekend and he's like, you can basically forget that it's an aftermarket block. Well,
aftermarket blocks, like different things are just dumb and different. Like, uh, they missed
tapping or whatever it is and the size of a freeze plug or something doesn't fit right.
Like this thing fit. Everything fits great and it's held good power. Um, I actually,
I don't think I've hurt any of our blocks other than pistons coming apart. That's the only way
I've heard of block is by piston coming apart. Um, the only block I've hurt was the OEM block
that I used the very first engine. Um, but anyway, so it's one of our blocks, our cranks, our
induction heart and head you've worked it over. That actually had a bigger valves and it was
kind of like a prototype deal. I'm just trying out bigger valves, see what you can get with a
factory shelf still on the truck. Um, but then it had like a waggler rods. It actually had the old
cam out of Tina just because I had it kicking around. It had a lobe that wasn't great, but I
and then no girdle, just 14 mil, um, studs on factory main caps. Um, no deck plate or anything.
Just like say an induction, no sleeves, no sled. Yep. It's literally a stock engine with a cam
upgrade and a rod upgrade. I dubbed it and fastener upgrades and faster upgrades. Other than that,
top and bottom, other than that, it's basically now, now we worked over the head and stuff too,
but really the, the long or the short block board of it is like, it's just the tow truck
motor. That's why he kept saying that I don't understand. I dubbed it the tow truck motor
because it was like legitimately a tow truck motor. Like the difference between that motor
and the shorty is the shorty has like trend wrist pins. So it's better. Like the difference
between that motor and Todd's motor is nothing. It's the same. That's the same thing that Ruby
was. Yeah. It's 14 mil top and bottom, big rods. Like that's, that was it. And it was great. I mean,
and so like when I said, and it was, even the piston wall was a little tight. So we coded the
pistons because I didn't want to have to deal with opening it up. I forget why the tops, the tops
keep the heat out. Pistons wouldn't grow. And that motor was, I mean, it did great. Like we,
we went out to Arizona with it for debuted it. And I mean, that was a mad thrash people
that had been at the shop a week prior were shocked. We made it there. Like a week prior,
like I had to laugh a little bit like poor boys was kind of did a post poor boys diesel out there
did a post like, Oh, kind of making fun of like how they have a lot left to do. And they like,
Oh, Bluetooth drive shafts or Bluetooth suspension or whatever. And they were doing a lot of changes
and that custom stuff does take a lot of time. But I was like laughing a little bit because I was
like as I looked at the watch, the post I was in front of my truck. There's no engine in it. There's
no transmission in it. There's no axles under the truck. Like we have less than a week on
jack stands lifted way up so I could weld the underneath of my finished weld everything in
my cage. I'm like, Oh my God, like this is ridiculous. Anyway, we made it to that event
and it was awesome. And just straight off the trailer, just like it started doing amazing.
Like was every single pass was a personal best. And like, I gotta give a shout out to
John Schradto because I asked him, I was like, he was on vacation, but I was like,
Where do I set these these bars? I don't know anything about four link. And I told him like
early on, like actually I sent him a package like a year ago. It was like right after UCC.
And I addressed it to UCC 2026 champion drag drag race daddy because that was him. Like
I was a little presumptuous, but it was just a joke. But drag race daddy because I was like,
I'm gonna four link it. I don't know anything about this. Like I'm gonna need, you know,
you to help walk me through it. And I'm kind of a believer that, you know, when you make a,
when you make a bake a cake, you don't bake a cake from seven different recipes,
talking to all these different people to figure out how to do it, you best experience you have
is if you listen to one person and you do what they say to do that way, everything's going to
jive. If you get opinions from this person, it's not going to work. So
I was like, you're going to be that guy. I was like, if that if you can do it, cool. And so I told
him, like he walked me through and he really helped with like deciding where to put bars and
everything else in the cage and kind of telling me I'm an idiot sometimes. And then I asked him
where to four links should go. And I was like, cool. And I said it right where he's we kind of
where ballpark where he said, we took it to the direct ship. I still haven't adjusted the four
link. It's all exactly what I haven't made a shock adjustment. I haven't made any adjustments.
And we took it to Arizona first pass off the trailer to one was a
a 570, which to be fair, the tune one was a little bit more than I was expecting
about 570, which my fastest pass for the truck was a 590. So right off the trailer,
personal best. And you then best said, I think my best was like a 574. So right there,
so right there, you bested me. And I was like, I might be able to like tune my truck up and
get the record back from my, I thought after that first pass. So second pass. So then second pass,
I did a tune. I just clicked up to tune two. And I think it was a 550. I'll also keep mine
my 60 foots because I was leaving off a foot break before with leaf springs. I think my
60 foots were terrible before like a 150 or something. Like I was like, Oh, I felt good.
And John's like, even you were like, it's not great. Anyway, so with the fuel only though,
I was doing 130 low 130s, 60 foot. And I'm like, dude, this thing feels great.
And it just kept going around. And so then I, what did I do the last pass of the day?
No, that was it. Because I was like looking over data. I was checking things over because
this was a brand new build. I didn't want to just like hot lap it and have something fail.
And then the next day we turned on the nitrous and first pass was a 526. I think
and I was like, dude, like still no adjustments, no changes. I'm adjusting the band and it's
not even moving. I'm like, this is like perfect. Like this is the pinnacle of racing. It'll never
get as good as this. And then I did a couple more things that kind of played with the launch
strategy a little bit. I turned up the nitrous, but I think the bottle was almost empty. So
it didn't do what I wanted to do, but it did do a 523 was the best of the weekend.
And I was, I lost first round, but I was ecstatic. I was like, dude, like you,
you thrash on this thing for months and months and it all worked and you put seven tenths on your
personal best. I put seven to like first outing, you know, 55 When I was getting calls
from people that like, I thought this was the tow truck motor. Will, how did he run
five twenties on cast pistons and stuff? I'm like, it was no, no, really. What did you have in there?
I was like, yeah, let me phrase. Not only was come to find out not only with the cast pistons,
but they were like a pro like a company sent us some pistons. They wanted us to test
and you can't test the piston a thousand horse because we know comes pistons can take way more
than that. So we're like, crap, we'll just throw them in here because that's what we have. And it's
kind of justifies, you know, putting together this dumb motor. And I now believe that those are
weaker than stock, but they did good. Anyway, so that was Arizona finished up the week.
You're averaging 2000 horsepower. So that was five twenties threes. That was 136 in the eighth.
I think that was like 1800 horse or so. I don't remember the numbers, but like
pretty healthy and with spray and everything. But I mean, even the spray stuff, like I just
threw a nitrous table at it. I'm like, well, I mean, kind of leave here and kind of ramp in and
good luck. And that worked like everything worked like those passes in Arizona were
beautiful. Just straight passes, like the 60 foot still the best I've ever done
one like low 120s, 60 foot. And I was like, and that's what I was really thrilled about is like
talking to other people. It was some of the best 60 foots on that track on that day, like of everyone
there, like no one else was like, or only a couple people were even in that ballpark. And I'm like,
dude, regardless of how much power I'm actually throwing at this track, like the 60 foots working,
the 60 foots working. And yeah, like it's, it's, I was super excited about that.
So you leave the vent happy. The truck's there. Yep. And so then I'm like, okay. And
I knew I needed to pull the truck apart to start doing sled pull stuff because I've never
sled pulled anything before. And I had like a kind of a plan. I'll get into that. You're not going
to miss a sled pull plan. Just hang out with us guys. Yeah. Like, and this has been kind of like,
I don't want to say a secret, but I do have one more personal best on the drag strip stuff first,
right? Yeah. And so anyway, I knew I was going to have to pull the sled pulls the truck apart,
and it felt so wrong. I was like, this truck has just done everything I wanted to do,
and now I'm going to pull it all apart. I don't think this is racing for you, I guess.
Anyway, but I knew I wanted to do, like play around with some stuff, finish some stuff. And
I was able to, I didn't, there's some stuff in the transmission. I wanted to try it and have time.
So there's a couple of things I wanted to try. And so we took it down to Vegas.
