Originally, this truck was Tom Colesanti's daily driver. After a while, he decided he wanted to take his '00 Dodge sled pulling, which prompted him to make a few modifications. A few soon turned into many, as Tom really started to get into the sport, ultimately leading him to go to the extreme of putting a Scheid P7100 injection pump on his truck. With this setup, he could get the huge fueling capabilities of the earlier 12-valve engine combined with the superior airflow of the 24-valve design-the best of both worlds. Although the truck still has license plates, Tom says its street days are pretty much over. "Shifting a manual transmission with the hand throttle is pretty hard," he laughs. It's clear that the truck has reached a competition-only state, which Tom is more than happy with. He is even considering eventually upgrading the truck to a Modified class puller.
Since Tom's truck is one of the few P-pumped 24-valves we have seen, we were pretty anxious to look under the hood to see how it was done. Most serious 12-valve pullers rely on a shop-built P-pump and oversize lines, so Tom didn't mind much when he purchased a set of conversion lines and a pump from Scheid Diesel. The only hard parts were the front timing cover (which had to be an earlier 12-valve version) and the throttle. Tom fixed his throttle linkage situation by converting the truck to a hand throttle.
Same truck, different exhaust. The truck keeps changing every time we see it, with the hood stack and dual rear wheels being the newest additions.
With a serious pump that was ready to make some horsepower, Tom then addressed the engine. He knew the truck was going to spin almost 5,000 rpm, so the block was studded with 14mm main studs, a Scheid billet cam, and a ported, polished, and fire-ringed Scheid head. A set of 14mm head studs keep the head gasket from blowing itself to pieces. While Scheid did all of the machine work, the engine itself was actually assembled by Tom and Craig Johnson at Big Power Diesel in Palmdale, California. Craig also supplied a custom set of injectors to help Tom produce outrageous horsepower.
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With well over 800 horsepower, Tom's 24-valve is no slouch thanks to a careful air and fuel combination that works to provide maximum power. | 
One of the few P-pumped 24-valves we have ever seen, Tom relies on a pump built by Scheid Diesel to get him down the track. While he wouldn't reveal any of the pump specs, he did admit it puts out "a lot" of fuel thanks to Brad Ingram at Scheid. |