All right guys, Chris emke here with diesel performance, podcast and I’m here, joined with Nick yeah buddy and we’re in a fourth gen Dodge. So we wanted to do an episode and we wanted to talk about a question. A lot of guys bring up to us over at the shop and that’s Towing. What’S good temperatures, what are bad temperatures? What’S you know proper boost pressure.
Uh, you know, Drive pressures is a question that we get asked a lot of and everything in between. So we’re in a pretty cool truck, it’s hopped up. It’S got some upgrades and uh. You know it’s probably some of those upgrades. I would consider to be like multi-facet right, see it’s a towing, Beast man.
You got a built. 68 yep. You got a stealth. 64. 351 ve and a 10 millimeter stroker pump, and I mean this – could be used in having fun on the weekends daily driver make some good Dyno numbers um, but the versatility of these trucks, with some weight behind us is, is pretty impressive.
This thing is really wowing me I’ll. Tell you that the wild face don’t bring this one out very often so what kind of trailer? What do we have behind us all right? So we got a dual tandem behind us. 37-Foot gooseneck trailer empty is about 7 500 pounds.
I got an 11 500 pound machine on it, so so what is that pretty? Freaking heavy 18. 19. 18. 19.000.
Um and then you got the truck at 8 000 pounds so yeah I mean we’re fully grossed out 26 somewhere around there, probably in a three-quarter ton truck. It’S got the four link. It’S got some airbags in the back Factory from RAM for some assists and um one of the things that you know: let’s, let’s just talk stock trucks right now; okay, I’m a novice entry level, diesel guy, I just bought a truck, I’m buying a camper, maybe the Camper weighs something similar to what we have back here: big ass camper and guys start talking about what are my egts. What are egts that I should be looking at when are they important and when are they not important?
When does that become a factor? Okay, so egts are going to be a factor under heavy load. That’S the time when you’re working the turbocharger the most that’s the time when you should be watching egts, that’s the time when the exhaust gas temps are heating up your oil and all that stuff comes together right. So when I’m watching egts I’m expecting, I don’t even pay attention if they’re under 900 Degrees, let the truck do whatever it wants to heat the cat up. If it’s doing whatever process it’s doing under 900 Degrees, I don’t really care once it starts cresting over 900 Degrees, I’m like okay, the truck is working we’re starting to get some use out of this turbocharger you’re, going to see the Boost start to come in around 10, 50.
1100. The turbo should be singing, so we are working the turbocharger, everything’s, happy and everything’s happy up to 1250 1300 degrees, probably after we start to Crest 1300, 1350 you’re, starting to put a lot of heat into the oil. So remember, you know: you got oil cooling. The engine down you got oil going through the Turbo Charge with turbocharger is getting hot at 13.50.
Can the truck run there for a while sure? No problem? Can it run there sustain for a half hour straight? I mean it wouldn’t be my first choice, but you know to each their own well, once those temperatures start to creep up like they have the potential to go up even further right, so you want to be cautious of that. Well, we know 1350 is not the ceiling right of course, once you start to get in that 1400 1450, that is intermittent Zone.
Anything over that is okay only for intermittent times hotter the shorter, and it takes one little grade trying to gain speed. It takes one little thing for that 13 1400 to shoot up right, usually and usually there’s going to be a correlation there, at least when I’m generally driving. I might not necessarily pay attention too much to egts depending on the truck, but on the newer stuff. I pay attention to oil temp and coolant temp and there’s going to be a direct correlation there. That is the one thing that a lot of guys don’t connect is oil, temp and coolant.
Temp, of course, is connected. Oil temp is really important, especially on those trucks. With piston squirters, you know that oil is cooling, the Piston off and that is taking the boundary layer of of you know that thermal boundary layer on the piston and expanding the buffer or not right. So if you have really hot oil, you can’t cool the Pistons off and that’s when the Pistons expanding the pores, you start seizing up. Cracking Pistons cracking Rings.
