Dan Scheid Interview - Diesel Mastermind
Laughs generally come easy for dan scheid. That's what Dale Smith will tell you. Owner of one of the country's fastest diesel trucks, Smith values his friendship with Dan Scheid-owner of Scheid Diesel Service, one of the nation's preeminent builders of competitive diesel engines-in part because of those easy laughs.
Of course, there's also the fact that Scheid's engines make Smith's trucks go fast. Very fast. And there's his generosity. And the loyalty. there's also Scheid's reputation, which has grown dramatically during the last half decade with the simultaneous ascension of diesel competition and his engines' success.
But there are those laughs, too.
Smith describes his friend Dan as laid back, quick with a joke, and easygoing, with one exception: "When it comes to his products, this guy takes offense," Smith recalled recently. "He's going to see that he's got the best product. If something breaks, he takes it personally. It bothers him. He doesn't find anything funny if he has a part fail. It doesn't matter how minor it is."
THE MAN BEHIND THE NAME </br> the story of Scheid Diesel is very much the story of Dan Scheid, who is not only the owner of Scheid Diesel, but the man who may be as responsible as any engine-builder for the recent rapid ascension of diesel engines and competition.
Since the early 1970s, Dan Scheid has overseen the development of Scheid Diesel from an idea and a dream to a three-shop operation that serves as a starting point for many of the nation's fastest and most powerful diesel-powered sled pullers and drag racers. As wary of self-praise as he is serious about diesel innovation, Scheid offers little in the way of broad-brush quotes describing the reasons for his success.
"I'm rather humble, for the most part, and don't like to be blowing my own horn too much," 55-year-old Scheid said recently. "I've been knocked down too many times to toot my own horn too much. the reality checks come back to haunt you too many times."
Those who work with Dan Scheid and run his engines are less reserved "Without Scheid involved, you're probably five years behind times," said Jimmy Smith, who runs a Scheid engine in his diesel drag truck in the Diesel Hot Rod Association.




LONG BEFORE THE CUMMINS-POWERED DODGE RAM
The year was 1970. Scheid, a recent high school graduate, started out at what he called a "small shop" in Evansville, Indiana, with a company that was doing high-performance work in tractor-pulling with water-injection and fuel-injection systems.
Scheid worked in Evansville until his father's death in 1977. He took care of his father's farm in Plainville, Indiana, for two years until 1979 when he opened the first Scheid Diesel Injection Service in his hometown of Plainville.
"We just opened it up in an old farmhouse we had," Scheid said. " wasn't even a thought in my mind at that time. they didn't even have the diesel pickup trucks to the extent they do now. Obviously, the General Motors 5.7Ls were out there at that particular time-the Oldsmobile engine, but that didn't amount to anything to go to this extent, anyway."
AGRICULTURE BACKGROUND
For a few years, Scheid operated out of the farmhouse in Plainville, but he needed and wanted to grow, which meant moving. So, in 1982, he did. "In order to become factory-authorized, I had to change locations because they weren't going to factory-authorize me there in that area," he said. "the shop here in terre Haute, Indiana, became available in 1982. In May of '82, we Scheid Diesel Service out here.
"Even at that stage of the game, we were doing agriculture work, mainly. the bulk of the business was ag work and tractor-pulling work."
Those years, while not about competition, were far from lost. Years spent learning and honing the intricacies and basics of sled-pulling engines were critical to Scheid's success.
SCHEID DIESEL AND THE CUMMINS DODGE
The passion grew, and when, in the late 1980s, the diesel world changed forever, Scheid began to change with it. In 1989, Dodge introduced its first diesel-powered pickup trucks, creating new markets, new possibilities for high-powered competition, and certainly, a new focus for Scheid.
During this time, Scheid Diesel continued to grow. In 1990, Scheid opened a second shop, in Effingham, Illinois, and a few years after that, around 1993, he saw the possibilities for diesel innovation beginning to develop.
"We'd been doing tractor-pulling work for the most part until that time," he said. "the pickup trucks started coming, and we went ahead and started applying that to pickup trucks. It fell into place pretty smoothly."
According to McBride, "When it came to diesel pickups, he looked at the engine and said, 'Wow, we can probably do what we've been doing.' What basically happened is he was able to apply a lot of the same technology they'd been using in pulling and tractor engines in the Cummins engine. He was very driven to be the best. He went out there, broke a lot of motors, spent a lot of money, and learned."