To Las Vegas, more sweet way to the drag strip. They had test and tune day. And this is roughly
March now, right? Yeah. March, like the first, first week of March. No, sorry. This was the end
of March. So I think Arizona was like the first week of March. And this was like the last week
of March, I believe, if I'm kidding. February, February, February 28th. But yeah, basically
first March, whatever it was. Anyway, I buttoned up some stuff kind of made it more right because
there's a lot of stuff I did on the truck to get right for Arizona. Like I should, I should have
fixed. And so we did that. And then we went down to Vegas for the test and tune day. And I've always
just had all sorts of issues getting through at Vegas's tech, tech. And so I got there stupid
early so I could take two hours to get through tech and hopefully not have a problem. And I get
there and truck makes it through tech. No problem. I don't realize, I didn't realize my license was
expired. I thought my license expired in August. That was my, that was my chassis or my license
expired earlier. And so they basically said cap, they said, Hey, you can't go any faster than
like whatever it is a 635. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm only running the eighth. And I was like,
but I'll just try to let out like at the 330. So I don't, I really don't want to push it because
I was like, if I, there's a mile an hour cap, and if I'm like, okay, they're going to look at the
quarter. But if they see that over that mile an hour in the eighth, they're probably going to have
a problem. And so I was like, I'll just let out 330. Well, I let out a little bit earlier or later
than I meant to just feel so good. It feels so wrong. And they booted me and like first pass.
I was like, dude, I needed this testing. Like, I want to verify everything's working. Well,
luckily, Josh McCormick had come, he drove all the way from Cali just to kind of help and pit
crew, like no other reason just to hang out and help. And well, luckily, he had a good license.
We talked to the guys in the tower and like, can I send Josh down in this truck? And he's like,
yeah, we don't care. I'm like, perfect. So I sent Josh down the drag strip in my truck,
which that's like a testament to Josh and his trust, but also testament to the truck that like
you can literally throw anyone in it and it works. And so we went down, I sent Josh in it. I was
like, Hey, here's the auto shift button. Here's the nitrous kits. I was like, I am not going to
turn the nitrous on for you. Like that's you. Like if you want to, like, you know the risks
involved with doing that, like you've seen me on the track last time, I was pretty all over the
place, but you turn the nitrous on if you want. It was hot and greasy. It wasn't nearly as good
a prep as Arizona. It was not great. And so I was like, this is the kit one. I was like, that's
why I ran in Arizona, like five twenties. I was like, this is the second kit you do with that
information as you will. And so I tell him that immediately just hits all of them. Anyway, so
that we had a, we, uh, we had to make a TV adjustment on the trans and so because it flared
the shifts a little bit. And so that's he let out because he, he heard it like pop or something.
He thought the engine was hurt. I was like, dang it. Like not only like, I think I really
not get the day's not going to how I wanted. Um, and so he's like, oh, it's got a knock or
something. It's weird. And so we went to go tow it back and he's like, do you want to hear? And
I'm like, yeah. So he starts it up. Sounds great. He's like, maybe it's the trans I put in gear
and moves. I was like, I'm driving this thing back to the pits and come find out. It just hit the
limiter really quick because it went, it flared the 23 shift on that valve body. We're
using the TV lever to kind of tune that in a little bit. So we just had to give it a little bit
more. I brought the provisions to do it. I knew it was going to be a real problem, but because
I spun so badly the past before I didn't actually spot that. And so I didn't realize I had to fix
it. Um, anyway, so sent him down the direct ship with that, which was like pretty like
ran a mid five, right? He ran a mid five letting out that should have been based on the times
that was like a 15. Like it was a solid pass until he let out. Like it was going to do it.
He's like, dude, he's like, I want to trans break now. I tell you, they're great. Anyway,
so we get, we get that fix. We go through, we look at different things. Like somehow we ran
over a nail or something with the drag slick. And so it's going flat. And so we're like, well,
it's like a guy's slow leak. So we're like, crap, well, we'll just fill it over. And then
hopefully by the time, you know, we, like we'll just fill in the, the lanes and then
hopefully we're going to go down the jack ship. They kind of leave level out. So a lot was not
going right. And so then we went down the like last pass of the day, we went down and lined
up. And we ended up sitting in the lanes for a while because someone, the track was crap. So
someone had bounced off the walls. And so they had to do a bunch of cleanup. We were sitting there
for like an hour waiting for the track to open up again. And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking
about it. And I'm thinking about the nitrous that I have loaded up into it. And I had 30% on the big
kit. I was like, I could do a little bit more. So I grabbed my phone, I blew tooth into the
hall tech, which controls the, the nitrous. And I logged in just with my phone and I bumped up
everything to 40%. So after like 2.4 seconds, I went to 40% instead of 30%.
Then that ran 4.99. I was like, dude, I'm so glad I made that change. If I ran a five, oh,
anything out of it, like, I've been thrilled, but like, I've been like, Oh my gosh, I was so close.
So the barrier from the fives of the force came easy on the truck unexpectedly with
arguably an engine that had no business at that power level. No. And a track calculator was like
2100 horse. I'm like, holy, like I did not, on my Rdino, it should have been like maybe 2k,
maybe it should have been like, I thought it was going to be like 1900, but track calculated
somehow way higher. And it worked. And I was like, so ecstatic. Cause that was like 849. That's a 48.
Like, I didn't, that means that's the stock computer, not a aftermarket ECU. So that's the
ECM, the ECM that would come in an 0607 truck. Like, and what's funny is like, I wasn't trying to
set any records or anything and I didn't, but a couple of people mentioned is like, dude,
like you might be the fastest 849 or whatever. And I was like, I don't really know. And I don't,
I don't track that. I don't know. But they asked around. There was a couple of people
are faster, but I think I'm like the third fastest 849. So micro records are ideal. Oh, dude,
2026 is, I've said it many times, 2026 is the year of the micro records. We're there for all.
So a third fastest 849, third fastest 48, and like the 16th fastest four-wheel drive truck ever.
I'm like, Hey, I'm on the list. Yes. That's pretty cool. So with that build, I've been
just real quick. So your, the 849 is the ECM. The 48 is the dodge force speed.
Yep. Everyone else. When he says a 48, he's talking about the dodge force speed, not like a
turbo 400, all the fast guys have gone to turbo 400s. Yep. It's just trying to old school dodge
force speed built by Meyer himself. Mostly. Yeah. And then yeah. So I mean, I know it's a micro
record. I know it's like third place, but it's just like for having eight passes on the truck,
I'm thrilled. Like it only gets better from here. I hope. Anyway, so then I felt now it felt really
wrong tearing the truck apart, but I knew I needed to tear it all the way apart so I could do a
slide pull chassis. Now this is where things get crazy. You had this crazy idea. I remember
talking about it. I didn't even like fully appreciate what you were saying. You know,
I was like, I, he had this vision in his brain. It was just amazing. Cause I mean,
we've done axle swaps before we've done, we've done like miniature subframes and we've,
we've kind of been this route and Mars like, no, we can do it better. And so he, you know,
I'm not going to say anymore. Just holy crap. So you need, if you're, if you're at UCC,
come check it out. And if you aren't going to UCC, you should be, but we should also,
I think we're going to be posting a video here in the next, I don't know, call it next week
before UCC. So you at least see what we're talking about, but you can still describe it on the
I am. So this all started when I was trying to figure out a plan for sled pulling. I was like,
I have the Godfather's old setup. You tried to give it away, throw it out so many times. I tried
to sell it to, to the cost of shipping, Logan Epleen. Oh, so many people. I tried to, yeah. And
a bunch of people I was like, and then they said no. And then later they're like, Hey,
can we do it? I was like, actually it's just gone. And so you were going to try and get rid of it.
I was like, man, this seems like such a sin. Like I have a second gen. I don't know why I'd
ever do this. I don't think I'd ever be like dumb enough to try to do anything with this, but
it feels like a sin to get rid of it. So I hoarded it all at my house. That's the people that have
no idea what the sled pull setup off the Godfather's. A lot of you guys do. If you're living under
rock, actually it might be on the back of our shirts right now, but it is a SQHD rear axle with
dual dual cuts. So four dual cut tires on the rear axle. And so duly pulling tires. Most pulling
trucks have a single rear cause that's the rules like the biggest trucks do the dual cuts. We
have two of those because like in sled pulling, this isn't the loud, but this is ultimate call
challenge. There's no rule against it. So like, why wouldn't you? And so years ago, Will spent,
this is like the same amount of time. This is Will's like brainchild brainchild. Yeah. He was
a baby because he like, he had five dollars on his tires. They were cheap. They're dry rotted.
