Saw a 500hp Common Rail get smashed by a relatively stockish 7.3 today
 

On my way to the drag strip for cruise night tonight with my buddy, and as I was making a left onto the road that the strip is on, a common rail coming the other direction made a right onto it (so that we were both going the same way). He kept eye balling me while turning, and punched it once I turned and got behind him (I'm in my TDI with a huge front mount btw). I floor it and begin passing him as he's tossing bucket loads of smoke up from his dual stacks, but cars were coming the other way so I ease off and get back behind him.

I catch up to him after I park and he's waiting in the race-line, and ask what hes got done. I cant remember exactly what programmer he said he has... I *think* he said an edge juice w/ attitude (although later I talked to his buddy who seemed diesel-clueless and claims it was a bully dog), a full ats race tranny, and intake/exhaust mods. He said he's laying down 500hp+ and over 1k ft/lbs of tq. I told him good luck, and go smoke some ricers.

Well as it turns out, he pulls up next to a long-bed single cab Super Duty (mods unknown) with an SCT badge under the Super Duty emblem. I tell my buddy "poor powerstroke, he's about to get smashed by that common rail". They do their burnouts, the powerstrokes was kinda weak, very very little smoke, and the cummins did a massive burnout and was covering the whole strip in smoke.

The tree goes green and the super duty literally ran that guys nuts off all the way to the finish line. I found the SD later but couldn't find the owner... so I have NO clue of the mods.. but the turbo wasn't excessively loud, VERY little smoke, stock looking tires, and an SCT badge on the fender. My jaw was on the floor.

Just goes to show that massive-HP cummins CAN, and ARE, beat by Powerstrokes pushing less power.

sorry whats a common rail?

One of the nastiest cummins ever built. 24v common rail cummins. Its a method of injection. Extremely high fuel pressure. Amazing for making power and economy.

All 6 injectors are tied to one high pressure fuel ral, which means all 6 have 3000 psi at idle. Electronics tell the injectors when to open, instead of fuel pressure from the injection pump.

Since when does smoke equal power??? A proplerly tuned any diesel will produce little smoke at lower power levels. Sounds to me the PSD was tuned very well and the CR was just a kid thinking smoke was cool.

WRONG. Common Rail is the method of delivery of the fuel to the injectors. The firing sequence is controlled by the computer through a wiring harness attached to the valve cover. As far as the nastiest Cummins ever built that is still to be proven as the CR's are still catching up to the P7100s. As far as the extremely high pressure, that is not true, best power and reliability is generally stock levels other wise you break injectors. And EXTREMELY is a very relative term. Is 8,000 extreme or the 60,000 psi spikes extreme?

Fuel mileage is gained in tuning not in the fuel delivery system. I still see Common Rails that can't touch 12V's in fuel mileage. Too many generalizations here, and I'm glad the Ford did well as the owner deserves the win as he has done his research. Hence why EFI is going to help the CR come along way.

Smoke does not equal power...

Your right, smoke doesn't equal power. But when I say he had VERY little smoke, I mean my 1.9l tdi smoked 10x more than his truck did. If anything he had a haze (not that I was paying attention to that). But typically the highest hp producing diesels DO have a good degree of smoke, and there's no way around that. The truck wasn't anything special looking, stock lift, stock tires, stock suspension, just tinted windows and an SCT badge.

Either way you look at it, that cummins was making over 500hp (which isn't ridiculous or anything... it's well-known that crd's can do this with a tuner and some minor upgrades), and that old 7.3 whooped on him.

I dont know a ton about the cr's, so I can speak for broken injectors (w t f?).

Fuel mileage IS relevant to the fuel delivery system; higher pressure injection equals much easier to control and tune for better power and economy.


Nope your right, but show me some 500hp cummins, or even 800 diesels, that make big-power with NO smoke. It doesn't happen.

there is a powerstroke i read about in diesel power mag. He prides himself on his "No smoke" 500 hp truck. I dont know if there is anything online about it. If you get the fuel and air mixture right you can put out a lot of power with no smoke.

Sure it can be done.. takes a LOT of tuning and knowledge of that particular motor though. Was it a 7.3 though?

The amount of power means little if the nut behind the wheel doesn't know what to do....there's way more to drag racing than horsepower and torque.