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The diesel engine as a viable performance option

58K views 543 replies 78 participants last post by  Powerstroked162 
#1 · (Edited)
First I’m primarily a gas racer; I cut my racing teeth as a Competition Eliminatorcrew member, and racer. I get a woodie when I put my foot on the throttle of a 11,000 rpm small block.

I was stranded without a affordable and competitive engine program at the end 2001 season, after a fairly successfully 5 years of campaigning a D/ed with a Splayed valve V6. I stumbled in to the diesel performance world, and found it to be a new found passion.

The diesel engine development curve is where the gas world was 30 years ago. I speculated it would rapidly catch up, and it’s coming along, there are a lot of inovatators in the diesel couminity .
When I first started with diesels, mentioning cylinder head and cam development was laughed at. They stated that boost would overcome it all. 6 years later the shop that I begged to do my head, and build a sheet metal manifold has a 3 month waiting list to get a head and manifold.

So is the diesel engine as a viable power plant for a muscle car, bracket car, or even race car .
I don’t mean the typical smoke belching engine, but well refined engine programs. The diesel engine has made huge gains in this arena with the advent of electronic common rail high pressure with 20,000 to 30,000 psi fuel systems.
With the CR systems you can tune around destructive peak cylinder pressure as the engine goes thru peak torque. The solution to this before, on mechanical fuel systems was to reduce compression ratio, killing low eng cylinder pressure, and this worked on all out engines, but killed bottom throttle response. These lack of bottom end , also effected the AR selection on turbo’s

The advent of cylinder heads that in effect doubled air flow (Cummins stock 144 CFM ) ( Duramax stock 140 CFM ) to both heads flowing close to 250 CFM on streetable heads and 300+ CFM on all out race heads.

Cam design, which I made one of my pet projects, was way behind. The major player would grind BBF RV grinds on the Cummins 54.5 mm core, the events were to big , and with way to much overlap
Problems was the turbo diesel engine cores were on at best 102 to 106 LSA and the overlap was one of the greatest no no’s on a diesel . The diesel engine has little scavenge with 1.2 to 1.5 boost to turbine inlet pressure ratio’s . The tipical street cams would open the intake 10 ATDC and close at 2 or 3 ABDC . I use a cams that is 230 230 on a 116 in at 116 . and do it on 60 mm cores


So to the latest in Chevy Duramax engine for a street engine
First forget the huge injectors, twin pumps and compound turbo’s. A stock short block Duramax with a good cylinder head, and cams program will breath well, and make 600 hp and 1000 ft lbs of torque, and rev to 5000+ rpms and last forever. The great part about doing the heads and cam, on a entry level engine is, that now this good breathing engine will make a good power curve at low boost levels. The great part is no need for an intercooler at this boost level. Just use Water injection on the street.

This engine in a muscle car will run good, smoke free, and get 40+ MPG on # 2 diesel fuel. Go ahead and put a good set of rods in the motor and the hp level is close to 1100 hp with nitrous , which doubles as an intercooler.

Here are some pictures of the NX Mustang and My Dragster and their engine programs based around the Dmax diesel engine.

Oh and I love this forum, the knowledge level is humbling.













 
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#249 ·
Yeah, I have one of them for my truck, I just dont run it right now as I am not in brackets. Real simple design, basically you set it to what posistion you want the APPS at while holding the brake down. Then put her to the floor, once you release the brake it is full throttle. I dont think it would be super hard to take it a step further and make it into a delay box, especially for those running a tranny brake
 
#252 ·
She is back going to college full time, last time I talked to her she was running her parts business (Crewgirl Racing) on the side.
 
#258 · (Edited)
Anna is competent behind a wrench. She did very well with that car IIRC.
Too bad the guy that uses her in so many pics and speaks so highly of her online belittles her so much behind her back.
I've been told things to my face that I highly doubt Anna would agree with.
Give her a call. She'll probably be an asset to your team. She's a cool person...fun to hang out with but serious when it's time to do the work.

She helps out a lot with one of the diesel racing sanctioning bodies also.
 
#265 ·
Greg...you know there is no conspiracy theory being hatched in "another forums" moderator room.
The only conspiracy theories are in your head...like always.
How come every time this thread almost gets headed back in a positive direction...you have to derail it again ?
Let it go, douchebag.
 
#273 ·
*sigh* I don't even know where to start with this thread......... First to all my diesel friends who have said some very nice things about me in this thread, you guys rock.
To the Becky person, as I said on the other thread, thanks but no thanks. The way you have presented yourself on both of these forums makes me believe that I would probably be ready to shoot you before qualifying was over if I were to be on your team.
Greg, please stop using pictures of me in your ego-boosting threads. I've worked very hard to be taken seriously in motor sports and the biggest strides I took were when I distanced myself from you. People take me alot more seriously and treat me with 10 times the respect since I stopped associating with you. I told you once that you would drown in your own ego and I would really like to avoid being pulled down by the current. I appreciate that you have wonderful intentions about helping me get somewhere in the racing world, but after 13 years of empty promises and "projects" that fell through I've decided that I'll pave my own way and probably get there alot quicker. I've tried to be nice and tactful when telling you this before, but apparently that's a language you don't understand. If I continue hearing that you've dragged my name into yet another drama filled thread I'm going to get downright bitchy. If you truly want to help me out, don't mention my name in association with one of your "projects" ever again.
 
#277 ·
Without bringing this back into a urinating contest, I just wanted to mention that I've met Anna in person at diesel events, still haven't met Greg.

Johnboy, I'll PM you on CompD regarding the 4L80. I was planning to talk to Mike Wood about it at SEMA next week. I'm still a ways off from that point, but who knows - if I manage to go some rounds at one of these big-$ races then I'll have to spend more money on the race car ;)

I was just thinking about some others who have planned to run diesels at "gasser" NHRA events. I remember a certain founder of a now-defunct diesel sanctioning organization who was planning to campaign diesel vehicles in Super-Gas and Super-Comp, but haven't heard much about it since then. I really would like to see someone get out there and win some rounds (or even events) with a diesel in an NHRA class. We'll hopefully run the MBRP/DirtyMax truck in S/G or S/C at some NHRA events next year, but it will be secondary to the diesel racing schedule.
 
#280 ·
this is way to funny. i have been on this site for quit some time being i have a blown alky jeep lol but i love how comp d has taken over yellow bullet lol.
 
#294 ·
thanks guys. i thought i posted a thread a while back on comp with all the details lol . must have slippped my mind lol.
 
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