Upgrading Charge Tubes And EGR With Pusher Intakes

Diesel engines love air, and the more you can force into them, the better. There is no downside to improved airflow. With that being said, we’ve teamed up with Pusher Intakes to upgrade Bowtie Overdrives and Maximum Off Road Transmissions,  2015 Chevrolet Silverado 3500 HD with their heavy duty charge tubes and EGR delete.

The truck is local, (California) but registered in Arizona. Because of that, the truck can omit all of the normal emissions which grants us the go-ahead to upgrade this 6.6-Liter Duramax-powered truck. During this install, we caught up with Jacob Allenbaugh, owner, and operator of Pusher Intakes, to see what it is about these parts that make them stand out from the rest.

“Diesel engines love air and the more you can feed the engine, the better,” Allenbaugh said. “None of the common diesel trucks have an air metering system device like a throttle body on gasoline powered vehicles. The throttle body’s on the newer trucks function only to shut off the fresh air when the EGR system is functioning.” In theory, you can run a diesel engine as lean as you want.

“With a cleaner leaner running engine, you’re only going to experience a cooler operating temperature,” said Allenbaugh. “With that, you will also encounter less internal wear. Also, there is the whole cleaner burning, better fuel economy, and more available horsepower side to it. The truck manufacturers’ have a lot to consider when building a vehicle.” What he means, is there are big items to factor in including manufacture-ability, cost, assembly time, and performance.

With those factors in the picture, this means some of the factory designs aren’t the best they could be in the performance category. This is where Allenbaugh and the team at Pusher Intakes strives. They look for the parts that lack performance on late model trucks and design new parts that will get the absolute maximum effort out of your truck.

“The OEM driver-side charge tube on this truck is 2.25 inches in diameter,” said Allenbaugh. “The smaller diameter tubing is cheaper, but they also need to be able to bend that tube all in one shoot to be able to make it cost effective to produce,” said Allenbaugh. “On a mandrel bender, you need a certain straight length of a tube to grip between each bend.”

With the Pusher Intakes heavy duty charge tubes, they are bumped up to 3-inches in diameter. “With ours being a larger diameter, more grip length is required,” said Allenbaugh. “When you go up to 3-inches, there isn’t enough room between sections that have to have bends so we can cut and weld the tube together in the right shape. This takes exponentially more time and more skilled labor, hence why this isn’t done from the factory.”

As for the OEM passenger side charge tube, it is made out of plastic versus metal. “The plastic charge tube is equipped with a quick release style connector at both ends,” said Allenbaugh. “It is a very cheap design and easy to assemble. The downside to this is the plastic doesn’t do well in hot areas like an engine bay and this particular design doesn’t hold up in elevated boost conditions like our modified diesel trucks.”

Lastly, the upper cast manifold has some features for ease of assembly but also is ovaled for better packaging in other applications like marine or commercial. “We routed unadulterated three-inch tube all the way to the Y-Bridge,” Allenbaugh said. “One beautiful thing about the OEM intercooler, it has a three-inch inlet and outlet which makes the job of plumbing the trucks with larger, better flowing tubes easy.”

In addition to upgrading our charge tubes, we also installed an EGR delete system. This EGR cooler bypass kit for our Duramax features premium materials from the United States, designed with ease of installation in mind, and new factory up pipe and gasket. Installing this kit, it required no modification to the factory parts which makes a reinstallation of the EGR system (if needed) simple.

So, with these heavy duty charge tubes, you’re increasing the amount of air being forced into your engine, the material used will withstand heat and boost better than some factory pieces, and also physically makes the engine bay look better. With the exception of you having to install the parts, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be upgrading the factory ones.

For more information about Pusher Intakes, and to see all of the parts they offer for your ride, be sure and check out their website.