But when all was said and done, Cannon claimed the crown for King of the Hill at Diesels on the Mountain. At least for this year. DP
 Early on, it looked like Mike...  Early on, it looked like Mike Skinner's common-rail Cummins Dodge might best Clint Cannon like it did last year. |  But Cannon kept his throttle...  But Cannon kept his throttle foot down and beat Skinner by one foot. |  Not to be outdone by the sled...  Not to be outdone by the sled pull, the dragsters smoked the quarter-mile track at Bandimere Speedway. |
 Scheid's rail was in attendance...  Scheid's rail was in attendance and ran a blistering 7.36-second quarter-mile at 189.90 mph. |  The DirtyMax truck, built...  The DirtyMax truck, built by G&J Diesel out of Billings, Montana, uses a 6.6L Duramax and sizzled in the mid-9s, but the altitude prevented it from making any record passes. |  The Lucas Oil Kenworth drag...  The Lucas Oil Kenworth drag truck ran into a few snafus, but sorted them out for some smokin' runs. |
Cannon's Weapons-Grade Duramax
Unlike last year's Boogie Max truck, this time Clint Cannon took it to the street-literally. Initially his '06 Chevy 3500 was just for running around town. Powered by an LBZ Duramax, it was intended to become a test bed for prototyping performance parts. But after breathing heavy on the engine, he decided to turn it into a sled puller. And his track record proves that, having won five of the last seven events that he's entered, and taking a close Second in the remaining two. The beauty of this rig is it has basically been built with off-the-shelf parts, so a diesel enthusiast could duplicate it with a cell phone and a credit card.
The list of mods is extensive, starting with the engine: SoCal Diesel heads, titanium valvetrain, head studs, billet connecting rods, low compression pistons, and an ATS Aurora 5000 turbo. The latter is good for 56 pounds of boost-nearly twice that of the stock turbo-and the EDM injectors are correspondingly larger. A pair of CP3 injection pumps keeps up with fuel demand as well. An ATS intercooler keeps the air charge temps down.
All told, in the mile-high city of Denver, the output is 751 hp and 1,340 lb-ft, but Cannon says an identical setup at sea level is good for at least 100 more horses and 250 more pounds of torque. And he reports the truck gets 17.7 mpg to boot!
In the driveline, Cannon added an ATS Extreme Allison 1000 with his ATS Co-Pilot and Five Star torque converter. As for the suspension, the independent front suspension was beefed up to prevent toe-in, and the rearend was reinforced as well.
Cannon points out that the most important aspect of the buildup was to cryogenically treat as many components as possible, from the engine internals to the frontend. "It makes a huge difference, reducing breakage from fatigue by 80 percent," says Cannon.