Lets talk about timing. CPL 324 is a BC-I 400, which is timed at .053. The original piston had a compression ratio of 14.5 to 1. The replacement piston is a 14.0 to 1 compression ratio. This piston is not compatible with .053 timing and will burn holes through it at around 80,000 miles. If you have a 324 CPL you must remove the camshaft and change the timing to .070 for a stock 400. If you would prefer an NTC 500 or 550 h.p. engine give us a call and we'll supply you with the right cam key, injectors, turbo and fuel pressure gauge. With this set up your engine will crank out the horsepower and torque.

One way to determine if your timing is set at .053 is if the engine rattles or fuel knocks when you lay into the throttle. Fast timing hammers holes into pistons and flattens out rod bearings. The CPL 324 is from 1977, 78, and 79, and most of them have had the timing changed. However we still get calls from people that are timed at .053 and that timing will put holes in your pistons. Timing is everything!!!

Hot Shots: If you own a hot shot powered by a 5.9 or 8.3 Cummins we do have horsepower enhancements available for your engine. Bill Witherstein drives a 1 ton Dodge Cummins with a Spicer transmission and 2 speed rears. After we changed his turbine housing on his turbocharger, reworked the injection pump and set the timing he claims he saved 33% driving time on his normal route. Motor homes also perform well with a few diesel hot rod items.

Have you noticed the new attitude at Cummins Engine Company lately toward high performance diesel engines? The horsepower race is on and Cummins will be the champion. After all they are now sponsoring a Winston Cup race car driven by Mark Martin, an Indy race car driven by Robbie Gordon, a 1000+ horsepower N-14 International truck that raced in the Pikes Peak hill climb, a Baja racing truck and a modified pulling semi. Now that's what I call being dedicated to racing and high performance.

The N-14 Cummins engine is extremely heavy duty on the inside. The 525 h.p. engine that was used in the Pikes Peak hill climb was basically stock. The turbo and injectors were the only components that were changed along with reprogramming the electronic controls. The engine produced 1,000 horsepower and 2,700 foot pounds of torque. Many truck drivers don't believe that we can obtain 1000+ horsepower from the NTC engines and we have been claiming 2,600 foot-lbs. of torque. Well, now it's in writing in the September issue of Truckers News. It's time to believe that Cummins is coming back with a vengeance! Those of you that have bought yellow engines in the past will soon own a black engine in the future. Unless, of course, you don't mind having the back door all the time.

Elam Riehl from Middlebury, Indiana is the proud owner of our first extremely high horsepower engines using ceramic and teflon coated pistons, mechanical variable timing and the high lift camshaft. This September, the engine finally developed excessive blowby after producing 700+ horsepower for 560,000 miles. After tearing the engine down, Elam found #1 liner had excessive wear. All the pistons were perfect--so perfect that a friend of his will reuse them after Cummins engineering inspects them. This engine could have been put back together with all the used parts, except for one liner. I think that's excellent engine life for 700+ horsepower that's never been passed on the mountains.

During my last trip to the Cummins Engine plant I learned one more advantage of our ceramic and teflon coated pistons. This new advantage is the teflon coating on the piston skirts. Several things cause cavitation, or liner pitting and one of them is piston slap. The teflon coating on the sides is .001 thick which helps to eliminate piston slap. Less slap = less noise, less cavitation and means longer cylinder liner life. The very first set of ceramic and teflon coated pistons we used resulted in a quieter idling engine. In fact, it didn't even sound like the normal BCIII NTC 400 that we were used to.

POWER - POWER - POWER: What every politician wants. What every trucker needs. After building high performance diesel engines for 18 years it's nice to see Cummins Engine Company produce an electronic engine that runs great. Its nice to hear from people that used to own yellow engines and now drive a N-14 500 or 525 and are extremely well pleased with the performance of their Cummins.

Water leaks: We all know how much of a pain they can be. For many years we have been using a product called Irontite. This is a ceramic block sealer that does wonders for cracked upper counter bores and other leaks. Irontite comes in either a red or blue formula. The red is extremely powerful and must be drained in 24 hours. If you don't, you won't have a cooling system. Instead, you will have a solid white ceramic engine block. Here is the proper way to use Irontite. If the coolant leak is minor, dump two bottles of Irontite blue into the cooling system, turn off the water filter for two weeks and the leak will have a 90% chance of stopping. If the coolant leak is significant, flush the cooling system, install fresh water with two bottles of Irontite red and operate the truck for one day. Drain the cooling system and leave it open for 24 hours. Now install new antifreeze, water and two bottles of Irontite blue and go trucking. The reason for turning off the water filter is so the ceramic sealant doesn't get filtered out of the coolant. After you operate the truck for about two weeks, turn the filter on once again. Used car dealers buy Irontite blue from us by the case. This stuff works.

