This dash is being built around data, not decoration. LokJaw’s supercharged 6.6L Duramax needs more than a factory-style gauge cluster because boost alone does not tell you whether the engine is getting denser air or just hotter air. The plan is a MoTeC C127 in the center for the conventional engine and vehicle information, backed up by four Banks iDash DataMonsters dedicated to the induction system. What matters here is following the air all the way through the system. We want to see ambient conditions first, then pressure, temperature, and density ahead of the blower, across the blower, and across the charge air cooler. That tells us where restriction shows up, where heat is being added, and whether the supercharger and intercooler are actually doing useful work. It also gives us a way to evaluate things like blower speed, charge air cooler water flow, and later even nitrous effects on inlet temperature and density. The physical dash design matters too. Instead of just dropping a screen into a 1966 Chevy cluster, the layout is being reshaped so the MoTeC and iDash displays fit the truck’s lines and still look integrated. The result is a digital dashboard that does the real job: show what the powertrain is doing in real time so the whole induction package can be tuned intelligently.
The episode shifts attention from Lockjaw's chassis, engine, and sheet-metal work to the interior, specifically the instrumentation needed to support a supercharged 6.6-liter Duramax diesel in the 1966 Chevy. The goal is not simply to install gauges, but to build a data system capable of showing exactly how the forced-induction package behaves in real time.
At the center of that plan is a MoTeC C127 display, a fully customizable 7-inch screen that will serve as the main instrument cluster. It will be paired with a MoTeC M142 ECM, with additional customization support coming from MoTeC's team in Australia. The intent is to tailor both the graphics and the LED behavior so the display integrates visually with the truck rather than looking like a modern screen dropped into a vintage dash. Conventional vehicle information such as RPM, vehicle speed, oil pressure, and coolant temperature will live on the MoTeC screen, while Banks iDash units will be used for more specialized calculated data.
The original 1966 Chevy dash cluster is treated as a starting point rather than something to preserve literally. Its shape and proportions matter, but its corroded pot-metal construction and dated appearance do not. Quinn from the mechanical engineering group begins by modeling the factory cluster in CAD so the team can redesign it around the MoTeC display while keeping the truck's period styling.
The design direction is to avoid harsh, modern-looking edges and instead follow the flowing lines typical of older trucks. Rather than mounting the C127 flat into the panel, the plan is to recess it and create smooth transitions from the original dash surfaces into the screen opening. The same organic treatment will be used where the side iDash locations meet the bezel. Some of the original depth will be reduced and the face brought forward so the new cluster feels integrated instead of bulky. Quinn develops several rough layout concepts to establish the overall aesthetic before moving into detailed modeling.
When Gale reviews Quinn's concepts, he settles on a four-gauge iDash layout as the best starting point. The reason is functional as much as visual: the truck's induction system is unusual, and the team wants instrumentation that can analyze it in stages. Because this Duramax uses a Whipple supercharger on a diesel, Gale wants to evaluate the entire air path from ambient conditions to the intake manifold.
The first iDash will track ambient air conditions ahead of the truck's heat sources. An AirMouse sensor will be mounted behind the grille but in front of the radiator area so it sees true incoming air. That allows measurement of ambient temperature, pressure, humidity, and resulting air density. Gale describes ambient density as being somewhere in the low 70-pound range per thousand cubic feet under typical conditions. Since naturally aspirated engines are limited to whatever density the atmosphere provides, the supercharged system's job is to improve on that.
The second display will compare ambient conditions to the air entering the blower after it passes through the truck's intake system. This reveals whether the intake plumbing and filter arrangement are losing density or, ideally, whether vehicle speed and Ram-Air effects can offset those losses. At highway speeds, Gale suggests the ideal outcome would be little to no density loss, or even a slight gain from inlet pressure recovery.
The third stage of instrumentation is dedicated to the supercharger itself. Gale wants to compare density into the blower with density out of the blower, while also tracking the pressure rise and temperature rise across it. Humidity can be treated as fixed once measured at the inlet, so the key variables become pressure, temperature, and the resulting density change.
This matters because boost pressure alone does not define performance. Gale explains that many enthusiasts increase blower speed with a smaller pulley, see boost rise, and assume the system is improving even when the vehicle slows down. The reason is that an inefficient blower can heat the air so much that pressure increases while density falls. Since horsepower depends on air density in the intake manifold, not pressure by itself, the instrumentation must show whether the blower is actually improving the charge.
The team expects nominal boost levels around 30 PSI and plans to intercool aggressively. They also want to calculate supercharger speed from engine RPM and the known drive ratio, then use that information to derive supercharger efficiency. Gale notes that this kind of density-based forced-induction analysis is central to a Banks patent application he wrote roughly 15 to 18 years earlier, focused on measuring air density all the way into the intake manifold and using iDash instrumentation to improve forced-induction systems.
The fourth iDash will evaluate the liquid-coupled charge air cooler. Sensors placed above and below the cooler will measure temperature and pressure before and after the core so the team can determine how much the cooler improves air density before the charge enters the intake manifold.
