In the globe of effectiveness engine constructing and racing, engine swaps have come to be commonplace – but each individual so usually a person decides to do some thing outrageous sufficient that it captures the awareness of automotive lovers just about everywhere. Some of the significantly odd, nevertheless attention-grabbing, amalgamations occur when builders determine to swap a diesel motor into a additional unique sports activities auto.
Very last yr, we observed Ashley Whitsey’s 5.9L Cummins Supra occur to everyday living, but this yr, we have located something even additional exclusive.
The men at 1 Way Diesel Overall performance are acknowledged as diesel connoisseurs down in Japanese Texas. They offer you several providers to customers such as sections production, engine repair and comprehensive custom builds. A couple of of those people builds have been featured on Texas Metal’s Loud & Lifted, a Motortrend exhibit exactly where the staff checks out up-and-coming diesel customization retailers in Texas.
Ironically, the automobiles featured from 1 Way Diesel in a current episode is just about anything but “lifted.” In simple fact, you could scarcely suit a taking part in card beneath the frame of it. The auto in query is a 2004 Lamborghini Gallardo, full with a 5.9L popular rail Cummins in the rear.
The approach of putting a Cummins engine into a Lamborghini Gallardo is no modest feat and involves a excellent offer of skill and knowledge. Nonetheless, the workforce at 1 Way Diesel Functionality was up to the obstacle and spent countless several hours meticulously installing and tuning the engine to in shape the distinctive qualities of the Lamborghini.
Even a lot more outstanding is the truth that the car or truck was totally totaled when 1 Way Diesel acquired it. The jumble of mangled metal that as soon as resembled a Gallardo was on its way to staying scrapped, but just after restoring the framework, installing new overall body panels, and giving it some general servicing, the automobile was completely ready for a new motor – a Cummins diesel straight-six.
The three-month task car or truck is a store motor vehicle very first and foremost and will be taken to the drag strip from time to time. That means it was not simply just specified a conventional diesel swap – the workforce at 1 Way Diesel upgraded the connecting rods, camshaft, key studs and head studs, and included a ported cylinder head with upgraded springs. More substantial injectors and a distinctive twin-turbo setup assistance to produce the ~1,000 horsepower the motor is earning, which is much more than double the horsepower of the Gallardo’s stock 5.0L V10.
The main issue was getting out how to in good shape the engine into the Gallardo’s rear motor bay in the first area. To shoehorn the Cummins motor into the bay that was at first only manufactured for an motor five cylinders in size, the workforce had to slash about 1 foot into the original firewall and fabricate a new a person.
The stop result is a truly remarkable car that defies anticipations and pushes the limits of what you can do with an motor swap. Other than their lesser-recognised line of Lamborghini Trattori tractors, you will be tough pressed to obtain a further Lamborghini that can roll some severe coal!
Diesel of the Week is sponsored byAMSOIL. If you have an engine you’d like to spotlight in this sequence, you should email Engine Builder Editor Greg Jones at [email protected]
When we heard that Brett LaSala and his twin-turbo 5.0L Coyote-powered 2012 Mustang nicknamed Snot Rocket would be at Sick Week 2023, we were pumped about getting the chance to see the car drag and drive, and possibly get some time to speak with Brett himself.
It didn’t take long to get that opportunity as day one of Sick Week showcased the A group cars first at Orlando Speed World. Brett was among the first 20-30 cars on the track and he made his Sick Week debut and first pass a special one by setting a new PR of 6.52 at 212 mph. That ET also happened to be the fastest drag radial pass in all of drag-and-drive history.
It comes as no surprise, but this pass was what they call in drag-and-drive competition a “one and done,” meaning Brett would turn in that time slip and could now focus on heading to the next day’s track. Fortunately for us, Brett wasn’t in a hurry to leave Orlando that morning, so we got a chance to ask him about the details of Snot Rocket and the Mustang’s twin-turbo 5.0L Coyote engine built by Fast Forward Race Engines.
Brett LaSala is the shop lead at Real Street Performance in Sanford, FL, and they have an engine program through Fast Forward Race Engines located in New Port Richey, FL. Brett and engine buildr Joe Irwin have been working together on Ford Coyote stuff for four or five years.
