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If you’ve been into the world of diesel performance in any way, there is a 95-percent chance you have heard of Rudy’s Diesel Performance. Bringing some of the biggest diesel drag racing and sled pulling events of the year, Rudy’s has made a name for themselves. Not only do they put on some great events, but they also offer their own lineup of parts for all brands as well as campaign a few all-out race truck builds.
For those of you who aren’t familiar, they actually have two separate trucks. The shorter, two-wheel-drive truck that is piloted in the SunCoast Diesel Pro Mod class and the heavier, four-wheel drive that is campaigned in Pro Street. While the Pro Mod is ridiculous and beyond impressive, our focus is on the four-wheel-drive truck today.
Just a few days ago, Nathannial DeLong piloted the “Pro Street Truck”, as its coined, into the four-second range. “The truck worked pretty well from the start. In the beginning, 5.50’s were doable after just a few passes of testing under conservative power. As expected, when trying to turn the power up, the traction battle began,” said DeLong. “This year, the progress slowed way down but we made passes slowly improving and taking everything one step at a time.”
In the early stages of this build, it featured triple turbos for the Ultimate Callout Challenge, and most recently a pair of Precision turbochargers measuring out to 98mm and 75mm. Also, with only a handful of test passes after the original completion, Aaron Rudolf went on to win the drag racing portion of the UCC event. Although the truck ran great with these setups and making 1,987-horsepower at UCC with the triples, DeLong opted out of the compound game and went to the single turbo.
Now with a single 83mm Precision turbo, things are simpler. Not only did the truck lose weight because of less hardware, but the single turbo was also just more manageable. Like any of us would do, DeLong headed to an end of year test and tune at a local track to see how the new turbo would do along with some chassis and suspension changes.
Leaving on less power and slowly ramping it in resulted in only a 1.28 60′ time but ended the run with a 5.07 at 144mph. For a crew that has been after that four-second threshold for some time, seeing that 5.0X pass meant there was light at the end of the tunnel. “The second pass, I brought the power in faster but still with caution. This led to an improved 1.23 60′ time and we stopped the clocks at 4.93 at 146.34mph.”
With that pass, that makes DeLong and the Rudy’s crew owners of the title “First 4×4 Power Stroke In The 4’s”. “We aren’t stopping there either. We’ll be continuing to improve that 60′ and adding in more power. We’re excited for the future with this truck,” said DeLong. With that being said, the Power Stroke experts at Rudy’s now hold multiple records in diesel motorsports. That one along with the first Power Stroke in the 4’s with the Pro Mod. For all of you Ford fans, if you’re looking to really crank out some power in your ‘Stroke, I’d take note of what is happening here.
For more information about Rudy’s Diesel and their race program, be sure to follow them on Facebook here. For more truck features, industry news, and part installs, stay tuned to Diesel Army.
