Diesel of the Week is presented by
We’ve always been impressed by guys who seemingly get everything right on their first ever performance engine build. The practice of building an engine for high-performance applications like drag racing takes time to perfect, and usually that is a result of many years of experience, rebuilds and simple trial and error. But again, we continue to find guys who build more than admirable engines on their first attempt.
TJ Frey has been upgrading his first personal race truck for a few years now, and finally got it out to the Ultimate Callout Challenge to show off his work and hit the track. In that time, he developed a passion for tuning and started his own small business, 1BADVP44 Performance LLC, where he provides tuning services and products like fuel accessories and power packages.
The five-speed 2nd Gen 24v 5.9L Cummins truck he showed as at UCC, started out as a simple commuter vehicle around six years ago, but after putting a Quadzilla Adrenaline Tuner on it, he was quickly bitten by the power bug.
“The first time I ever dyno’d it, I think it made 350 horsepower and 881 ft.-lbs. of torque,” Frey says. “I thought it was pretty awesome at the time and now we’re making 1,000 hp.”
A big portion of the that power came from the Scheid Diesel high-output Stage 2 VP44 injection pump, which makes somewhere around 200 horsepower more than the standard VP44. Paired with Frey’s injection setup, fuel delivery is a well-refined process.
Frey installed eight-hole Infinite Performance injectors with an impinged nozzle, making for two different-sized orifices and spray angles. Four of the holes are .020 wide and the other four are .009, making for spray angles of 60 and 53 degrees, respectively.
On the air side, Frey’s Cummins engine touts a 64/73mm BorgWarner and an S480 80/96/115 on the atmosphere with an Infinite Performance compressor wheel. All the piping fabrication work was done in-house.
Currently, the engine is sitting at around 930 horsepower without nitrous. With nitrous, it makes 1,023 horsepower! At UCC, Frey saw a personal best time of 6.65 at 107 mph in the eighth mile. In the quarter mile, the truck’s seen a 10.59 at 128 mph for its personal best. TJ is hoping for a run in the 9s in the near future.
Diesel of the Week is sponsored by AMSOIL. If you have an engine you’d like to highlight in this series, please email Engine Builder Editor Greg Jones at [email protected].