SCHEID DIESEL EXTRAVAGANZA In 1997, Scheid staged the first Scheid Diesel Extravaganza in Effingham as part of another event going on in town. At the time, it was a small truck pull, an exhibition for the most part.
"Guys could bring their trucks and pull them," Scheid explained. "It didn't have it as far as competition was concerned at that stage of the game."
In 2000, the extravaganza outgrew Effingham. That was the year Scheid moved the event to its current location in terre Haute.
This year, the extravaganza drew 12,000- 15,000 people. "We are extremely proud of that, but one thing I have to add to that as well is that, without our employees and the interest of our employees in pulling off the show, it definitely wouldn't be where it's at today," Scheid admits. "We have a lot of employees who are very interested in the business and who work very hard to make that show happen."
Now, the DHRA is in its fifth official year, with payouts in a national roster of sledpulling and drag racing events. this season, for the first time, the DHRA expanded to include West Coast competition. Teams come from around the nation to compete. But a lot of the teams-particularly a lot of the fastest and most powerful Dodge Cummins trucks-have a particularly, critical element in common. they are powered, in a very real sense, by Scheid.
"Whether it's their truck or a customer's truck, every year they're at the top of their field," Jimmy Smith said. "I don't see anybody coming in and taking over. they've kind of taken the market over. you've got a lot of guys who don't have the money to build a whole motor, but if they do, it's just known that, bar none, Scheid builds the top diesel motor. they just know. It's kind of fact."
Scheid's first major move into competition came with his son-in-law, kent Crowder. Scheid's roots were in tractor-pulling, and when Crowder moved into sled-pulling his pickup truck, Scheid said that the corollaries were obvious.
"We wanted to see if we couldn't go ahead and take it to the limit," Scheid said. "We set up a truck specifically for truck-pulling. It's grown quite rapidly over the past few years." the growth, Scheid said, came for the same reason he moved from Plainville to terre Haute in 1982. His customers demanded it, and in the years since, those customers have developed into the top names in diesel sled-pulling.
According to Scheid's estimates, about 35 percent of Scheid Diesel's business is diesel competition and innovation.
"It defiitely is the most fun part," Scheid said. "It creates the enthusiasm within the business. It's the most challenging part to make you want to get up and go to work in the morning and have some enthusiasm. the demand was the main thing, I guess-something interesting for the employees to do, as well. I have a lot of enthusiasm for this type of work. I love doing the high-performance side of it. We have a lot of employees who have the same feelings."
HIGH-PERFORMANCE PARTS
"We worked on diesel injection pumps to begin with. that evolved into getting more into the high-performance fuel-injection systems, turbos and water injections. from that point, it evolved into actually working on the engines themselves, setting up the engines and settingup the complete units and setting up the trucks.
"I guess it all goes hand in hand, for the most part." In time, Scheid did more than develop engines for drivers. He developed them to the point where even drivers who weren't driving Scheid trucks were driving Scheid motors.
"Everybody's trying to play catch-up now, but some of your other motor builders in the united States-they still buy parts from Scheid, because they built some of the best parts and systems: water injection systems, fuel pumps, different things," Smith said. "A motor builder might say, 'this is my motor,' but the internal parts might be Scheid.
"We've got basically all aspects of the engine where we know how the engine's been built, how the fuel system has been built, what turbos we have to work with and what we need to do to cool the motor off," Scheid said. "We have an engine dyno where we can put the engines on the dyno, and actually run them, set them up and dial them in and make sure everything's correct on the engine as far as where it's going to run rpm-wise, boost pressure-wise, horsepower-wise. And make sure we have the motor sealed up well and that we have good oil pressure.
"When we pull the engine off the dyno, we can pretty much be assured it's going to be capable of going down the track."
Scheid's Web site, www.scheid diesel.com, lists no fewer than 16 Scheid-powered vehicles competing at a national level- two owned by Scheid and 14 driven by drivers from states including North Carolina, Illinois, and Kentucky.
One reason for the extensive roster is the power of the engines, but there's another, subtler reason, Dale Smith said: the relationship with Scheid only starts when the engine is installed.