They're not like, it's not like you're like, here's my credit card, a 100000 dollars
for a budget to build a sled pull truck, parts. And I think what you said,
you got 5,500. It's kind of like you went over budget a little bit. And I'm like over here,
like just using your parts and well over that. But anyway, so you got SQHD. So like the axle
from like a dump truck or maybe it was a logging truck because it has a 48 year set in it. And
then to match that, we needed a front axle. So it's a front axle at F 700. What makes that
special is it's like one of the biggest front axles, biggest ring geared front axles you can
get. It's like a nine and three quarter instead of a nine and a quarter or nine and a half. And
it's a high still a Dana 60, but it's a high pinion. And then this is something I didn't realize
until I started doing all this. Another reason that's stronger is that if you look at our like Dana
sixties, they're a low pinion, which is great for drag racing and like clearance for driveshafts
and stuff. But you're technically driving on the coast side of the gear. You're on the wrong side
of the ring gear. It works because it's a front axle. It doesn't take that much power,
but this F 700 axle not only is it a bigger ring gear, but it's because it's a high pinion. It is
loading the correct side of the gear now. And so it's just that much stronger. It's got big U joints
and and then and by the difference in correct and incorrect, the way that hypoid gear meshes,
if you're on the wrong side, as it flexes, it tries to push it apart. And as this one,
it's like the gears trying to pull it, pull it into the ring is harder. It's a strong. Yeah,
it's a stronger setup, for sure. And then it has a set of dual cuts in the front as well.
And I mean, you guys had some pretty, you made it work, but like using a factory steering box
and that was the worst. You basically bought Cal Ranch out of third arms, tractor links,
everything was tractor links, because I mean, it's a cheap source of hyme. Yeah. Yeah. And so
everything was made out of that. And so lots of us in single shear. It was just kind of cobbled
together, ugly square tube rounded onto Brown had these axles at my house. And I'm like, dude,
like I, I can't drag race on the axles. I can't slip on the axles I have,
because the rear axles are 70. Like I'm not going to do that. Like when am I going to swap in
another like an 80? Like that just seems wrong. Why don't you just go if you're going to swap
axles, swap to the deal for the real deal. And then I'm sitting there like, okay, if I do UCC,
I've got to keep a full factory frame, which I don't want to do that. I want to be light. And
so I had this idea. I'm like, we bolted in a sub sub chassis in the back to like bolt of the brace
everything. And then we bolted in a front axle in the front. If I got the truck light enough,
can I build all just basically a second, like sub chassis, a whole sub chassis for the sled pull
sub. And so it will hold the axles, it'll hold the hitch, weight box, it'll hold the
front axle, like everything, everything's set up. You basically steering box, steering box,
steering everything. And so then I just pick up my truck, take the axles out of it, roll this
chassis underneath, set it down. What's nice about that is in sled pulling, there's so many forces
at play, because I mean, you're trying just there's twisting, there's the hitch, there's the weight
box is bouncing. Well, if I can keep that all centralized on a on single chassis, I don't have
any bolt connections that could shear because it's all welded, it's a one piece deal. And so I started,
I was like, man, that seems kind of crazy. I was like, but I started doing the math of like, okay,
on the weight, right I'm like, okay, if I can get my truck out of 4,400 pounds,
my front axles and rear axle will come out. So then that'll weigh this much. And then I have
these axles that weigh this much. And then I will use this is like whatever tubing and I did the
math of how much that tubing weighs per foot, I did the math of like how much how what length I
needed and the gusting and how much that would take up. And I started doing them. I'm like,
this is very possible. I was like, I need about 1500 pounds on the nose of the truck. And I'm like,
it's right there. Like everything math is out. Like if I do it, it right, I should be
able to do it. And so that's when I was building this the drag race chassis, I was also sitting
there thinking where all the hitch and stuff was going to have to go in sled pulling. And so if
you look at the back of my truck, it's like this weird nose fuel tank holder, like looks dumb.
Most people look at that. I'm like, why did you knowing why'd you do it? But why does it look
like the way it does? Because the back of your drag truck looks basically like a desert Baja
race truck where there were skinny in the back, very skinny, like a spare tire holder. And it's
because I knew it was going to be a sled pull hitch that had to like work its way around there.
And then like you drive shaft shield is extremely like obnoxious. It's like nauseously large
because there's a freaking SCS that has to go in there with another big
drive shaft. And then my my transmission cross members like kind of over bent like big, like
why did you make it so like so extra? Because there's an SCS that has to sit there. Like there's
a lot of different pieces that like as a drag race truck, it kind of looks dumb. Like why did you
make that choice? And then you put it in a sled pull trim and it's like, dude, I get it. Anyway,
so that's that was the sled pull setup is like, okay, I have this now I saw as like I have to
build this chassis and I have to put axles under it. And I'm like, then it's like, you're starting
from scratch. It's like, what do you like what front suspension do you use? Do you use like a
ladder bar setup? Do you use a four link? I talked to people and they're like factory dodge front
axles work, like don't change it. I'm like, cool. And I was okay, what about front springs? Like I
don't want to run a it's kind of with this is placing of everything. It's hard to run a big
factory spring and everyone's like, Oh, like either people were like, Oh, you should be like
1000 pound per inch springs. Or they're like, Oh, factory works. Why change it? Like that's
what we use as factory. And I'm like, man, that's a print. I measured a factory spring is about 400
inch pounds per inch. And I'm like, that's quite the spread. I'm like, okay, well, I also I did
like some 450 pounds per inch front springs, front coilovers. I got shocks out of the back of a
tool drive 5500. And so that they're super should be super heavily valve. Yep. And so
yeah, it's just like, it's crazy because you have to go through and
like figure out everything. And because you're building a chassis, basically I'm from square
tube, like, and then try to figure out how it's all going to sit and mount and how it's going to
roll under. And then I need an apparatus to pick up the truck. Anyway, so that was like a month and
a half of my life. I'm getting that done. And you did miss over the steering though. That was the
biggest downfall to the Godfather was you basically couldn't you barely could steer it. No, only
the only time it steered at all is when it's under full power and the wheels are slipping,
then I could actually turn the wheel. And it's funny is like other than that, it was not very
turnable because the wheels are locked, it's spooled like you, you know, you have four huge
tires that are low pressures, their amount of friction, resisting turning is insane. Oh, yeah,
it doesn't. It's heavier. I have a weight box up there. And so it's awful. And so yeah, I,
I was trying to figure out what to do when I went back and forth with a steering box,
steering gear, what I want to do. And then as things started going together more and like
trying to make that all fit, it's gonna suck. So I ended up just going like a full hydro kit,
which was oddly affordable. I'm way cheaper than I expected. I didn't go like name brand or anything,
but it's a full hydro steering. So it's got like a basically a double ended hydraulic cylinder
and an orbital valve. And so now like steering should be pretty great. And it's super rigid.
Like that was that was something I was thinking about going into as like, man, Godfather always
just worked. Like I want to replicate it working, you know, and so I want to keep everything as
similar as possible. And then I started watching the videos of the Godfather and I'm like, you
know, I really remember this thing working really good. And it did. It put the feet on people,
but watching it go down the drag ship or the sled pull a track, I was like,
there's room for improvement. The front end is all over the place. Like there's things,
the weight box is like bouncing. I'm like, dude, yes, like not only can I do just,
I should be able to do this good. I should be able to do better in like, I don't know much,
I don't know anything about slide pulling, but I know enough about it that I can like,
I can spot it. this. So yeah, that's what we did. We did a full hydro front steering
and our weight box looks really dinky in the front, but that's what I'm just using Josh's
weight box. And so it looks like puny, but it's what I had and I don't want to make another one.
But yeah, and then we, so we set it under there, just made sure everything fit and we took it out,
but finished welded everything and it's actually outside right now.
It's hard to say as much as I love your chassis, but it's probably the coolest thing I've ever
seen you make. It's so freaking cool. The Drag Race truck took so much more time,
time. That's level. Oh my gosh. I was like, I was like so giddy, like giggly last night,
like we put the axles in it and like all the suspensions are painted up now.