Having really bad stuff happen. Okay, so now one of the things next in line from EGT talk is probably going to be a Turbocharger operation. Okay, there’s the uh, the simple boost pressure. What kind of boost should I be making, which is going to be a variable depending on you know the truck and the application right um, but, to me boost pressure really doesn’t mean a whole lot unless you know the the background with Drive pressure and how those Two intersect with one another sure, because there is good boost pressure, there’s also bad boost pressure and either one of those have a correlation directly with Drive pressure. Yes, so talk to us a little bit.
What is what is that turbocharger? Looking like at that? 8, 900 RPM under uh. You know normal driving conditions versus when you’re towing in getting into a load hitting that grade. Sure.
What’S that performance? Look like you said RPM, I think you mean EGT. So when you’re below 900, you know EGT turbocharger might be seven thirteen pounds of boost. You know somewhere in that low single digits, that kind of area you’re not asking a lot out of turbocharger, so you’re not going to see a lot of EGT um you’re. Basically, just trying to keep the truck clean, trying to add whatever extra air you need to keep the truck moving Towing, we’re talking loaded right and that’s that’s the guys who are Towing you’re, seeing 20 to 30 pounds, maybe 35 pounds of boost out of the truck And that’s when we’re starting to be concerned, what is the drive pressure ratio, especially on these variable geometry?
Trucks, variable geometry, turbo charger, which this truck is, which means the turbocharger can call for Boost by closing the exhaust housing up when it does that what happens to drive pressure, dry pressure is going to go up because the air escaping out of the exhaust is choked Up right, it has a small Pathway to go through exactly so the more clothes those veins are, the more that turbocharger is trying to work to get that energy into the and convert it to boost the more upside down. That ratio is okay and that’s you know, efficiency wise, that’s always less efficient. So if you see Drive pressure numbers that are further away from boost like right now we’re 21 pounds of exhaust pressure 14 pounds of boost somewhere around there or 1713
You know one and a half to one is pretty typical for a VVT. Sometimes it goes high as two or two and a half to one during transient areas or really low and those types of dry pressures too. Let’S talk that drive pressure, isn’t the plagued?
Oh, my God, dry pressures are through the roof compared to what that looks like at 3000. Rpm Under full Boost and drive pressures are one to two yeah. If Drive pressures are way upside down during transient operation, that’s not that big of a deal you’re not there for very long. You know egts are going to get hot, but things are moving. Yeah, the truck’s coming up on RPM, the veins are going to open everything’s going to be okay, it’s when it sits there for a long time and you have upside down Drive pressures, and by that I mean like 60 pounds of drive and 25 pounds of boost.
That’S when your egts are really going to climb fast and you’re, going to be kind of in the danger zone and really beating the turbocharger up, and I feel like it’s a potential depending on the truck setup and the tuning. You could have a truck. That is potentially creating heat on its own aside from the load behind you because of the truck’s engine operation, you know the turbocharger needing to hit a targeted boost pressure. The veins are clamping down. It’S saying hey.
I want to see this. This is what needs to happen in the the truck. You know. I always call engines and air pump right, air and air out. It’S just fighting against itself, yeah yeah, exactly it’s it’s and it’s inefficient is really what you’re saying it’s fighting against itself.
It’S using a lot of fuel to try and get the job done, and a lot of that fuel is being turned into heat and that’s just a bad thing now, compared to what we’ve seen on some like, let’s say: stock turbochargers. Okay, what would you see under a circumstance, you’re hitting a grade you’re under a load? You know 400 450 horsepower truck. What are some of those Drive pressures. Look like drive to boost compared to something that we would see on this charger on the truck with a modified exhaust side.
So a stock turbocharger is always going to be biased towards Towing performance that the factory wants you to have great throttle response. They want you to have good low end performance. You know. That’S all great and you’re going to have really good performance off idle you’re, going to have good mid-range, great Towing performance, so that stuff usually looks pretty good and I would say you know, in the 1.5 to 1 or less or 1
5 old and less with an aftermarket turbocharger like a still 64
We’Re trying to give you the best of both worlds and turbochargers.
