Diesel of the Week is presented by
If you’ve been reading Engine Builder content for a while or have any attachment to diesel drag racing or truck pulling, you’ve heard of the Dirty Hooker Diesel (DHD) team. The name inevitably draws attention for its play on words, but the Harbor Beach, Michigan-based shop and its team is known for much more, particularly their expertise in Duramax diesel engine building.
Take for example Last Minute Hooker, the shop’s flagship build often seen at events like the Ultimate Callout Challenge, which we featured in our Diesel of the Week series back in 2022. The 460 cubic inch billet aluminum Duramax is a beast that puts out just under 2,500 horsepower.
Owner Tony Burkhard, along with his son Tyler and the rest of the team, are constantly upping the ante with their builds and offerings at the shop. DHD is a full-service diesel facility that can handle just about any task from stock to modified and big or small, although they primarily specialize in the Duramax platform.
The shop, as mentioned, is home to the nationally known Dirty Hooker Diesel Duramax Sled Pulling team that has been a TTPA point champion for nine years. They source, manufacture, and sell over 500 DHD-branded products that offer functionality, durability and value.
We recently got in contact with Evan Berry, an employee at DHD, to talk about his own truck and the compound turbo LML Duramax engine inside it. After taking an auto mechanics class in high school and going to college for welding, Berry joined the DHD team in 2019 as a mechanic. At that time, the engine program at the shop was still in its early stages, where Tony would build engines mostly by himself here and there late into the night. Berry eventually became a technician and helped start the engine program that become a staple of the business.
“We’ve actually kind of outgrown our current facility and are working on a new one,” Evan Berry says. “Hopefully in the next year or so we’ll be transitioning over to that one. We want to split it up so the online and warehouse will be in one building, welding and fabrication in another building, and then engine and transmission in another one – all on the same property.”
While DHD continues to grow, Berry has been working on his own Duramax engine project, and after many years of hard work and transformation, it’s finally nearing completion.
“I started from the ground up with it,” Berry tells us. “I knew I needed an LML block and then obviously went with SoCal billet mains and girdle. I went through and sleeved the block and filled it with concrete to essentially make a bulletproof block without going fully to billet aluminum.”
A Winberg billet crank paired with R&R aluminum rods and big bore Diamond pistons forms the engine’s stout rotating assembly. Berry also sleeved the cylinders to add some extra strength and durability in the block. It eventually evolved to have solid ductile iron heads and a nice Manton valvetrain with a Wehrli CP3 front cover.
The engine also features SoCal bridges and valve covers, Manton pushrods and rocker shafts, DHD rocker shaft stands, and a Romeo Fab HSP intake.
“A lot of people run the Wagler Street Fighter intakes, but I’ve run them in the past and it tends to direct flow to two of the cylinders more than the other six,” Berry points out. “I wanted more volume with equalized flow and the Romeo Fab intakes have always worked for me.”
For fueling, Berry runs an Exergy fuel system with 400% over injectors and two reverse rotation 14mm pumps. As for air, the engine boasts a single turbo with a 3.0” inducer bore to fit into the corresponding diesel pulling class, but Berry intends to eventually move up to a 3.6”.
Once he makes the change, Berry expects the engine to be putting out somewhere around the realm of 2,000 horsepower. While it lacks the “official” name/title, this is another truck that will do the Dirty Hooker name proud.
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].