Yeah. It's like, oh my gosh. I mean, you had ridiculous hundreds of hours tick welding your
chassis. You decided to mig weld that. Oh yeah. You have tens of hours. We went through like 50
pounds of wire. I even got on the mig wire, which I don't like, I learned how to make on that
chassis. I basically told anyone like, if you, hey, if you want to weld like, because there's
so many connections, I mean, 50 pounds, 40, some 50 ish pounds of mig wire. Yeah. Like it's just
and like for hours, like my finger was cramping from just pulling the trigger. Like I was also,
I was changing hands and fingers and stuff to try to like not cramp. I was like,
this is like, like just all day. And then Josh took a turn. John Schrotel from black tie race
fab. So John actually reminds me like of, of Quigley because he mentioned, I was like,
Hey, there's a big old gap over here. He hates gaps. He's like, if it fits that terrible, remake it.
And so I was like, yeah, there's a big old gap over here. Like you should come over and weld it.
And he's like bet. He's like, absolutely. And I was like, really? He's like, yeah,
he's like, he was fighting something on touch truck and so he didn't want to deal with it. And
he's like, Evan, yeah, I'm gonna come over there. Well, as we grabbed the helmet, the
big and just written winter town and I'm like, it looks good. I was like, it reminds me of
Quigley down under where the Quigley is just like, Hey, I say never got used for one, not that I
didn't know how to use it. Man, the guy can make well. He's like, he's known for his rifle,
but then he ended up in a pistol draw with the bad dude and he beat him in a pistol shooting
contest. And he's just like, like all he's like, I said, never had much use for one. I didn't know
how to use it. Yeah. So that was like, then you guys got in like a weld off and it was funny,
but anyway, lots of welding to do, got that done. There's some cool stuff you built. Like,
I want to go a little more in detail, no detail, but just tell people about these
apparatus you made to lift your truck. It's so freaking cool. So this was actually a struggle
because I like there's multiple forklifts at UCC. And so I know I could like ask like our
we're sharing a tent with Cody Hawk and he Brent generally always has a forklift. Like,
I know I can borrow it, but I don't skid steer or something. Yeah. I don't want to rely on that
though. Like if they're in the middle of using it, I don't want to be SOL. So I wanted to make
our apparatus for lifting the truck that would work that I didn't need anything from anyone else.
So I was like, well, I can use, I can use like trailer jacks or something and like basically
make for like, you see like the car guys do it where they have a little receivers, whatever.
Well, obviously a truck's a little heavier. So it's a little trickier. I can use jacks. The
problem is I have to go quite a ways up because I got to roll its whole chest, this whole chassis
in and out. And so I needed about 18 inches of lift from standard height to the height where I
can roll everything in and out. I need to pick up the truck 18 inches. Well, if you start looking
at basically any jack, they only pick up about 15 inches is the highest. Now you can get like the
drop feet, whatever I drop feet don't help me at all. I need to have actual, you know, screw
worm screw adjustment going up. The only way to get around that was like to buy like a $2,000 set
of actually that was for two. So it'd been like $3,000 or something like that dollars for a set
of four electric jacks, which would pick up the 22 inches or whatever. And I'm like, cool, I don't
want to spend $3,000 on some jacks. I'm going to use one time. And so after doing more digging,
I realized that you can get like landing gear from the front of like an RV. They're not called a
trailer jack. You search trailer jack anywhere, doesn't come up, but landing gear for the front
of an RV, they have lots of lift and they have like 22 or something like that 24 inches of lift.
I'm like, perfect. Now I'm well into the like, I'm good. And so that's what we ended up doing
just some Vivore landing gear jacks. And then I made like a bar that goes under the front
and then a kind of like a receptacle to the back of the chassis in the back. So then it picks up
the truck on three points. And then everything rolls out the front. And then the chassis rolls
in the back. And I want to do that way. It's because my least favorite part of sled pulling
is the weights. Every time with Josh's truck, which Josh's truck is going to be easier to swap
than mine because I'm swapping axles and everything. He just was putting adapters and big wheels on
and some slot outs and stuff. But the worst part was always the weight box, because then you got
to sit there and trust line up this weight box and the two receiver hitches and wiggle it just
right, get the pins in. And then you got to go go to the trailer and cart out a thousand pounds
worth of these stupid tractor weights. And so I'm like, if I'm going to design this, I want to do in
a way that the weight box never has to come off. And so if I roll the chassis in from the front,
that means the weights get loaded with a forklift here in Utah. It rolls on the trailer. It rolls
under the truck. And I never had to touch him. And so that was that was the goal there. And I think
think everything should work. It can unbolt like something happens, whatever it needs to it can
unbolt and we can deal with that. But either way, that's kind of the plan. Trying to think
it's it's it's amazing. You guys just got to come see it. We got to move on though because we're
running out of time a little bit and I want to talk about the engine. You guys we actually did
make a real mode. We didn't we're not sending you to use to see on a truck motor. Yeah. Yeah,
let's go over that. So we ordered. I mean, I would say we did our due diligence. We ordered
the deck plate kits back in 2025. Yeah, October, October. Was it October? October. Yeah.
Geez. Yeah. I mean, I feel like we did pretty good October 25th. We got them.
Was it a month and a half ago? Maybe. I think it was right at the very end of February, like
February 23rd or something like that. But anyway, so delays were there and then we'd never done
it. It might have been March. Now I was going to say that was after. Yeah. No, it was like March.
Anyway, and so either way, regardless, my deck plate kit, we're not we didn't order a deck plate
engine. We ordered the steel plate and the sleeves because we yeah, we have all the machines to
build the machine. It's really cool to be to like kind of do it ourselves and be able to play with
that a little bit and start and start to learn and build that program. And so we're like, cool. We
just bought the deck plate kits, like the deck plate, the sleeves, whatever. And we're like,
we'll just put together ourselves. Well, first of all, there was a little bit of delay in getting
the parts. But then there's a lot that goes into that. Like you don't realize how much time and
like labor, especially when you're doing it for the first time, you're sitting there trying to
learn and stuff. And so that ended up taking considerably longer. And that's why we actually
dynoed. There's a dyno event coming up. I really wanted to hit it on the deck plate engine so I
could like practice, like do a decent number and practice. It didn't work out because of just the
delays and everything. But we ended up taking the stock piston wonder. We really wanted to do that
because you had a new computer. Yes. Let's just go in the engine and we'll go over every other
change. There's a reason you really want to do that dyno more than just because it was local
practice. Yeah. So I love mig welding. I don't know why I like it. They call me WF WTF FAB.
And I did not get a hard to weld your call because I was, I was, you know, busy working on
figuring out how machine these down. Shout out to Will. Like I was, I felt like piece of crap
because I was leaving early at like four o'clock in the morning. They're still hitting buttons.
I'm like, dude, you're wild. And the best time to figure out stuff I found for me is when everybody's
gone. So it's nice. I don't say dumb questions, but questions, questions, consistent questions.
You just, it's, and then it's hard to focus on, Oh, what was that? What was the press? What was I,
you know, it's, it's better to just focus, especially when you're doing new programming, new
figuring things out. You want just, yeah. Oh yeah. For sure. Anyway. Yeah. So you're working on that
so between like 10 p.m. and six a.m. A lot of that deck plate machine is prime time for
figuring stuff out. And then you were not just doing one because you're like set ups and stuff.
So you're doing two because we're also bringing a spare. And so anyway, yeah, it's so that the
deck plate engine, which you might be able to see behind us, it is a my engine, the one that's in it,
is one of our blocks that you deck plated with a waggler kit as a waggler deck plate,
waggler or just powerbore sleeves, diamond pistons. It's got a 1064 It's a four and an
eighth board, 64 which that's just to get a little bit more parent material, like just to
help us out there. We put some billet, no limit main caps in there that are a press fit. So they
actually register a little different. The waggler ones have a billet cap, but they are not registered.
They look like a factor when it's thicker. The no limit ones are there. They look like a bridge
or something. Yeah, like if you put the cap and upside down, it would still be a press fit
because the ears are up against the like the sides of the block and so helps us block. Yeah,
register it a little bit. We got a Kenny's point parts, girdle on there, five eighths,
girdle. So it should be a pretty stout bottom end. Obviously 14 mil everywhere. It's got
waggler one inch longer rods where to put cam bushing throughout. Yeah, there's a lot of
that's a lot of line up and set up to get all that. Yeah, 14 mil drill top and bottom.
