Shhhh… we’re working on some future stuff!

A little while ago, I wrote in my first blog that we get our hands on some really neat, future stuff. A good example from the past was the powerplant for our Sidewinder Dakota truck. You know… that little red pickup that ended up smashing a number of speed records and went 222 m.p.h.? Well, that engine was a ’03 common-rail Cummins that we just so happened to get in 2001 from the Cummins Skunkworks for our project.

Being that we are an actual engineering firm, we are trusted (having non-disclosure agreements in place helps) by a number of original equipment manufacturers (O.E.M.s) with some of the newest hardware and technology on the planet. Of course, we keep in close contact with these O.E.M.s through the entire project; letting them know our progress, where we find the good and the bad in their equipment. We share data and make recommendations that sometimes make it to the assembly lines.

Anyway, what I wanted to spill the beans on is the progress of our General Motors Duramax project. Our partners at GM have sent us a number of next-generation engines for our project vehicles, the Type-R (road race) and Type-S (street performance truck) that we’ve been hard at work making parts for.

Now, I won’t go into the Sidewinder Type-R Project right now ’cause I’ll write about it in a future blog (behind the scenes hijinks, not just bragging), but I recommend the following link for an overload of info.

Yes, sir, these Duramax projects will get more than just a tuner box that’ll “juice” up their power. Aside from a complement of hard-core racing internals especially designed by us for the Duramax engine, they’ll each get an entirely new “brain.” That’s really what I want to gab about. The brain is based on a design by the Robert Bosch Corporation and the programming is being done from the ground up with the assistance of some equipment from ETAS (a division of BOSCH).

A couple of our engineers were working with a rep from Bosch’s engineering arm in Germany in our diesel engine dyno cell writing programs and tuning the engine. We had the rep here for a week to get us familiar with the software, but by Wednesday they pretty much had everything down and were able to make that engine purr like a kitten, bark like a dog, or growl like a lion. Both the Duramax engine and the new brain work in complete harmony.

So, just what did we do with the extra time left that week? I think a better question is what would you do if you had complete control of a powerful diesel engine? Ever heard of the expression “it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission?”

That’s right…play, and do things you don’t tell the boss about. One thing is for certain, our dogs were taught some new tricks, and the diesel world may never be the same for it.