(rock music)
- Hi, I'm KJ Jones, editor of Diesel Power magazine,
and we're here at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver, Colorado
for Diesel Power Challenge 2016.
Here at Red Rocks we're starting our photo day,
which is basically a day of photography and video,
interviews of all the competitors and their vehicles
and a chance to show off.
We got to get this show started,
so let's meet all the drivers and their about their truck.
Centerville, Indiana's David Ferguson is driving
a 2005 Ford F-350 powered by a 6-liter powerstroke.
Charlie Keeter from Franklin, Virginia's driving a
2004 Ford F-250 powered by a 6-liter powerstroke,
raised up by triple kit of turbo chargers.
Travis Koller's in a 2015 Ford F-250
and he hails from Germantown, Wisconsin.
This truck has a late-model 6.7-liter powerstroke.
Neal Torley from Green Cove Springs, Florida,
has a 2008 Ford F-250 with a 6.4-liter powerstroke.
Kelsie Epp from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, Canada,
came all the way down to the competition
with her 2002 GMC Sierra 2500HD.
Nathan Stacy hails from Winchester, Ohio,
in his 2007 Chevrolet Silverado 2500HD.
Ray McClelland from Newcastle, Pennslyvania,
is driving a 2007 Dodge Ram 2500
with a d-stroke 6.7-liter Cummins
that now measures out to 6.4 liters.
Jake Patterson's driving a 2006 Dodge Ram 2500.
Patterson driving the only truck in the field
with a 5.9-liter Cummins inline six engine,
and his is sporting a big single turbocharger.
Patterson's hoping for 1600 foot-pounds on the dyno.
And now here's the host of Diesel Power Challenge 2016,
Brian Lohnes.
- Well, thanks, KJ.
You know, you shot all those great photos yesterday.
Your magazine features are lined up,
but now the rubber really meets the road.
We're here at ATS Diesel Performance
outside of Denver, Colorado,
for the day of official competition
at the 2016 Diesel Power Challenge presented by XDP.
It's all about the dyno today.
We're going to strap these trucks down,
they're going to make as much horsepower and torque as possible
and then we're going to put them back on the rollers
to put them through a 20-mile simulated drive
to measure their fuel economy.
Tomorrow we go to Bandimere Speedway.
We put them through a trailer towing obstacle course.
They got to run through an eight-mile drag strip run
with a 10,000-pound trailer hooked to their back.
The trucks have to run heads up
down the quarter-mile drag strip.
On the last day, we go out to the fairgrounds
and then the pulling sled comes out.
These trucks will be made to pull
that professional-level sled as far as possible
to gain as many points as possible.
The driver that manages to excel at all of these events,
well, they're going to be named the
2016 Diesel Power Challenge Presented by XDP Champion.
So, leading us off here is Ray McClellan.
He's backing his Dodge Ram 2500 onto the rollers
here at ATS Diesel Performance,
an interesting combination in this truck.
It was 6.7-liter Cummins that's been
actually d-stroked to 6.4 liters.
The reduction in stroke helps with the rod angle.
Taking some of the rod angle away,
take some side load off of the piston.
It should free up performance,
should make it more true coming up and down in the bore.
Going to be very interesting to see what kind of numbers
we can watch out of Ray McClellan's truck.
He should be a contender.
(engine revving)
Well, Ray, man, leading the day so far.
- Yeah, I mean, for a fuel number, I couldn't be happier.
We're out of air with the chargers.
I don't want to spray it, I don't want to hurt it.
You know, it's a good number for out here especially,
so we're just going to pull it off
and we're going to go about the competition,
try and be smart about it, instead of pushing the limits.
- [Brian] Well, here comes Kelsie Epp.
Kelsie down from Canada in her 2002 GMC Sierra.
Core a 6.6-liter Duramax in here,
and one of the three trucks we have in the contest
running a triple compound turbo setup.
Of course, two smaller turbos feeding a larger one,
and we'll see how that helps her spool
in the thin air up here in Denver.
(engine revving)
Kelsie, you made the trip down from Canada,
and obviously not just to come down and have fun.
This thing's a player, over 1800 foot-pounds.
That puts you right up close to the top of the pack so far.
- I want these guys to go home and, uh,
(laughs) I want them to have nightmares about this truck.
- [Brian] Well, it takes a ton of people to put on
the Diesel Power Challenge presented by XDP,
but I'm joined by two guys who are super important
for this whole process.
First guy, Sean Holman, content director for Diesel Power.
Sean, how long have you been involved in this event now?
- This is probably going on my sixth year.
I was the editor-in-chief at Diesel Power
and then content director and, so,
you know, Diesel's a big part of my life,
love the event, love getting these guys out here,
love getting our readers involved.