When you go to do the deck plate, you have to drill all the little fastener holes that hold
the deck plate down. The waggler deck plate kits, they don't have a long, I think tie bars
will have people call them, but it's basically a big 14 or m 16 bolt like a D and J does on the
exhaust side that ties the top and the bottom. But I mean, Josh set records with that setup. So
clearly with good tuning, it's it's effective. It's holding the cylinder pressure and the block
didn't rip on him. Hopefully you you have similar fate. Hopefully. And then, I guess,
moving to the head, it's got some of our dual. This is another big product because we've never
done a draft off, you know, side draft, shelf off head. And so like, I mean, that's what I would
say that's what sucks. But like, if we were just trying to put it together, it would have been
easier. But you're you mean like the block there's stuff you were playing with trying to like
things you've talked to people about you want to try and experiment. You're always like sitting
there. It's like, it's so stupid. Like people think like, Oh, you got a drag race truck. You had
to like, just bring it here or whatever it is you're doing. You just got to bring here. When
you build everything from scratch, there's so many decisions that have to be made. I mean,
like, we're going back and forth. There was a valve springs to put in there. Yeah, we're
back out springs and measuring a bunch of different springs, seeing what our options are
and trying to compare them to things we've done in the past. Or I mean, just like an hour ago,
we were thinking about the SCS transfer case, like what gearing do we want to use them?
Like everything can be a rabbit hole. And like the press of the sleeves, the press,
your cam bushing clearance. I mean, we could talk about that a little bit like Wagler,
when they install their kits, they put press on the sleeves. This just yeah, and then in my
discussions with top sleeve manufacturers like Darden, they told me that the big power top
field, they don't have any press because the sleeves a lot stronger than the block. So if you
put a sleeve in with a bunch of press, all you're doing is preloading the block. Now the block
is trying to expand from combustion and the sleeve and the sleeve. And so it's just like in
the sleeve is about four times stronger than the block as far as material strength. And so
theoretically, you want the sleeve to take the breath of the force before it relies on the block
to back the sleeve. And so there's different strategies there. Well, if the sleeve is not
a press fit, how do you seal it up? So as heat transfer, how much press fit or lack of press fit
can you get away with? How do you keep the bore straight? How do you make the hone happy to hone
because it's not the same as a solid block in there? I mean, it's just like, yeah, you go into
so much parent boardy leave like a D&J enforcer that they're famous for, they their sleeves are
way big. They hog all of the center of the block out. And so you could you could argue without his
tie bar, he would be weaker. I don't know what you know. And so there was a lot of
discussion and figuring out there. And thankfully, we had Josh's dyno engine here that we're able
to take apart and saw a couple cracks in the block behind the sleeve. And so we knew like
where the first failure was because that engine was great drag race with it and drag race with
that crack back there. But it was leaking coolant around the sleeve. And so I was able to now is
what we we don't have test data. So is my idea going to be better? I don't know. We'll find out.
But like just like when you're when you're doing everything from scratch, there's so many,
I mean, like I say, there's so many decisions to make and so many rabbit holes that you can go
down just with everything, like putting doing the shelf off head, like how hard is it to drill and
tap a factory head or a shelf and bolt the shelf on? It's not that hard. But then you start looking
like when you like you know what the air wants to do when you're like dude, if I could cheat this
shelf this way or that way, I could probably pick up some a little bit of flow. And so we're
sitting there trying to figure out how how much can we move it without disturbing the rail and
the intake horn and all that stuff to make it all fit without having to do a bunch of custom
crap. And so it's just like every little piece along the way is just like how how can we optimize
this? How can we change it in a way that we think it's going to be better? And so when you take
that approach at everything, it takes time. You don't realize until you're like a week from UCC
and you're like, dang, and you started that engine two days ago. Yeah, it's not dinod yet.
It does have oil pressure. Sounds good. Yeah. And so yeah, we're we're we're hoping for the
best here. But either way, you got the head and the head is a so it's like we're comparing a lot
to Josh because the dyno strategy is largely a lot of Josh's strategy that we're just kind of
adapting a little bit. Josh is a hell of a dyno driver. He he's over there just popping button
like I give him crap because he uses a max five and max five is pretty I would say pretty limiting
and what you can actually do with it and like control off of it. And so he's very manual like
it's basically I give him crap. It's basically a hob switch and a full throttle switch. So you
old guys used to have computer class and you had a floppy disk you put into plate organ trail.
That's the max five computing guy that designed that design a max five. That's about the computing
power of a max five versus you get a hall tech or something modern and it's basically like a new
iPhone or something has great computing power. I mean I don't know if you heard I logged into it
with my Bluetooth on my phone and I made a nitrous change but I give him crap because it's
we like nitrous express so give me wrong sometimes simple dumb electronics. It's a great tool. It
works for those who you know for for most people what you're trying to do. I mean us for Josh it
works and made the most power as ever been made. Yeah obviously it works. Yes for your strategies
but like you can't have like art you can't hook up a RPM signal to at least from a factory crank
sensor because it freaks out with the missing tooth and all that stuff. Anyway so he's basically
using it as a boost safety of like 40 pounds or whatever and then when he goes this full throttle
it just turns it on. And so like dude you can do the same thing with a hob like a ten dollar
hub switch and a micro micro radio shack. It's like so you can do the same thing for his dyno.
Now for drag racing it's a little different but for the dyno because it does have pulse
with modulation but at the same time which he's first computing power it's way way different
and he's not pulse with modulate in the dyno. It fits between nothing and a max five like a max
five is better. Oh that's good but Josh is like quite the driver. I mean he's in there if you
watch if he's probably got a video within his camp in cab footage but like he hits the load
it starts to bog him so he starts not giving it a spool jet. He starts bopping the spool jet once
it's once that's good he lands he holds it and then he gives it more throttle and it needs a
second one so he starts bopping that in holds it. He's like okay he's looking at his gauges right
over to make sure it's already he's happy and then he floors it and when he floors it obviously
goes full fuel that just turns on and he goes through his window and does his thing. I'm like
I don't know if I'm that good of a driver to be able to do this whole like button thing so
I've got to basically adapt to his strategy take his strategy and adapt it to something
I think I can do reliably and so yeah that's that's I don't know where we go on to that
but like a lot of the stuff we're taking what we're doing is like we're comparing it to Josh
because that's the main thing that like we're like drag racing I want to do well you at the
sudden on the dyno like Josh has Josh set the record if I can do close to Josh I feel like I
could do pretty like that'll do pretty good at the event may not win it but it'll do pretty dang good
and so that's where we're kind of like feel like we're pushing limits a lot so we're referencing
Josh's stuff a lot and so like comparing it to Josh's head though that's where I started with
this whole topic like talk about it I guess something flow wise we have a little bit more
flow with yours we're the same size intake valve we're smaller exhaust valve than Josh runs
we're doing that for why I I feel like that big cylinder pressure on the exhaust valve
is hard on the opening ramp on the cam and stuff and so I was stretching bolts because he kept
stretching bolts on the rocker side and we did not have time to get really custom on the
camshaft I think that a lot of those problems can be addressed with the lobe design on the exhaust
side and just my little quick little tidbit on that in camshaft theory as you go up in cylinder
pressure and power like a top field dragster versus a pro stock street
Honda or a factory LS or Vortech like in your pickup truck a top fuel cam although it opens
bigger and has more duration the gramp is less aggressive on that than it is on all these passenger
vehicles but in camshaft for most part they go way aggressive on ramps which is fine but you get to
a point where your valve train cannot is stable basically you can't open a valve against 40,000
pounds of chamber pressure it won't do it it'll bend the push rod it'll break the it won't do that
and so you've got to kind of creep the valve open and I believe that's why Josh is having and like
trouble stretch in rod bolts when he's drag racing I don't know what's going to happen
on the sled pull and so I wanted to go a little smaller exhaust valve and help out I wanted a
better material I wanted a pure in canal exhaust valve so we have like custom valves so we have a
custom pure in canal exhaust valve on you which is a little bigger than stock but it is not crazy
because a factory valve is a 1.29 and you're about 1.38 on the exhaust and Josh is about 1.42
it's a good bit bigger and that like obviously in in the high performance world
tulipping valves is a big deal too because like Josh hasn't worked Josh hasn't tooled up any valves
I don't think he's these had good luck there but he's had problems with other parts of the valve
train but like these and his valves that he's running which is things your intake valve they
are a thicker margin they're heavier valve they're constructed a lot like the victory ones we used to
run on yours they aren't the very best material they're an upgraded material but they're not
