Diesel of the Week is presented by
Wade Moody and his diesel shop, NGM Diesel Race Engines, is well-known for diesel innovation and has 12 championships in diesel drag racing and plenty more customer wins to back it up. Long before Wade and NGM got to where they are now, the shop started as a drive-in service shop in 2004.
It wasn’t until 2006 that Wade transitioned the shop into an engine shop with a focus on Cummins and Duramax diesel engines and other V8 variants. The NGM Diesel Race Engines name came in 2010, and today the Duramax platform is the shop’s specialty.
“We have three satellite shops – one is all machining, one is all assembly and blueprinting, and one is fabrication, welding and crank balancing,” Moody says. “NGM has seven employees on the engine side and five employees on the racing side.”
The Duramax engine that has been getting NGM a lot of attention is the shop’s Race Billet 408 Duramax built for use in drag racing, sled pulling and dyno competitions.
“This engine was innovated and engineered with many of our past and present Duramax market firsts that have been adopted by nearly everyone in the industry since we proved it would work,” Moody says. “We have specially designed aluminum blocks, heads, cams, oil systems and internal components, all of which are designed and engineered by us. We make the best use of our capabilities, but when our time or equipment is limited, we will outsource our ideas to manufacturing companies.”
The Race Billet 408 Duramax features an aluminum block with sleeves, an internally balanced crank, aluminum rods, aluminum pistons with a specially designed bowl, bushed lifters, custom billet camshafts, custom valvetrain components, custom sized head studs, main studs and fasteners, and a dry sump oiling system.
With all of this custom work, Moody says there have been challenges and road blocks to building an engine such as this.
“Absolutely there have been road blocks with this build,” he says. “That’s par for the course in anything that’s innovative, and outsourcing accounts for most of that, due to unforeseen things. A computer model only shows the parts, not necessarily the entire purpose of the parts, so it’s easy to make mistakes, but we try our best to work with reputable companies and common sense goes a long way.”
With more than 3,000 horsepower and similar torque on tap, this Race Billet 408 Duramax has proven it makes big power.
“It’s proven to make that power all year with zero failures and is more consistent than the competition as well,” Moody says. “We have won in every class against the very best and hold multiple speed and ET records.”
Diesel of the Week is sponsored by AMSOIL.
If you have an engine you would like to highlight in this series, please email Engine Builder magazine’s Editor, Greg Jones at [email protected]
