2020 RSS

2020, Big Cam Cummins, Gauges -

Several years ago we thought the mechanical Big Cam Cummins and 425B Caterpillar engines would be gone by now, but they are not.  In fact, as of this writing we have six Big Cam Cummins engines being built by their owners. We are supplying the parts, specs, and knowledge for the clients to perform the build.  These are all performance engines and we have all the parts in stock.  We have the largest inventory of Big Cam Cummins parts in North America and Pat Sharp, Pete’s twin brother, is still rebuilding the fuel pumps, injectors, turbochargers, accessory drive assemblies, and...

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2020, Cooling, Dyno Tuning, ECM -

HIGH PERFORMANCE DIESELS Auxiliary coolant tanks, we have talked about this several times on the radio show. It’s a cooling solution only to be used when a larger radiator is not available.  I invented this system back in the early 1990’s for the Big Cam 4 low flow cooling engines.  We have used it several times on motorhomes and other trucks with poorly engineered radiator systems.  It’s quite simple, you purchase a small air tank for a semi truck and mount it in the frame rail near the transmission.  Locate the pipe plugs in the coolant system of the block...

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2020, Turbo -

Vibrations can break anything. This is a carrier bearing bracket out of Steve Kron’s 10 miles per gallon DD4 Detroit powered truck.  His rear drive shaft was out of alignment and was causing a vibration. As you can see in the picture, the U-shaped bracket that holds the carrier bearing broke and he was lucky he was going slow or a catastrophic accident would have happened. He was one mile from a truck stop, so he took a 2” ratchet strap and criss-crossed it from each side of the frame under the drive shaft to support the shaft to drive...

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2020, Big Cam Cummins, Catalyst, Peterbilt -

A BLAST FROM THE PAST - Last week we had a 359 Pete in our shop with a Big Cam Cummins 700+ horsepower engine we built years ago. This engine had our High Lift Camshaft and MVT (mechanical variable timing) system so there is no smoke at idle and the timing retards at high power to increase the life of the pistons. The pistons are a high strength Cummins piston that were ceramic and Teflon coated, which we still do.  It also has our performance turbocharger and oversized gear pump on the fuel pump which measured 1.25 inches vs the...

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2020, Catalyst, Cummins N-14 -

     Several years ago Kevin Rutherford and I were talking about setting money aside for a maintenance account and the amount per mile was 10 cents for pre-emissions trucks.  Then when EGR, DPF, and DEF appeared on the trucks in 2011 and 2012 the amount went to 15 cents per mile.  Last week our friend Jane Gates, the PhD chemist who developed the Max Mileage fuel borne catalyst, told us about the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI). They say the figure to operate a late model truck with OEM engines for years 2012 to 2020 is 17 cents per...

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