I always say turbocharger is a compromise. So if you want an extra 150 horsepower of overhead, if you want the truck to instead of being able to make 490 horse, be able to make 650 horse you’re going to have to give up a little bit down low, our goal is to make you give Up the least amount down low and give you just enough up top to get you to your goal right. So that’s the balance! Right I mean we don’t want to build you an 800 horse turbocharger that performs awful downloads right right, so down low you’re, going to see probably a little bit more Drive pressure out of the stealth 64 to do its job up top you’re, going to see less You’Re going to see it perform better than stock right because under high load still 64 is going to outperform the stock turbocharger. One of the things I noticed when we were back there.
We were kind of hitting that little Hill and you were gaining speed. Egts were 900 similar to now. You know: you’re talking 900 a thousand you’re gaining speed, you’re kind of going up that hill and then those temperatures just start to come right back down once it gets to its Target once it gets in its efficiency range right. So you see me pull out, so the awesome thing about this turbo is the thing: will pull from 1350
Like it, it’s got power way down low and we’re 26 000 pounds combined. Vehicle weight is a lot of weight.
So to have the turbo be able to pull from there is is a real asset as RPM comes up, the turbocharger moves into its efficiency range. The veins drop out of it and you see egts, start to start to come down right and then, if I push it even further, you’ll see egts come back up right because the load comes up right, but I mean this is where this thing shines. It loves to be you know it’s like what other aftermarket charger you lug in at 1450, RPM 15 pounds of boost. You know I can push even further. I mean these are 1200 degrees, 20 pounds of boost.
I mean this thing is pulling a gross vehicle weight right now and it’s just effortlessly motor man and then get to the top of that hill, and now we’re seeing those temperatures start to uh kind of alleviate right yeah I mean they’re coming. You know still coming up, but engine speed, you know we’re staying in six gear if I was drop one gear things are cool. Now you see so many times right here so many times about guys they spec the truck based off of a friend’s recommendation or maybe a speed shop, that you know they’re more inclined to Performance right and not necessarily the towing aspect and the setup can do it. But they’re going into oh well, I have to downshift the truck or I have to run the truck manually in a different gear to make sure I am controlling egts. Never once on a trip like this.
Are we playing with the tap shifter? Are we playing with the shifting and making the trans hold a certain gear, we’re basically telling the truck hey you’re in tow haul? Hey your exhaust brakes on just go. Do your thing? Is a stock shift Point tune?
It actually has lower than stock lockup points, so stock shift schedule no funny business. With the with the Trans Tune. I mean you can see the thing pulling 1400 RPM yeah. I mean it’s really easy for inexperienced shops to overspec a Turbocharger. They want to wow you.
They want you to be impressed with that top end pole with that you know they know you’re going to want to buy that big wheel. You know you want the biggest one. Bigger is better, exactly bigger is better, but if this turbo makes 650 horse and another turbo makes 650 horses bigger and that’s your goal of 650 Horse by this, I always say – buy the smallest turbo to get the job done. Yeah, that’s going to make you the happiest, it’s all based on use and – and you know what you aspire to the truck to perform like right. Exactly so.
What are some other things like when you’re doing when you’re going in and you create a tune for a truck, let’s say or you’re, driving a truck and baselining that stock truck aside from some of the key points that we looked at? What are some other things that you think of that needs needs to have that Improvement under under Towing workload, so to be specific to the he-351 ve and 300 VG to be specific to late model Ram, I’m looking at the vein position. So when we’re working these trucks hard stock, I’m looking at the vein position and these trucks need a lot of vein position. They need to the veins to be almost halfway closed, okay, to get a lot of performance out of them, and that’s because the factory has this kind of relief built into the vein and you get into that relief. And you start to drop boost and and really kind of get into a rough spot.
