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It’s no doubt that sled-pulling requires a fairly powerful engine under the hood of any competition truck – propelling a ~55,000-lb. weight transfer sled across a dirt-packed track is no easy task. For that reason, competitors take a lot of time fine-tuning their truck and engine setups to produce the most effective and efficient combination.
The 6.7L Cummins is a mainstay in the diesel pulling world, most of all for its reliability and ease for making power. Many guys at the top of the totem pole boast a Cummins, albeit with different configurations of components, bolt-ons, and machine work. Chris Patterson was one of the guys we spoke with last year at UCC – his triple-turbo 6.7L Cummins engine really impressed us.
Recently, Michael Brown reached out to us about a similar build, which was also spec’d out by Chris at Unrivaled Diesel. “Chris and I assembled it together and he was a big help in this build,” Michael Brown says.
Located in Dixon, TN, just 40 miles west of Nashville, Brown is a mechanic for the United States Postal Service and works on semi-trucks. Outside of his day job, he works on Cummins trucks out of his small home-shop. For the past five years or so, he’s been involved in diesel competition, both competing himself and building competition engines for customers.
Last year was his first time competing at King of the Street, and this year he’s hoping to up the ante at the event and other competitions with this new build. The 6.7L currently sits underneath the hood of an ’07 5.9L truck, which he uses for pulling, but can still be street driven too.
“It’s a Hamilton Competition 6.7L block that still has coolant through it, the pistons are bored .020″ over, it has D&J standard billet rods and tool steel wrist pins, a Beans Machine 14mm girdle, and a Hamilton camshaft, tappets, rockers, and pushrods,” Brown says.”
The engine also features a D&J Stage 3 cylinder head, with a D&J Stage 3 billet intake manifold, oversized super alloy intake and exhaust valves, thread-in soft plugs in the head, titanium valve spring retainers, and heavy-duty extra-large intake seats. This Cummins performance cylinder head gets the intake flow up to 300 cfm (stock is 165).
On the fuel side, the engine has two Exergy 14mm CP3 pumps and Flux Performance 400% competition hybrid injectors. There’s also two AirDog 5G lift pumps.
Air is supplied to the engine via a compound turbo system, comprised of a 498 atmosphere and a 76mm manifold, both from Tater Built. Both are ball-bearing units, with a single wastegate to hot pipe.
“We run a bit of nitrous on it too,” he says. “It’s got a Nitrous Express Maximizer 5 with three little solenoids, and one larger.”
The current setup hasn’t been dyno’d since last year, but at that time, Brown’s Cummins made 1,510 horsepower. It only had one fuel pump at the time, and Brown plans on installing larger turbos in the near future which will definitely up the power even more.
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].