a pure in canal they're not like the exhaust valve is like the exhaust
valve in your head has better material yes yeah and the big difference that's kind of a catch word
in canal it's kind of like saying something's billet well just means comes from piece of metal
in canal just means it's more than 50% nickel in the in the material different kinds of it
there's several grades of it but essentially the whole idea of in canal it gets stronger with
temperature up to you know up to about a thousand degrees Fahrenheit actually gains strength over
room temperatures it goes up to a thousand and then it slowly goes the other way where most of
these stainless materials they're strongest at at room temperature they're decently strong at a
thousand degrees Fahrenheit but they have lost they're down from where they were where the in
canal is stronger and then you get up at like 1800 degrees Fahrenheit and the stainless ones are
like dang their butter and the in canal still hanging in there let's say it's got 70 depends
on the alley but you got 75 percent of your strength up to like 2100 degrees Fahrenheit I
actually I learned something new I just knew in canal was better yeah like that's the problem
that a lot of like companies are having with with valves and so you fix that problem and
you're not putting a ridiculous valve in there because that's that's ultimately the problem we
had UCC 2021 yes is if the valves we used were smaller they wouldn't fine but because we went
bigger and they didn't get we're able to get the the awesome material that was that was pretty much
the reason that 21 2021 happened you know having knowledge and wisdom like we've gained over the
years wouldn't really helpful back then because now we said this isn't going to work this drop
valve size just change heads like we would just we always change we didn't have the ability back
then or the knowledge we just thought well we'll just we'll just make it work but we would have
thought this is not going to survive the competition and we're and everybody was the same
boat they all had crappy valves yeah we just should have just shrunk it we were down yeah we
were 12 valves so our our valves are massive yes but anyway so yeah um that's something that the
so I don't think but I mean in the realm we'll see if him you're still I mean I'll tell you there's
like at mid 270 range you know some of these really big heads from d and j are almost 300
that I've seen that I've never seen one over 300 like advertises but some of those flow bench and
we haven't had everyone here but yeah but on flow bench but still so it's not like you're
killing it on flow but you're decent your exhaust flow is up there as good as anything I've ever
seen even with the smaller valve and I feel like it's reliable I've kept the I can get more exhaust
flow yeah that's the thing I mean this is but I'm keeping the seat fat because I'm trying to
basically I'm trying to build you head for war not ahead to make records a record once and be
done and and I appreciate but we are bringing a spare head that's the confidence that we have
there is going to be a spare head and a complete spare engine on top of that we are trying some
experimental valve springs that you've kind of sourced and figured out the little dual spring
setup that we're pretty excited about should have good rpm a lot lighter weight than the current
off in the current offerings but it actually has more seat load so should stay closed under boost
better yeah so excited about that so there is some I don't know if you've ever built an engine
haven't tested something new I don't think I have ever every single one you put together in
the last five years that's something new yeah there's probably some new I don't know but um
but it's going to be I mean I do feel this is way more competitive than anything we brought
two in the years past as far as like we've learned a lot I mean you say that and that's true but also
the competition has grown too like I mean there's going to be multiple four second trucks there
yes hopefully yes hopefully right here there's going to be I mean 3000 horsepower will be like
the benchmark like that's that's what you have to hit to be competitive I feel like and then
I mean the sled pull is the same thing that happens every year I don't know I mean if you're
going to limb there I feel like sled pull has gotten weaker over the years but I could be totally
wrong but I feel like I just don't see the crazy cut tire setup once a dirty hooker quit going
week quit going I mean Baca had full cuts one year and a drop box and reverser and I feel like
people know that you have to be able to drag race well so the sled pull trucks kind of stopped
showing up and now it's all drag race trucks that are trying to sled pull I can see that logic
because I guess I mean I don't want to pick out but that that Brian's shoe you know that quality
he's usually a front runner in at UCC with his dedicated you know dual DOT tire setup you know
good work stock setup and I remember Josh several times he says oh you'll watch out for shoe and
shoe usually wins in the leg back when he raced with all of us he was like seventh eighth which he
was he was not and but he's a sled puller he's he's not I mean obviously his knowledge is gained
but I'm like he's a very similar setup what he brought back then I feel like this sled point and
I hope that that your setup works awesome because I think if it does people are going to be like
what the crap like like I mean I expect I expect a hundred feet on the competition
oh here we go so we better move the tractors when it's 3am like a lot of you better hook
up another sled to pull we need two sleds we should talk expectations goals like lofty goals
and then okay on each of the events and now we start sled pull or what so first let's just
start with like going over the rest of the truck because we went over the engine we over the
transmit oh we went over the engine deck plate whatever cast do a quick brief over thing of
everything else so turbos it's going to be the same turbo setup I've run for basically ever it's got a
one of our aggressors on the manifold in a 110 it's a 480 yep okay yeah aggressor 480 on the
manifold and a g457 110 on the atmosphere fueling is ddp that I don't know what they call them I
think they're like a call it a 500 over a 67 body that's another change is I had an 849
and so you can't run a 67 body on 849 so we we went to the Bosch so now it's got a Bosch in
there I was pretty skeptical person for a long time on it but seeing some of the stuff on with
Josh's like I am convinced that the Bosch saved Josh's engine now Josh kind of said it early on
like oh the drag racing like I bounced off the limiter so many times all the issues he had and
these guys saved an engine on drag racing and I was like dude I've sat on limiters
with my 849 many times cast pistons like you didn't save crap but with the difference is the when
they have that much nitrous going in bad things happen when you cut fuel and the 849 I think so
slowly that it'll say oh we're at 5900 rpm go full fuel and then the next round it says oh we're 64
under rpm pull all the fuel out and when you pull all the fuel out I mean you lost your fire you
have no fire nitrous goes through the motor gets past the rings it gets past the like into the exhaust
and then your next round or a different cylinder of whatever it fires and lights it all off and
it's just not great and so with that and then on the dyno I am very convinced that he saved an
engine on the dyno because with like looking at his log when he was in the middle of his pull
people see a 0.9 second or whatever it was dyno pull you look at the log an 849 would have like
three data points in the in that run and you wouldn't be able to see what just happened in the Bosch
it thought and was able to data log but also able to think fast enough that it sat there and said oh
it started to slip the tire or whatever it was and it got to like 6100 and it pulled a little
bit of fuel out and it went back to 5900 and it put a little bit fuel back in and did like
three little chicanes or what do you even call it your favorite word of like it mod just oscillate
a little bit right there and so you watch the run you can absolutely spot it it's just like this
higher p.m. and it sits at that higher p.m. for that 0.9 seconds like seriously the moment he hit
power it went from his 4800 all the way to 6000 and just sat there like waved up a little bit
up and down and then finished the run if that was an 849 it would
have got to 6800 or whatever and it would pull full fuel went back down gave it full fuel again
and it would have you know slid it off the charge lit it off and backfired it to hell and so I believe
he did save his motor with that and so I was like man with the cost of the motor these motors and
stuff now like we're not in cast piston block you know territory anymore like with the cost of it if
you can save one motor it was it was worth it so we went with the Bosch now we can run a 6.7
injector which likes the pressure more we're also we got a I've been just running up until
right now basically I've been running just a 5g 220 air dog lift pump I hit them up I was like hey
like how much better Josh has like custom pump from them he always told me it was a custom pump
and I was like is it just a custom body whatever and he never really had that much
information I was like man I kind of felt like my pump was ultimately the same
which like slight differences and then I uh I called air dog and I was like hey um I'm this is what
I'm trying to do like how much better is Josh's pump and they're like yeah it's about 30% I was
like dang the guy was right it was actually better I was like do you have those on the
shelf he's like there is one in existence ever and I was like okay and it's like it's on Josh's
truck and nice oh he's like so like what does that look like for me he's like he'll go out tomorrow
he says you are freaking nuts so air dog came in with so we're getting oh air dog I mean that's
that's why it's so awesome working with air dog it's always their product you don't have to listen
to a second engine but also like their customer service has always just been great um anyway
yep that that's showing up and we'll be slapping that on there um and that's just so we can run a
single air dog feeding 214 mils like guy told him he's like he tried to like say like oh he should
run two just 25 uh five g two twenties like reliability there he's like this is there's a reason
this isn't open to the public is like we're kind of pushing like what we should be doing like it may