“I’ve basically been his Guinea pig for a long time and he supports me racing,” LaSala says. “If I break something, he builds me a new one, and when we don’t break it and we’re doing great, we’re looking for the next way to improve it.”
The current engine in Brett’s car is a Predator factory block right from Ford. It has custom sleeves and Joe’s sleeving process done to the block. It has Manley pistons, MGP aluminum connecting rods, a factory Ford crankshaft and race bearings.
“The cylinder heads are production GT350 Voodoo cylinder heads,” LaSala told us. “Joe and the guys have done their port job on those. We also have Ferrea valves and matching springs for the custom COMP Cams camshafts. The lifters, followers and the timing chains are all factory for the Voodoo. We’ve got upgraded secondary chains and some guide work and stuff like that. We also have a Plazmaman intake and intercooler. The intake just keeps making power and the cylinder distribution is nice and good, so we keep pushing it.
“The engine runs on a dry sump oiling system and a factory cooling system. It’s still a wet deck block and it’s got a copper head gasket with an o-ring and receiver groove. But it’s still a full wet deck, so that’s what allows us to be able to do this drag-and-drive stuff. You can literally just take this engine out and put it in any late-model Mustang and go drive down the road. There’s nothing super race orientated or top secret in it. It’s basic in the sense of an engine making 2,500 horsepower at 9,500 rpm at 302 cubic inches.”
Helping the engine make that kind of horsepower are twin 76mm Precision turbos that sit low at the front of the car.
“We’ve got them down low for weight placement of the car and good air,” he says. “They’re Precision 76mm Next Gen R turbos. We run them at about 48-lbs. of boost at their current power level and they’re awesome. We’re just now achieving 1:1 back pressure on this turbo kit. They’ll keep making power to 60-lbs. We just don’t know when the engine is not going to hang in there anymore, so we just up it a little bit at a time. If we make it through this week and we’re doing as good as we are, then maybe we’ll turn it up. We also use Turbosmart wastegates and blowoff valves to control everything.”
According to Brett, this engine has been in the car since about October of 2022 and had less than 50 passes on it at this power level, and it’s been holding strong.
“That 6.52 at 212 mph was actually a personal best for me in this car,” he says. “In Maryland, it went 6.55 at 208 mph. The exciting part is we’re all data nerds, so we downloaded the data and the 60-foot was slower, the eighth mile was slower, but the car is running harder due to some tuning, so it’s there. If we speed the rest up, maybe it’ll go 6.40 this week?”
Brett’s Mustang also features TBM brakes, Rife sensors and MoTeC engine management. Additionally, helping the Coyote engine put power to the ground is an M&M 3-speed transmission with a lockup.
“I’ve been racing this trans for over a year now, so it hasn’t been apart,” LaSala says. “Hopefully it stays up through the week, but I’m sure it will. We also have a Ford 9” in the rear. The car also features a 25.2 roll cage, double frame rail inside.”
With a personal best ET right out of the gate, it’s no surprise that Brett and his team weren’t very worried about the drag racing during Sick Week. However, the long drives between tracks had them more concerned. In fact, it’s a tougher aspect of these competition than most would think.
“Obviously, it was a great first run setting the fastest in the class and a personal best,” he says. “But, the drag racing is easy since we do that all the time. The drag and drive five days in a row is where the challenge starts. We did Drag Week 2019 in my old car, which is more of a street car. It wasn’t nearly as race car as this is. When you’re driving, you have thermal management of all your systems. You have road conditions. You have extended periods of vibrations and things like that, so obviously on a drag car you’re building stuff to be light, so it’s not necessarily the most durable. We’ve gone through everything that we can go through with this car, and we believe it’s going to be okay, otherwise we wouldn’t have attempted it.”
Another aspect of Snot Rocket that usually catches folks off guard is the car’s weight. It looks 2,200-lbs., but Brett says it actually weighs 3,000-lbs. with him in it.
