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A few weeks ago, we featured a diesel build from Chase Wells of 1 Way Diesel Performance. Chase owns and operates the Texas shop, which pumps out cool diesel builds all the time, many of which are featured on the MotorTrend show Texas Metal’s Loud and Lifted. Wells’ 47’ Ford build with a 5.9L Cummins under the hood is definitely a sight to see, but it’s more of a show truck than a performer.
That doesn’t mean Wells can’t put together a performance-based build capable of some serious power. Before he started building vehicles for his MotorTrend show, he already had a number of really sweet truck builds under his belt.
One of his most impressive builds was one he started around the time he first opened his business back in 2010, a 2nd Gen truck that’s been through a ton of changes over the past decade.
“It started as a VP44 truck that was modifying with turbos and injectors around that time,” Wells says. “Back then in East Texas, there weren’t a lot of guys experimenting and trying to get diesels to go fast. I had been to tuning school and learned a lot through simple trial and error, so it started to kind of snowball.”
Wells was making about 750 horsepower then, which was impressive at the time, but that number continually moved higher as the years went by. A few years later, he went for a P-pump engine, then common rail swapped it a few times. By 2017, he was making about 1,500 horsepower with a common rail setup with Apex Diesel rods and big compound turbos.
Looking to go even higher in horsepower, Wells opted to build a sleeved 6.8L Hamilton competition wet block that puts out nearly 2,800 horsepower. That’s what’s in his truck today, and it’s impressive all the way around.
“This one’s got D&J pushrods, an Apex girdle, Hamilton’s billet steel pistons and camshaft, billet tappets, a ported cylinder head, 2mm oversized valves, and 9/16ths head studs,” Wells tells us. “We play with a lot of things on it as far as cam timing and getting it to spool right.”
For air, Wells runs a single 98mm Garrett GT55 turbocharger. The fuel system is made up of a 14mm injection pump and S&S 500% over injectors. Wells also runs a considerable amount of nitrous courtesy of Nitrous Outlet.
“We’ve got five kits – two are intercoolers, two are directly injected in the manifold for spooling, and one for post and pre-intercooler,” he says. “We pulse modulate it the whole time its on the track or the dyno depending on which setup we’re doing, and that justifies how much we’re spraying.”
As you can tell, this 6.8L Cummins build means serious business, and we can’t wait to see it go down the track or on the dyno sometime soon.
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].