This is definitely one of my favorite events of the year.
- Lot of fresh faces this year, too, which is very cool.
- Yeah, you know, we have this rule standing
at Diesel Power Challenge where
the winner gets to come back one year,
but if they win again, they're out.
And that's kind of what happened over the last couple years.
We had Lavon Miller, won, came back.
And so now that he's had his two bites of the apple,
we reset the field.
- Well, to get the field set,
the readers of Diesel Power Magazine vote,
and they send their mail to this guy,
KJ Jones, the editor-in-chief at Diesel Power.
How's it going, man?
- It's going well, Brian.
Yes, we received a lot of envelopes,
plenty of ballots this year,
it was really really good voting,
and clearly the readers have picked very very good trucks.
- You've been dealing with the group
kind of since they got in, shooting the photos,
lot of big, wide-eyed smiles, it looks like.
- Definitely. Everybody's excited about it,
and that gets me excited.
As Sean mentioned, you know, this is a reset of the field,
so you have people that have been wanting to get into
Diesel Power Challenge for a long time
and this is their moment, their moment to shine,
to a worldwide audience thanks to the web, you know,
and then in the magazine and stuff,
it's just a way to broadcast success, I think.
- [Brian] So, now we've met a couple of the power players
that help put this event on.
Let's get back to the dyno.
So, here comes Jake Patterson.
Patterson backing into the dyno cell now.
It's a 5.9-liter Cummins-powered Ram that he's driving.
Interesting thing about this truck:
it has a single turbo on it.
A year dominated by triple and double compounding setups,
only a single on here for Jake.
(engine revving)
Well, Jake, that was an adventure out there.
- Yep, you bet it is.
- You're one of the few guys here with a single turbo
on their truck, and obviously it a battle
trying to get the thing lit.
- Yeah, we was, I was trying to load it down low,
about 2,000 RPM and it just wasn't making any boost,
so any time I bumped the nitrous
it was just cackling and carrying on,
so that last run I run up to about 70-80 mile an hour
trying to get enough boost where it would pull on through
and it did make about 60 pounds of boost and ran out,
but it hurt something.
I don't know if it's a head gasket or what,
it's still got a stock head gasket,
no fire rings or nothing, just a set a studs, so.
- [Brian] Yeah, I was going to say,
I had heard that the only reason
that the cylinder had ever been off this thing
was just to put the head studs on it.
- I didn't even pull the head off of it then.
I pulled bolts one at a time and stuck studs in.
It's got stock valve train, stock rods,
stock, you know, everything.
Crank, pistons, everything.
It's never been inside, so.
- [Brian] Well, the Diesel Power thrash begins now.
Good luck, man.
- I sure appreciate it.
- [Brian] So, Ferguson comes in now.
A 2005 F-350, this is a six-liter truck.
And kind of an interesting side note here:
Jesse Warren, who was a competitor in the 2015
Diesel Power Challenge has his hands in the tune up
on this particular rig.
(engine revving)
David Ferguson, a couple of good pulls there.
Ended up 983 horsepower, just over 1600 foot-pounds.
I know you guys were working,
testing the wastegates before you came over here, right?
- Yeah, well, back home we only dyno'd it about eight times.
Fuel only, so, we didn't really want to overspin anything.
So we backed the gates down a little bit.
I don't know if we backed them down a little too much,
but it almost felt like maybe,
I think I may have a PCM issue.
We took my manual lock up switch out
and just let the computer control it,
and I think I may, because the PCM grounds the solenoid,
so I think the PCM is either having some issues grounding it
or something's going on there,
because it just didn't want to fully lock in.
We were losing about 600 RPMs, so.
- Is it good to have a guy like Jesse Warren around
that's done this before, give you a little bit of advice?
At least keep your nerves calm?
- Oh, yeah, it's Jesse Warren, I mean, you know?
He's a myth, so the myth and the legend.
Yeah, no, he's an awesome guy.
You know, to come all the way out here
and help two teams at once, super guy.
And yeah, excellent knowledge on everything.
So, I'm super happy that he's on both teams.
- [Brian] See you over at the drag strip, man, good work.
- Awesome, thank you, sir, appreciate it.
- Here we are with Jake Patterson.
We just got off the dyno.
So, we decided when you guys tried to start it back up,
threw out a bunch of white smoke,
ended up pushing it off the dyno to get it here.
What do you think happened?
What was your experience inside the cab?
- Altitude's really messing with,
big single-charger truck here, so it's got a 75,
so it definitely messes with us,
but trying to just load it hard down low
so it would pull up, make boost,
at where it needed to in the RPM range
and it just wasn't doing it.
