February 2009 - Performance Zone
NO “GOOD” VIBRATIONS
By Performance Specialist Bruce C. Mallinson
Did you ever stop to think about how your older truck rides? Maybe she has some vibrations coming from the engine and drive train. She may also have rattles and air leaks around the windows and doors. Did you know that you can repair most of these problems for less than one month’s payment on a new truck? Here are a few simple things that you might consider doing to your older (and possibly paid off) truck before buying a new one.
Replacing the rubber around the doors and the felt in the window tracks will eliminate most of your truck’s air leaks and interior rattles. This is not a hard fix! You can do this yourself in your driveway in just one afternoon. But that is just the beginning. Let’s get a little deeper into vibrations and discuss how they affect you and your truck.
Vibrations travel through your truck, into your cab, right up the seat and into your body. Vibrations will make you tired and irritable, and make your driving experience less enjoyable. Now think about a truck that has over 500,000 miles on it. Do you think the six rubber mounts holding your engine might be a tad worn out? Every time that your engine gets an in-chassis rebuild, you should have the engine mounts, radiator mounts and charge air cooler mounts changed. Bad mounts can be the result of many of your vibration issues.
Jerry Ray Hairhoger’s high performance Kenworth A-Model was originally equipped with standard rubber mounts (Jerry Ray is one of our Performance Technicians). When these rubber mounts needed replacing, he replaced them with new polyurethane mounts. Why don’t we have urethane mounts in our semi trucks? They last at least twice as long as the stock rubber mounts and don’t add anything to the cost. Polymer technology has come a long way. There is no reason not to switch to polyurethane mounts (pictured below).
Right now in our shop in Saxonburg, PA we are rebuilding a Detroit Diesel DDECIV in a 2000 Pete 379 to 625 horsepower and we are installing all polyurethane engine, radiator, and charge air cooler bushings. We are also installing a new damper and mercury-filled engine balancer. I’m sure the owner-operator husband and wife team will be impressed with the smoothness of their 1,000,000-mile Pete when the build is complete. Something tells me they’re going to like their rebuilt 625 hp Detroit with all that power turning the crankshaft via ceramic and Teflon coated pistons, which in turn make the engine run even smoother. This engine will have a ported and Jet Hot coated exhaust manifold, along with a 15% larger turbocharger to allow the engine to run cooler and more freely.
A Detroit-equipped Peterbilt, which comes stock with 500 hp, tries to keep its cool with a radiator that only has 170 tubes. This is not enough cooling, even for a stock engine, so one of our high-tech radiator cores, with 364 dimpled tubes, will be installed with the stock Peterbilt radiator tanks and frame. The charge air cooler was leaking so a new Duralite charge air cooler will finish up the cooling duties of this high horsepower DDECIV Detroit-powered Pete. Cooling and horsepower will never again be an issue for the truck that this husband and wife driving team run down the road.
Many of you may not know that I do a radio talk show with Kevin Rutherford on XM channel 171 on Friday nights for one hour (XM also replays the show on Saturday mornings at 5 a.m. EST). On this show we talk about trucks, engines, and horsepower. Kevin is on every night at midnight (EST) and then his show is replayed everyday at 5 a.m. On Saturdays and Sundays, Kevin is on from 4-7 p.m. (EST) and midnight to 1 a.m. (EST). Kevin is considered to be an expert on independent trucking and he knows what it takes to succeed on the road or behind the desk. Kevin Rutherford’s focus, like mine, is to help the owner operator succeed, so give him a listen if you aren’t already.
Here is a truck show reminder: the Mid-America Trucking Show, held in Louisville, KY at the end of March each year, will be starting a little earlier than usual. This year the show producers moved it up one week. The dates this year are March 19, 20 and 21. We at Pittsburgh Power are excited to get the 2009 truck show season started. We will have many surprises for you in our booth this year. Please make sure to come by our booth if you are planning to attend the show!
For those of you that have been waiting for the Pittsburgh Power computer for the Cummins ISX engine, your wait is over. We now have our computer perfected for the 1998 through 2009 ISX engine. Mark Hoyt of Tom Sunday Car Haulers said his ISX-powered 379X Peterbilt runs so strong up the hills that he often wonders, “Is my trailer really loaded?” And that is on Power Level 3! Kip Jones said his Signature 600 ISX gained 10 m.p.h. on the hills running on Power Level 3 – and he still has six power levels left. That is correct – the ISX box has 9 power settings! We have been working on this ISX computer for four years, and it has been by far the hardest engine to produce a Pittsburgh Power computer for. But the wait was worth it! If you have questions or concerns, feel free to call us at (724) 360-4080.