Will these engines keep up with the new electronic engines? You bet they will! The new electronic engines do have some advantages over the older engines--more fuel mileage, slightly longer engine life, cleaner burning when idling, built-in cruise control, and big payments. However, the older trucks have no truck payments, more pride in your ride when it's well maintained and you can build your engine to satisfy your horsepower and torque addiction.

Can you believe that Caterpillar is claiming to be "king of the hill"? Apparently they have never driven one of our finely tuned Cummins engines. To date we have never had any other type of engine out power our Cummins engines up any mountain in this country.

Please do not try to build our version of the high performance diesel engine without our help. Many problems will arise and you will have a costly nightmare on your hands and a hand grenade under your hood. And by all means, use genuine Cummins engine parts unless specified by one of the technicians at Diesel Injection in Pittsburgh, PA.

The end of an era has come. It's time to say good-bye to the four ring Cummins piston. In its place is a new three-ring piston called the TriTech. The technology in this piston is very similar to the N-14 three-ring piston. Please keep in mind that you cannot use an N-14 piston in the small cam, big cam I, II, III, IV, and 88 NT engines. The wrist pin bore is much larger and so is the rod bearing in the N-14 engine. 

Now what is different on the TriTech piston? #1: The top compression ring has a 15-degree angle versus a 20-degree angle on the old piston. #2: There is an accumulator groove for better ring stability between the first and second ring. The accumulator relives pressure iron below the top ring in order to keep the ring on its seat. #3 The oil ring is a new patented steel "1" oil control ring. The steel oil rings are tougher and more flexible than cast iron rings. Being more flexible they conform to the cylinder liner which lowers oil consumption. #4 Contoured wrist pin bore. This is really a neat feature for high horsepower engines. The top inside edges of the pin bore has been radiused. Don't try to do this on your own, the machine cost $500,000 to perform this operation. The reason for the contoured inside edge is, as the piston is driven downward from combustion, it wants to spread out along the axis for the wrist pin. When it does this, the pressure is all on the inside edge of the piston. This is one of the reasons why cracks appear in the pin bore area. This is the same technology that Cummins uses on the cam follower rollers. They are barrel shaped so the pressure of the roller is in the center of the cam lobe. This is one reason why camshaft failures are almost nonexistent. The wrist pin bore is only barrel shaped on the inside top edge. #5 The TriTech Plus Dual Ni-Resist piston has an anodized bowl for higher thermal fatigue strength.

How well do these pistons work in our 700 H.P. to 900 H.P. engines? We don't know, whoever we have 24 pistons out being ceramic and teflon coated as of this writhing. By March of 1996 we will have 16 engines running the TriTech Plus piston with high horsepower, we'll know if they are going to live.

Many people in the trucking industry fail to believe how tough the BC IV 88 NT engine can be when properly tuned. I'm referring to the STC (step timing control) engines. John Byrum of Virginia has a CPL 1280 with our high flow injectors, pump and a turbo boot. On the dyno at Cummins in Richmond VA his truck put 560 H.P. to the ground. That's 700 H.P. at the flywheel. The engine did develop 590 H.P. to the ground but the tires started to go up in smoke. 

Know your CPL, which stands for Control Parts List, it's very important when calling our shop for technical assistance. This number is in on the data tag in front of the air compressor. Please write this number down and keep it in your wallet or head.

Now lets talk about horsepower. We need AFC fuel pump cores to rebuild. Too many owner operators are holding on to our cores. It hurts your fellow truckers, and us, when we don’t have any cores to rebuild. Everybody loses when you don’t return the injectors, fuel pumps and turbo cores to us.

Dual fuel line kit, cost $80.00, results are as follows:

1. Smoother running engine.

2. Gain 1/2 gear on the mountains.

3. Lower pyrometer temperature by 25 degrees.

4. Increased throttle response.

All this for only $80.00, the cheapest horsepower you can buy.

Here is a little trick you can do that doesn’t cost you a penny. Polish the inside of the compressor housing on your turbocharger. The compressor housing is the aluminum part of the turbo on the fresh air side. First sand the area where the compressor wheel faces. Start with 320-grit paper, and move up to 400, 500, and 600 grit. Then use a buffing wheel and aluminum polishing compound. Make that part of the turbo look as shiny as a new Alcoa aluminum wheel. On our large mapwidth enhanced high altitude turbos a gain of 2 lbs. of boost will be noticed. That might not sound like much boost however it will lower your pyrometer by as much as 50 degrees and the turbo response will be greater.

Another trick for more turbo boost is to die grind the pulse manifold where the exhaust enters. If you clean up the ports and allow the exhaust to flow easier to the turbo another 2 lbs. of boost will be realized. Now with polishing the turbo and cleaning up the entrance to the manifold the engine will develop 4 lbs. more turbo boost and the exhaust temperature will decrease by 100 degrees.

The original pulse manifolds are larger in diameter than the manifolds built from 1990 on. Don’t ever think that by restricting the exhaust in the manifold that the engine will run better. Backpressure is a wasteful item, if exhaust can’t get out, how can fresh air get in?