not have a good like service life uh and I was like this is a drag race truck like I don't want to
add another 10 pound lift pump it's just I don't want to do that and he's like okay I
get it cool we'll go out tomorrow but anyway so that was that was awesome from them now we can
just run a single air dog which is great like he's a plumbing he's wiring everything's better yeah um
and then what else um we also when we did the Bosch we also changed up we went from an a
haltech r3 which is like their I guess that's like their second level like second best unit
the second biggest unit so I've been running forever um and now I have the haltech r5 it has a
lot more outputs a lot more inputs that way we can use it to just control everything we can monitor
anything we want but what we're using the haltech for is it's the Bosch is controlling the engine
and eventually they'll talk we're not there yet but the Bosch is controlling the engine the haltech
is controlling everything else the shifting of the trans like when I tell it to go into lock up
I'm I'm not grounding the solenoid I'm telling the haltech I want it to lock and then the haltech
locks it and so overdrive the same story um and it has the ability to air shift the trans it has
nitrous control like everything really everything in the truck is going like air dog is being
controlled by the haltech everything's being controlled by it so that way I can just kind of
set up what what I want to do fans like when the transmission temp hits a certain point
it turns the trans fan on and just water pump everything so I'm trying to think what other
changes were made um yeah I mean it's it's an amazing build the truck has come around we we
did dual cp3 case as well so that way there's no belts we did a single like low mount alternator
from like new performance auto he has that that kit with their case and then the alternator
so now like if I do throw a belt during sled pull like I'm just living on battery life and that's
we got let's you didn't lose uh yeah a cp3 or water pump or something yep um it's been a lot
so like I mean like say in november when we started this project it was a full factory frame I just
barely gutted the cab um 850 cage I mean it was full bed almost full bed it was full bed
right before that um and we've just been tripping away it started out like low 5000 pounds now it's
4400 drag race weight 4420 ish drag race weight and then because we got so light now put a sled
pull chassis under there we also had to for dynoing we had to make like lockouts for the rear
and a weight box or a weight rack for the rear of the chassis like it's been a lot it's like a lot
of little things that just take a lot of time yes it does but we were close we're gonna be dynoing
this thing here next day or two probably tonight tonight so got some some awesome stuff and um goals
and expectations goals and expectations yeah so do you want to start right at drag racing I'll start
drag racing so going into it I wanted like 540 was my was my like go no go and I wanted to run a 540
at UCC now that I ran one time one hail mary but a 499 I'm like okay goals have changed I would love
to run a four a four is a success for me for anything for anything is a success but what I really like
is the fastest 48 is a 488 and I'm not talking at least Michael Cordova and I think a couple
alters or have gone faster than that but an actual four of an actual truck for like y'all cheating
okay get out here the trucks the fastest is a 488 I think that was done I don't remember who did that
is it Philip or somebody else I think it's Philip that's right Philip Franklin did a 488 and a 48
and so I'd love to so that's the goal that if I could have the fastest 48 record at UCC that
would make me very happy let me pretend cool and like I pulled apart the trans after the Ford
like all those passes and run 499 they're like look good like looking at that I've been kind of
planning this whole time to just swap the transmission for dyno day because with the
dyno trans it'll be built a little bit differently because slipping the trans has been a problem on
the dyno um well now a lot of people don't know that that is a problem on these big power trucks
once you realize even a lot of competitors that don't know that yet they don't we just you've had
a data log a bunch you and Josh well I mean started in the godfather days when we were we had to ramp
the crap out of line pressure to get to hold and we're like and then we talked to other people
and like yeah we run 180 pounds line pressure I'm like why how like obviously it's working because
you're making the number but like how does that make sense um so that kind told us what we need
to look for and then Josh started making power you can just like and with the Bosch you can see a
lot of that like yeah it's hard with an 849 it doesn't log fast enough to see that it's so slow
and so once we had the Bosch we could really see where the problems were and we're like
dang and so when Josh I mean he did 30 100 at UCC and then I mean uncorrected like 2900 and then he
did then here he did like 3100 then he did 3300 there was there was no fuel changes correct all
the raw number yeah uncorrected that that's just that's just transmission changes really for the
most part there's some small changes but not really and like so that's 400 horsepower difference
and some can argue transmission and some could argue that like oh well you know at 5% or whatever
increase in fuel because he did change injectors and this and that like that could have done it well
I'm like it's true but it was sitting on a limiter the whole time yeah like it was pulling fuel like
it's not that's I don't think that was it I think it was all really mostly
transmission changes and so that's what we're fighting so I want to swap transmissions for the
dyno day and it will be built a little bit differently but after looking at the transmission
after drag racing I went in 499 I'm like like I was honestly going to do it like I almost had
troll posts but I was like I was tempted to but I decided not to but I was like I was going to take
a picture of my flex band in the transmission be like hey like what are you guys doing to get your
flex bands to survive going force like because it has like a little strip of burn on a one it looks
really good because it's pulling it's starting to pull the rivets out of the band and so it
caused a little high spot and it caused the burn just otherwise you can read the part numbers
on this band it's wild and it just got a little burn so I was going to take a picture and say like
oh how are you guys getting your bands to survive four second passes this one's only got eight passes
on it it was just like I was like ah it doesn't do any good to just my 3am thoughts
but so that's the drag race I would love it and it's we do the tranny builders that's funny
do they have a jaw audience they don't know but most of the top end guys are putting a 300
dollar rigid or billet band on there a flex bands a thirty dollar item and nobody can really get a
flex band to hold the big power I don't think it's dumb enough to try like who puts a factory
replacement band in their like drag truck going for it like it's just it's ridiculous no one would
be dumb enough to do that and I don't like I know some people would get the joke would think it's
funny but all people think I'm being serious and think I'm like some like cocky punk or whatever
I'm like I'm not dude I think silly come on you're around ten minutes you'll understand yeah it takes
like two seconds anyway so that'd be my goal I don't I don't know if it's gonna happen that'd
just be like that would just be icing on the cake I think the whole weekend could go any kind of way
and I would walk away with that I'm okay with this 48 is a lofty goal that's that's yeah I mean
what's the minimum like like expectation though like if things don't go well where do you think
I'm not saying if if it goes way way bad but I'm like if the track's just not there and it's not
there site 40 probably no dude I can do five fours on fuel so Arizona had way better track prep
and my that was my best 60 foot it was a like a 122 123 60 foot and Vegas where I ran a 499 that
was a 126 or 127 60 foot and I was just all over the track like the track prep was I think it was
not good it was also really hot and greasy like I I think if I can't better set a personal
best that you see I will feel slightly disappointed because I feel like the tracks there I've got the
power capability now I have everything I need and there's a test through the day prior so it's
not like I'm just going to have to hail marry it like I can get a little data from me and so that
would be my goal is if I can't I would be slightly disappointed if I can't set a new personal best
but I know it's like I get it's lofty but like that that would be that for me and if 48 likes being
the fastest 48 truck that'd be dope I'm down about that I know I think if I can do I think the same
thing will be for 3000 horsepower if I can do 3000 horsepower I'd be really happy if I can match
Josh's uncorrected number I'd be thrilled regardless of what anyone else does yeah like
there's there's bill block showing up there's a really good chance that it's hard because I mean
Ziggler's coming I mean yeah he might be shooting for 5k who knows who knows and I don't and like
that's kind of going into it I really wanted to set a like a points goal because I don't want my
goal to be dictated or be changed or disappoint myself because someone else showed up or someone
else did way better like yeah it's never gonna feel great to get third because or fifth or tenth
or whatever because you know big dogs showed up but if I I want to set like points goal that way
regardless of what other people do I have I have something I can achieve so 3000 horsepower would be
would be my like if I did 2999 I'd be like dang it sucks I'm not in the club um because you did
three you'd be happy and expectation or high goal would be 3500 so Josh is I don't know Josh's
uncorrect number is 3300 I would be like the don't know if it's gonna happen but would be a static
number yeah I think it equates to 3500 which I think the max done on that dino is 33 36 by Ziggler
now he might break that record he probably will break that record again the max and that yeah
obviously Josh did this 34 whatever with at that vent out on that right now here but um and so
Ziggler's gonna show up and other other bigger engines I mean I'm not packing anything crazy like
I'm the same setup like so many people showing with a deck plate and I mean someone could put a C15
cat in there's no rule against that so you don't I mean someone could have a dT466 there's all kinds
