Bragging rights and bench racing don't always go hand in hand. At the end of the day, it's either the time on the strip or the numbers on the dyno that determine who's the big dog on the block. In the case of Matt Adams, head mechanic for North American Diesel Power (NADP), he let the dyno do the talking. When the black smoke cleared after numerous pulls on all types of trucks at NADP's dyno day last summer, his nitrous-fed, twin-turbo '98 Ram 2500 was the king of the hill. It cranked out a whole herd of stampeding stallions, pumping furiously to 810 hp and 1,763 lb-ft of torque
You don't need a dyno sheet, though, to appreciate the superlative power of this purple people-eater. Just sitting in the cabin at idle, you can feel the dual-puffer Cummins trying to rock itself off the engine mounts. The whole cabin shakes with promises of pure speed. And it surely delivers, with track times in the low 11s at up to 121 mph. Not only that, Matt also has a pair of shiny sled-pulling trophies on his mantle.
Daily Driver
Whoever said that absolute power corrupts must have had this truck in mind. It's one unstoppable locomotive full of raw energy, and it's a force of nature to be reckoned with. Even more amazing, this roiling rig is a daily driver. It has more than 200,000 miles on the original stock short-block and is gaining more than 3,000 miles per month on the odometer. Of course, driving to work in snowy Edmonton, Alberta, requires cutting back on the power a bit. "It's detuned to 550-600 hp in winter," Matt says. "I slide back the cam plate on the injection pump, and the valet switch shuts off air supply to the injection pump."
Twin-Turbo Buildup
Just how did Matt create such a docile yet monstrous machine? As NADP's chief mechanic, it only made sense that he designed the custom turbo setup himself. "It started with PDR twins, using the HX40 and HT3B turbos," he said. "Then I made my own Silver Bullet/Big Brother setup that runs 85-90 psi boost. Industrial Injection supplied these turbos for me as well as the injection pump and injectors." On the street he downsizes to 150hp injectors, but for track and dyno duty, he runs 250-300hp injectors.