So, you see all these little ricers running the street zipping in and out of traffic. Usually they have their oversized wing on the back and at a bare minimum a set of those LED windshield wiper nozzles and the big "Type R" sticker plastered down the side. These cars are phenomenal because they are cheap to buy and easy to add an additional 150 horse power with some easy bolt on upgrades but face it, even if you add 150 ponies to these engines, your still only sitting at around 265 hp and that's at the flywheel. No for serious power and serious torque you have to have a serious platform to start out with.

After recently attending the diesel racing at Houston's, Baytown race track I was left with a feeling of awe, not knowing exactly what it was I had just witnessed. With the whine of their turbos spinning up and plume of dark smoke, these everyday haulers (some of who pulled their own race trailers) wound up and launched off the line like they were being slung by a catapult. Several of these massive trucks, all of them diesel, were running 11 and 12 second quarter mile times which, last time I checked, was a damn good run for most any street worthy car, let alone a heavy diesel! One truck in particular, Mad Dog's Navy F-350 pulled into the staging lane. This late model F-350 pulled up the line running 35" drag slicks on all 4 wheels. The Christmas tree lit yellow and this behemoth belched smoke from it's 8 inch exhaust. The whine became louder and louder as it spun up both (yes both) of it's turbos. The lights turned green and Mad Dog's cummins powered ford launched itself out of the cover of it's own dark cloud running a 11.43 in the quarter. The crowd which had been eerily silent burst into cheers as this monster crossed the finish line seconds ahead of it's competitor. Impressive to say the least.

The growing rage for tons of diesel enthusiast is to see just how much power those PowerStroke, Cummins and Duramax motors are capable of without doing any real major mechanical overhauls. The numbers themselves are astounding! From simple tuning and a couple bolt on mods, mainly exhaust and intake their are diesels engines making upwards of 500 hp and 800 lb-ft torque. Items as simple as a computer mod are easily capable of adding 100 hp and 100 lb-ft torque and that's before adding propane and NOS, bigger injectors and all manor of other bolt items. To me it's just amazing and I can't wait to see a Mitsubishi Eclipse or Honda Civic make those kind of numbers with simple bolt-ons such as exhaust, intake and a chip. I guess it wouldn't be too hard, they could just add a trailer behind Mad Dog!

TS Performance is a good place for all your Diesel power upgrades, Plus they have a hot chick posing with their parts and that's always good!:

For all your diesel information needs, check out the TheDieselStop.com!