We got 860 hp and 1,655 lb-ft...
We got 860 hp and 1,655 lb-ft of torque out of a single-turbo 5.9L Cummins on nitrous. Then we used it to knock out dozens of musclecars with a 6,300-pound truck. No need to thank us, you would have done the same.
Cummins did it to Ferrari at the Indy 500. Audi did it to the world at the 24-Hours of Le Mans. Diesel Power did it to Hot Rod magazine readers at Drag Week. Man, torturing gas-powered race vehicles is fun with a diesel! Especially when you take on gasoline guys in an arena where they feel invincible.
When Hot Rod announced that it was going to hold a five-day drag race/road trip across the Midwest, where drivers could race whatever they wanted to bring (as long as they could drive it 1,500 miles on the street), we knew a diesel could win there. Truth be told, this race was the whole reason we built Project X Diesel (December '06) in the first place.
With zero test miles on the truck, we drove it from Texas to Illinois for the start of the race last September. Over the course of five days, we knocked down dozens of musclecars one quarter-mile at a time and passed up even more of them on the open road with our A/C blowing and our GPS guiding us along the way. Lest anyone think otherwise, diesels are the endurance race engines of the 21st Century!
 If you don't read Hot Rod...  If you don't read Hot Rod magazine, we'll fill you in on the details. Basically, we entered our '03 Dodge Ram Project X Diesel in a drag race put on by Hot Rod called Drag Week. The rules were simple, anybody could bring any kind of car or truck they wanted. The catch was that you had to race whatever you drove on the 300-400-mile route between each racetrack. No support vehicles were allowed, and if you wanted to bring a trailer, your race car (or race truck) had to tow it. Technically, every vehicle had to be street legal, but there were a few there that we wouldn't have driven past a police station. |  Since this was the second...  Since this was the second year for Drag Week, the level of competition was already insane. Competitors filled six classes with a wide array of vehicles that ranged from pickup trucks to Pro Stock cars with license plates. |  Since we were sorta crashing...  Since we were sorta crashing the party, we weren't going to show up unprepared. We entered Project X (with 200,000 miles on the odometer) in the Eaton Daily Driver 12.0 class and signed up Greg Hogue, driver of the world's quickest diesel pickup, to pilot our diesel-powered giant slayer. |