Gale emphasizes that charge air cooling is often misunderstood, especially when builders use inadequate coolant flow. He wants a flow meter on the cooler's water circuit so the team can correlate coolant flow rate with intercooler effectiveness. In his view, many systems are under-pumped; he contrasts that with earlier marine-engine work where a single heat exchanger would typically see 40 to 45 gallons per minute, and dual-core systems could approach 100 gallons per minute of seawater or lake water through the charge air coolers alone. That experience informs the Lockjaw build, where the cooler will be treated as a tunable system rather than a passive component.
The MoTeC display will handle the conventional channels, but the iDash units are intended to shine in the area of calculated and derived values. Gale and the team refer to these as PIDs, meaning Parameter IDs. In a stock vehicle, those values would typically be available through the OBD connector, but Lockjaw does not rely on a stock OBD architecture. Instead, the required PIDs will come either from the MoTeC system or from Banks modules and dedicated sensors installed specifically for this induction analysis.
The iDash units will not only display the information in real time but also record it. Gale refers to them as Data Monsters because they can log the sensor streams to an SD card for later review. That logging capability is important because the team is not just trying to monitor the truck; they are trying to understand how each part of the induction system behaves under load, speed, and changing operating conditions.
The induction layout begins with air boxes on either side of the radiator, each feeding a large filter intended to minimize restriction. From there, air enters the supercharger through two 5-inch inlets that angle downward into the front face of the blower. The entire front face of the supercharger is effectively used as the intake entry.
Temperature and pressure sensors will be placed in the inlet tract before the blower so the team can quantify conditions at the blower entrance. Additional sensors will be installed after the blower, above the charge air cooler, to measure the pressure and temperature rise created by compression. The charge then passes through the intercooler core, after which another set of temperature and pressure sensors will be placed below the cooler and ahead of the intake manifold. This arrangement allows the team to calculate density gain across the blower and density recovery across the charge air cooler in real time.
From the manifold area, the air is distributed into both cylinder heads. The team also plans to add bank-to-bank temperature probe locations so each side of the engine can be monitored independently. Hose routing around the cooler circuit is still being refined, and Gale specifically rejects tight hard 90-degree fittings in favor of smoother-radius hose ends and tubing, noting that multiple hard 90s can create severe flow losses.
The CAD review also covers the supercharger drive system and front engine accessory drive packaging. A dedicated component in the drive assembly will help align the supercharger pulley with its drive pulley. Because of space limitations on the existing belt plane, the supercharger drive pulley is positioned outside the damper rather than sharing the same plane as the other accessories.
The current target is about a 4:1 drive ratio. At 4,000 engine RPM, that would spin the blower at roughly 16,000 RPM, which the team considers a strong operating point for the unit. Gale notes that the blower can reportedly exceed 20,000 RPM, but the present pulley sizing is aimed at a more conservative and usable range. The blower pulley is approximately 2.750 to 3 inches in diameter.
The front accessory layout includes a tensioner on the supercharger drive plane and a carefully routed FEAD arrangement for the air-conditioning compressor, alternator, power steering, and multiple idlers. The idlers are used both for packaging and for suppressing belt dynamics, while wrap around the crank pulley is intentionally maximized. The crank damper itself is a Banks experimental design that slows belt speed by about 10 percent. Since this engine is expected to run beyond the normal upper speed range for a Duramax, reducing belt speed helps protect accessories that may be sensitive to excessive belt velocity.
Toward the end of the discussion, Gale turns to the next phase of instrumentation: nitrous integration. He wants to determine where nitrous nozzles should be placed in the induction path and, more importantly, how to measure the resulting temperature change in the air entering the cylinders. Nitrous is described not just as an oxygen source but as a powerful cooling tool that can sharply reduce charge temperature and increase air density, effectively acting like another stage of charge air cooling.
Rather than using a simple on-off nitrous system, Gale wants a sophisticated control strategy. He references a one-off controller developed around 2008 or 2009 for a record-setting S10 with a road-race Duramax engine. That setup used nitrous without an intercooler and relied on nitrous for charge cooling as well as oxygen enrichment. The controller reportedly used six variables, including throttle position and engine RPM, to manage delivery. The result was a launch that remained smoke-free, which Gale treats as evidence that the fuel energy was being used inside the engine rather than wasted as soot.
He closes with a brief explanation of diesel smoke: visible smoke is essentially unburned fuel, comparable to carbon-rich material formed when hydrocarbons are heated without enough oxygen. In practical terms, the instrumentation and control strategy for Lockjaw are intended to avoid that waste by ensuring the engine has the air density and oxygen needed to burn the injected fuel effectively.
With the dashboard concept, induction instrumentation plan, and sensor strategy taking shape, the team prepares to continue the build at Empire Fab. Upcoming work will focus on the transmission tunnel, firewall, and wheel tubs as the truck moves closer to SEMA. The schedule is tight, with only two months remaining, so the instrumentation design is being developed in parallel with the fabrication work rather than treated as a later add-on.
The broader theme of the episode is that Lockjaw's interior and electronics are being engineered as seriously as its powertrain. The MoTeC and iDash combination is not there for appearance alone; it is being used as a diagnostic and development tool to quantify ambient conditions, intake losses, blower efficiency, intercooler effectiveness, and eventually nitrous behavior. For a custom supercharged diesel build, that level of visibility is the foundation for making reliable power.