of big engines they just have to be diesel powered yeah so and so yeah there's it's not like I'm
bringing something that's out of the realm different than anyone else so it's not like I have this
big one up it's just a matter of like I know a guy and that guy's done pretty good so if I can like
take some of that knowledge and push it on like and make it work like that'd be great
and then I think for sled pulling so past the track there's a fence and this has been a common
topic at like 3am is do you run over the fence or do you just give it a love tap
but no um I would love to do well in the sled pull there's I think if I don't do well it's
because I made a serious choice like issue like there's bad decisions were made because that
decision is we're not doing triple turbos or a rail line broke or something weird something dumb
and so power if I as long as I can as long as the truck does what it should be able to do I feel
like you got a good chance of I have a really good chance of being a pretty dang top competitor
I mean sled pulling is hard because like it depends on how you set up the sled and so it's a card
but I if I don't place first I honestly think I'll be disappointed
it's just it's so ridiculously different than anyone else is bringing like if I get
beat by an all train I'm gonna really in the big the big wow goal is you drive through the fence
and they're like hey we need to pull a couple grand out of your winnings to fix this we decided
it's just gonna be a love tap like and I'm like I'm never sled pull before people are there you
can't run over people that's your job but if there's everybody move everybody move there's no people
in the way I think if I was driving there I would take down the fence just because I could you know
be like I'm just competing in your event I can't control the conditions that all I can do is go
full power until you made this sled too light you know if it can't stop me I'm gonna pull it out
under the drag strip to just keep going I was gonna like set up like a google maps like to the
nearest like I don't know like Texas Roadhouse or something just like start your navigation go straight
but yeah I mean I don't want to be cocky on that because like there's so
that's what's crazy in any leg of the competition like there's so much that could go wrong yes
and so it's hard to say like oh yeah like I'd be mad if I everything has to go right for so many
people but yeah that would that'd be kind of kind of my goal and then overall goal obviously is to
win the competition the overall I mean I would love that that goal yeah yeah that would be expectation
is there's a lot has to go right for that to happen yes I would I mean I think if I placed
anywhere in the top three I'd be pretty okay with that what's funny is if you ask chat GPT like AI
like who's gonna win first of all it says Josh McCormick hands down I'm like well sorry lady but
Josh Josh McCormick's not competing and then it's like Kenny Brunner hands down
I'm like okay I was like Ziegler's done pretty good are you worried about him and all she's like nah
Kenny Brunner I was like what was Meyer guy she's like not a chance
Meyer who nice so if AI is correct Kenny Brunner's winning Ziegler's second place yeah and Meyer's
top 10 maybe after maybe top 10 after arguing for long enough I got a maybe top 10
like nice nice go me well it's gonna be a fun event it's happening next weekend like
there's days Tuesday and we'll get a couple days yeah we're gonna be there we don't have a
booth set up but my roster is a pit area and top and I'll be Josh will be I'll be some shirts
Josh will definitely be selling shirts out of our pit so if you guys are wanting to see
Josh oh we could bring some PDD shirts to see offered to sign babies and everything so
should we get a shirt made really quick that says like UCC 2026 champ and then if it doesn't we
just slide the box away and just take the L yeah it's like some Blembs
what the heck good shop rags it's just like you spray paint the truck orange yeah you gotta finish
that final joke so a lot of people are like why isn't Will and Todd competing and there's many
facets one we're older and he's just family life it's hard to dedicate that much time
not a time Myers given to this is something I could not do no way now from the business
angle people keep teasing me about is they're like hey if it's not you you're gonna ride his
coattails oh yeah and if he doesn't win he's fired before he leaves we don't know him
yeah Will was like he was like yeah we're just like riding Myers coattails if he wins and if he
loses like whatever it's just a former employee who cares I'm reminded of that quote from quickly
you know he's like trying to shoot in the crazy course he's like you're old man able to hit a
coyote that far away she's like I don't know him I ain't never seen him before then he shoots
she's like I told you Roy can hit a coyote from that distance so it's actually all started
we were trying to go to Arizona and we're trying to make plans and you were like you're like oh
well either you're gonna go to you're gonna make it to Arizona you're fired and I was like okay
we made it to Arizona and then I mentioned like some like I was like man it's pretty
preposterous I don't think we're gonna be able to go fours in Las Vegas but like wouldn't that be
cool is like well run fours or you're fired and like so far we're doing pretty good so I wouldn't
overstretch but it's a really good chance I'm getting fired anyway it will be a great show if
you're if you're thinking about going you should go a lot of amazing builds this is a
good year that's what's crazy is like this is one of the builds which I feel like I mean selfishly
if you're trying to decide whether or not to go you should go simply for this just because
it it will look I am so excited um but this is one of the trucks just one like don't even know
what everyone else is bringing and like all the radical stuff like I mean Ziegler has ran he's
like this is like the second fastest truck and he's gonna be even four seventies what's his 55
his horse done oh my gosh now he's a little lighter so he has to weigh up but like the fastest
truck um but it's running today so he has the current record at UCC 3300 horse he has the fastest
truck going to UCC 54 fifties and he's he does sled pull he's familiar with it so he's won
the sled pull UCC a couple times he's gonna put on a show and then like um I mean Kenny Burner
everything he does is like looks top notch so if nothing else would be a great show in shine truck
and Michael Brown like Michael Brown it's a good truck oh my gosh it looks good
and it is good but no but either way Michael Brown both both them I mean like you like I put some
powder coat on my truck for the first time ever I was like this is dope like their trucks like you
could eat off anywhere on their truck even their sled like Kenny's sled pull setup looks like freaking
clean and and so both those trucks like I'm gonna be stopping by their booth because I want to see
him like um yeah like there's gonna be a lot lot to see there I heard someone's gonna use a running
engine as their weight box like just I think there was some other strategies there like he was gonna
have it run like a cp3s or something for his main engine so didn't have to fight the
load like that's clever but um yeah like there's do that on the dyno there's no rule yeah that's
exactly it saves horsepower on the engine that's exactly the running engine run the run the cp3s
I'm like that's like I'm only thing I'm mad about is that I didn't think of it that's great just
a little pony motor I mean I think you could do with like a thing near a predator probably not
that's not nearly enough power but something like that I'm like I actually thought about that for 72
fast I was just like you had a separate engine that ran everything you needed this pump in the
water and everything and just your main engine was propelling you because there's a there's
enough weight there you could take a lightweight drag truck so I've actually thought about that
and I was like how could you you know where I was thinking or have all the everything on electric
motors there's no rules about electric pony motors yeah dude I mean I think you'd get disqualified
at the event but like it's a good thought I do like it anyway anyway it's gonna be a heck of a show
we're hoping you there we hope you come check out Myers building laws other bills as well
kind of time on this one but like we gotta get honest we gotta wrap this up because we gotta
get back to work on this truck yep like we are I gotta fab turbos if this is dyno tonight I gotta
be a big day so hey guys I hope you enjoyed this podcast come out support meyer
power driven and all the competitors it's gonna be amazing I hope you like this channel obviously
please subscribe like share comment all that stuff and we hope to see you in Indiana next week
so thanks for this time and we'll see you next time on the power driven podcast
About this episode
UCC 2026 sets the stage: Saturday brings the big dyno competition and Sunday the sled pole, with 72 Fast payouts and brand-swap contingencies. The hosts walk through how “72 fast” rules make it possible to race a street truck with a 72 turbo and a 6,000-pound minimum. They then zoom into their Cummins build—common-rail conversion, tube-chassis/weight targets, nitrous and tune changes, and Bosch/Haltech control—plus the sled-pull side: four-link, axles, welded chassis, and hydraulic steering. Reliability comes from teardown lessons, deck-plate machining, and transmission/dyno tuning.
Myer is one week out from the Ultimate Callout Challenge and the second gen Cummins build he has been hammering on since November is almost ready. In this episode Todd, Will, and Myer break down what the truck has become and what they are showing up to Indiana to do.
They cover the full transformation from street truck to UCC competitor, including the chassis work, the new deck plate engine, the Bosch ECM swap, a custom Air Dog lift pump, and the wild sled pull sub chassis that rolls completely in and out from under the truck without touching the weight box. They also get into testing results from Arizona and Vegas, including a 4.99 eighth mile pass on a 848 with a stock computer.
If you are thinking about making the trip to UCC this year, this episode is the reason to go. The field is stacked, the builds are insane, and Myer's truck is one of the most creative setups on the property.
Subscribe on YouTube and follow on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you catch the full UCC recap when the crew gets back from Indiana.
Everything you need for your diesel performance build is at PowerDriven.com.