“The weight is because of the things we added for the drag-and-drive such as the big radiator, the big fuel cell in the back and a cable drive fuel pump,” he says. “It’s got weight you don’t necessarily need to have on it for racing, but it works so good we just keep rolling with it.”
The combo is working well indeed! The twin-turbo Coyote engine dyno’d at 2,509 horsepower back in December, and it showed up at Sick Week 2023 ready to prove a point. After Brett’s 6.52 in Orlando on day one, he followed it up with a 6.55 at 215 mph at Bradenton, then a 7.03 at 213 mph at South Georgia Motorsports Park, then a 6.92 at 212 mph in Gainesville, and a 6.68 at 212 mph back in Orlando on the last day. Overall, the performance earned Brett a 6.74 average at 213 mph as well as a class win in Modified, third overall for the event and ‘Quickest Ford’ honors.
Early in the week, Brett questioned whether the Coyote-powered Mustang could churn out a 6.40 or even a 6.30 pass, but it never materialized, and it never had to in order to remain competitive. Cheers to Brett’s Sick Week performance and his “sick” Coyote engine from Fast Forward Race Engines.
Engine of the Week is sponsored by PennGrade Motor Oil, Elring – Das OriginalandNPW Companies. If you have an engine you’d like to highlight in this series, please email Engine Builder Editor Greg Jones at [email protected]
Jessie Harris’ 1975 Chevy C10 has been handed down for generations. His grandfather procured it new in ’75, ahead of offering it to Jessie’s father in ’78, and then Jessie got his fingers on it in the ’90s the moment he got his license.
Practically 50 several years afterwards and that exact same C10 has long gone by way of really a couple of variations. In truth, the two-wheel-travel Chevy just lately acquired Swiftest Diesel honors at Ill 7 days 2023. The equipment was one particular of only a several diesels at the celebration and proved to be a stunner on the drag strip. It is been known to go away the line with 50-psi of enhance on faucet and pull the entrance wheels off the ground in route to 1.1-second 60-foot moments.
Just before Unwell 7 days, Harris’ truck could be noticed at Rocky Mountain Race Week and Very hot Rod Drag 7 days on many situations. He’s been racing the Cummins-run truck considering that 2015, but just before that, the truck was functioning gasoline, e85 or alcohol. Its diesel existence commenced with a 5.9L P-pumped 24v Cummins that Harris experienced taken off from his tow truck and dropped into the Chevy. Now, it offers a turbocharged 6.7L Cummins that turns heads anywhere it goes.
The engine is constructed close to a stock block and has a stock crankshaft, Carillo rods, and Arias pistons. The head was accomplished by Wagler Competitiveness Merchandise and has a Financial institutions consumption on it, and the camshaft is a Hamilton 188/220. It also has inventory rocker arms.
“For the turbo setup we went with a single turbocharger, an S484/96 with a DPS Turbonator VGT housing,” Harris suggests. “The fuel procedure is S&S Diesel Motorsports, it’s their 400{49e09b23eae7466ccc7574c19ebb3019301c9a11d2999feff81a3526451546a5} more than injectors and 14mm race pump. The rest of the gasoline system is Aeromotive.
“I bought the intercooler from True Road Effectiveness in Florida. I desired a significant core, and most people today didn’t want to speak about it, but they could do it. The front address is a Wagler device and it’s capable of driving 4 pumps, while I’m driving one gasoline pump and 1 dry-sump oil pump. Not lots of people today do dry sump on diesels, but my oil pan clearance pressured me to, and I don’t regret it.”
As Harris carries on to improve and alter his engine set up, the tune from his EFI Live also will get modified. For a prolonged time, he was generating just around 900 horsepower, but Harris believes that range was turned up to close to 1,200-hp through Sick Week.
The target for Sick Week was to get underneath 8.70 – sadly that did not come about, but Harris characteristics that to turning up the motor too quickly. The engine tune is ideal where by is requirements to be, but Harris has far more work to do on the chassis to pull every little thing collectively. The top intention will be do get the truck over the 1,500-horsepower barrier.
Diesel of the Week is sponsored byAMSOIL. If you have an motor you’d like to emphasize in this sequence, please email Engine Builder Editor Greg Jones at [email protected]