If you open the veins up, tuners know right if you’re tuning, if you’re tuning for Boost on a late model, Cummins you have to use, you have to keep the veins closed. Partially, at Full Throttle, you can’t go to zero percent vein, so I’m looking at that and I’m thinking why, like you, know, there’s a lot left on the table here and so as we’re designing this nozzle ring this vein assembly, which is an exclusive to calibrated. I want to take advantage of the whole zero to 100 range. I don’t want to be pigeonholed into 40 to 85 or 40 to 100 or whatever, and it’s unique, unique with the the whole set Chargers, because the way they do their veins are very different than what we’ve seen in the early model gear. It’S you know, it’s completely different design.
It’S a completely different. You know strategy, it seems to me like this would be the more restrictive route you know altogether. So when you see those Factory leave reliefs, you know cut in and whatnot. You know, there’s there’s a reason for it right. The reliefs are there for a reason and they’re really and the reason is to just be able to slow down the turbocharger speed to be able to uh.
You know keep this stock performance. The way it’s supposed to be. This turbocharger is awesome for grade braking because the way it’s designed yeah, I mean you. You can hear on camera that this thing’s got a main exhaust brake on it. It’S the only one of the big three exhaust brakes that at full GVW, like really they work, does the job yeah.
No, I mean just I’ve always been one to like kind of be in tune with engine sound. You know with when the engine’s under a load – and this thing just seems like it’s happy like it’s, not it’s not working too much to perform the task at hand. It’S a it’s a pleasure to drive man, I mean you know: you’ve seen exhaust pressure at 40 pounds and boost to 30, sometimes even better ratios than that. It’S like this thing’s just moving a ton of air uh egts. You know they don’t get if you’re over.
Two thousand two thousand RPM, the turbo’s in its Sweet Spot, yep you’re gon na – have to be driving really obnoxiously. Get this thing hot. Oh, definitely! No! That’S super cool!
You know I I’m excited to see what happens in the future. With these things I mean these are such a promising truck, we’re seeing more and more guys starting to modify these and do upgrades of these, probably because the cost of the truck is coming down slightly they’re, getting a little older, a little bit more achievable um. You know so it’s cool to see. You know like the new era of the diesel performance. You know we played around with five nines for how many years you know, we’ve been tuning these trucks for how many years now we’re perfecting a lot of the other upgrades.
Yeah these trucks were always kind of. You know. The turbocharger was always kind of like the uh. Just doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do on these trucks, and now we’ve got it opened up. We’Ve got our Machining figured out, we’ve got our nozzle ring figured out.
I mean I don’t mean to like toot my own horn too much. We had a lot of time and energy in this thing. Yeah no horn, it finally like it finally does what I think it’s supposed to do and I’m I’m really happy. I’M really. It’S a fun truck to tow with it’s a fun truck to drive.
It’S got great response, I mean it’s, you can see it on the gauges, man, anybody watching this video, as I’m leaning on this thing and see you know, making 40 pounds 41 pounds of boost and the Turbo is just like yep I’ll. Take that give me more one of the cool things too, that you know that we have done, and this is kind of one of the first uh times that we’ve done this is if you go on to calibrate its website, you know Duramax tuner.com calibrated power. We actually have a couple of templates to help guys out with tuning these turbochargers to once again prove there’s not a lot of crazy Voodoo in the making. This do what it’s supposed to.
Yes, yes, thank you bringing that up Chris, because this turbo is different than anything else on the market. The tuning regimen is different than anything else on the market. So it’s not difficult. We provide it for your tuner if your tuner has any experience whatsoever with this platform, they should have no problem at all in implementing the changes. We’Re asking for basically we’re just asking them to open the veins up and allow the extra turbine space that we provided to be used so that we can lower Drive pressure so that we can increase boosts.
So we can improve efficiency. It’S it’s a basic setup. It works pretty nasty, very good. I appreciate you taking the time. I know things are busy over at the shop and whatnot, but it was nice to be able to get this thing out on the road and kind of get some real world kind of first-hand experience.
You know for the listeners and the viewers, I love driving it it’s a pleasure. I appreciate you riding along and seeing what it’s like and you know hopefully guys listening can see. This is the real deal yeah. If you have a load like this, and you want a high performance, late model Ram, that’s what we’re doing.