SCHEID'S PERSONAL TOUCH
"What amazed me about Dan is, if he knew we were running on a Saturday night, if I didn't call him when we were running, he would call me," Smith said. "He always wants to know, 'What's going on? What can we do to make something better? What do you think? What did the truck do? What did the engine do?' Dan takes the products he builds-his pumps, injectors, and his turbos-personally. Failure really bothers the guy.
"Who would stand behind a drag-racing or pulling engine? there's no warranty. I lost an engine and in a couple of weeks, Dan called me and said, 'I want to build you another engine.' I said, 'Dan, I can't afford another engine.' He said, 'you're not listening to me. I want to build you another engine. you buy the engine block. I'll let you have it at cost. We're going to change this all around at no cost to you.'
"They're constantly changing their product. I'll call him up and say, Dan, 'I'm thinking about this intake.' He'll say, 'yep, we're into that. We're going to do it a little bit different.' you never get above him. this guy is a demanding person. You can see it from his employees, but his employees think the world of him. He wants the best out there and he's going to see he has the best."
DIESEL DRAG RACING
Scheid's diesel success has hardly been limited to sled-pulling. Around the time that Scheid and Crowder began having success, Scheid started building a diesel dragster. It's now the fastest diesel in the nation in the 1/4-mile, having turned it ina 7.31 seconds at 189 mph. At the same time Scheid was building the diesel dragster, he began working with the Smiths. It's now billed as the fastest four-wheel-drive diesel truck in the nation.
"At the time, drag racing wasn't that big, but they built what was considered the best motor, the highest-horsepower motor for diesel," Smith said. "We just decided to take a truck-pulling motor and stick it in a drag racer. Everybody kind of thought, 'that's a truck-pulling motor,' but you adjust your fuels and your turbos and stuff like that, and you can make that motor work for anything. Bar none, they just build the highesthorsepower motors. that was the reason we went with them.
"It's not the exact same setup. But Dan has proven he can put together a drag racing program and have it be a fairly reliable engine."
Scheid explained, "In reality, there's not a whole lot of difference in what we're trying MasterMind to achieve. It's just we're doing it on the pulling track or doing it on the asphalt. It's just a matter of applying the horsepower to the surface we're trying to work with. It is two different beasts, but in a lot of ways, you're trying to achieve the same thing. In the truck-pulling, you're trying to get the furthest down the 300-foot track and the quickest as well. In reality, the faster you get down there, the further you're going to go. It's about the same aspect in the drag-racing side of it as well."
WHERE WOULD DIESEL COMPETITION BE WITHOUT SCHEID?
"It has just totally changed," Scheid said. "It's a totally new concept from what it was originally. It has grown by leaps and bounds. Everything's gotten a lot more professional as far as the pickup trucks and how they're being built, and the competition from what it was years ago. there is an extreme amount of competition out there now. Everybody is taking it very seriously and having a good time with it."
What keeps Scheid motivated, he said, "is the challenge of it as much as anything else. you're always working against the weakest line in the unit. If you're going to build more horsepower, something else is going to give up on you, whether it be rearend, whether it be tires, whether it be frame, or whatever. It's always in a growing mode, I guess, to where you're never going to reach your limit.
"There's always going to be someone else out there who's going to be a little better, so you're always going to have a goal to shoot for."
Having that goal, Scheid said, is what he expects will drive diesel competition to new, now-unimaginable heights in the coming years.
It is, he said, an industry in its infancy, and if Scheid has been critical in its development until now, he sees no incentive to slow down. not yet. And not any time soon.
And that's something he takes seriously. Very seriously.
7 QUESTIONS FOR DAN SCHEID
Q.What was the first diesel you worked on?
A. In 1965, we rented a John Deere diesel for the farm that started with a pony motor.
Q. What do you drive everyday?
A. An '03 Dodge with a 5.9L Cummins, and my wife Vicki drives an '06 VW Beetle with a diesel.
Q. What diesel accomplishment are you most proud of?
A. the success we have had with the pulling trucks, and we are very excited moving forward in drag racing.
Q. Could common-rail injection ever compete with mechanical injection for all-out performance?
A. yes, it should be able to.
Q. What's your opinion of nitrous oxide injection?
A. It's an addiction that needs to go away.
Q. If there's one thing you could change about the 5.9L Cummins design, what would it be?
A. Increase the airflow through the cylinder head.

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I saw that in the Mag. Interesting article.