We was fighting with it, bumping the nitrous,
and it was just acting crazy, so,
ran it all out,
and it finally made good boost on that last run
but we hurt something and we're not sure,
something, maybe a head gasket issue,
so we're going to pull it apart.
- Well, hopefully, it's nothing too severe,
you guys can get it fixed and back in the competition,
but good luck and I'll let you get back to it.
- Yeah, appreciate it. - Alright, Jake.
So, Nathan Stacy has come into the dyno cell
in his 2007 Silverado,
and a 6.6-liter Duramax engine in here for Nathan Stacy.
And the cool thing about this truck,
obviously a set of compounds on it,
and nitrous along with them.
CP3 pumps, the whole works under the hood here.
At sea level, the truck's made about 1,000 horsepower
at 1500, but as we have seen so far today
and every year at ATS, that doesn't play here in Denver.
(engine revving)
- So, Nate Stacy, finished up your third pull there.
Kind of an interesting deal.
First pull was 739, then it went down to 714.
You guys were messing around under the hood
a little bit, did you find anything?
- Well, we had a coolant leak, which,
I don't know where it's coming from,
we're going to have to take a look at it tonight.
I mean, out on the street, turbos were lighting perfect,
so I think we'll mess around with tuning a little bit more,
we'll bring her in, I mean,
it's definitely got the power for it
and it's got the fuel for it, so,
just learning curve.
- [Brian] So, Neal Torley has entered the dyno zone now.
This is a 6.4-liter powerstroke truck,
the only 6.4-liter truck in the competition.
This one equipped with three turbochargers,
again one of the tri-inverter trucks
we have with the triple compound setup.
Going to be interesting to see how his pulls
as the big single turbo trucks have been struggling,
but the smaller multi-turbo trucks
seem to be winning the day so far.
(engine revving)
Well, Neal Torley, it wouldn't be a
Diesel Power Challenge without one guy ghetto fogging
the truck on the dyno, but man, it worked for you.
You picked up about 600 horse on that.
It just woke the thing right up.
- It did, we're still probably about 30 pounds low on boost,
but you know what, at least we got a reasonable number
to work with and go with it,
and I'm just happy to be here with all these guys,
these great sponsors that we got, so I'm excited.
- [Brian] Charlie Keeter making his way
towards the dyno rollers here.
This is a 2004 F-250 with a 6-liter powerstroke in it.
And again, a set of three turbochargers,
all working together to make the boost.
(engine revving)
Well, man that was impressive.
A couple of really good rips there
puts you solidly in the top half of the field,
actually top three right now.
- Yes, sir. Felt good.
- [Brian] You guys, did you put a little bit more
nitrous jet to it for the second one?
- Yeah, we went up from a 78 to 93 jet.
We picked up a little bit of horsepower and torque,
but not a lot.
Enough for second place I think, so far.
- [Brian] Is that pretty much where you wanted to be
as far as the power goes,
or are you just happy with whatever you got?
- I'm happy, she's running good, I'm happy, man.
- [Brian] We'll see you over at the drag strip, man.
- Yes, sir, thank you.
- Well, Ray McClellan, a successful day
in the dyno here, man.
- Absolutely.
- Keeping up a tradition of a couple years running
that the Cummins guys have taken
the big trophy out of this place.
- Right, and I couldn't let them down.
Yeah, and I did it on fuel, too.
Everybody's in there spraying nitrous and stuff,
I didn't even have a kit or anything inside, so.
- [Brian] Man, that's doubly impressive.
- Yeah, exactly, I'm really happy about it.
I couldn't be happier with the truck, you know.
I changed a lot of things up right before I came out here
and came out here even with a little bit of issues
that we cleaned up here at ATS's place.
So, they took care of me,
I got everything going on my end,
and I made it happen here on the dyno.
- [Announcer] Once again, it was a Cummins-powered truck
taking top honors on the dyno
with Ray McClellan winning the day.
Charlie Keeter second, and Kelsie Epp third.
One of the biggest changes for the
2016 Diesel Power Challenge
is the way that we measure fuel economy.
It's actually going to be done right here
on the dyno rollers at ATS Diesel Performance.
They then run an eight-minute simulated drive,
the dynos loads and unloads as the computer tells it to,
to basically simulate driving uphills, downhills,
and though the countryside.
At the end of the drive,
we're going to fill the truck back up again,
determine how much fuel it used,
and then the truck that uses the least amount of fuel
is clearly the winner in the fuel economy shootout.
Neal Torley was the big winner
of the fuel consumption challenge.
Charlie Keeter came in second.
And Kelsie Epp tied with Nathan Stacy for third place.
Things get very interesting tomorrow
when we head to Bandimere Speedway,
hook these trucks to a 10,000-pound trailer,
and send them through a very frustrating course of cones.
(rock music)