Power Driven Podcast

Pistons are one of those parts everybody installs but not everybody actually understands. Todd, Will, and Myer break down piston design from top to bottom, and if you have ever wondered why there are so many options or which one belongs in your build, this is the episode you need.

They start with piston bowl design and why it matters more than most guys think. Narrow bowl versus wide bowl, reentrant versus non-reentrant, and how each design affects the way fuel and air mix inside a diesel cylinder. Because diesels fire fuel directly into that bowl at the very end of the compression stroke, bowl geometry has a direct impact on combustion quality, smoke, and power output in a way gasoline engines never have to deal with. Swirl numbers get covered too, and why that circular mixing motion plays a bigger role in emissions and haze than it does in outright peak power.

The conversation moves through piston options platform by platform. Common rail, 24 valve, VP44, and 12 valve all get their own breakdown. The guys talk about why they almost always steer people toward a narrow bowl for over-the-road use, but also when a wide bowl makes sense, like sled pulling and nitrous-limited classes where you are chasing every last horsepower.

Cast versus forged is a big chunk of this episode and the guys do not sugarcoat it. Forged pistons are stronger and handle RPM abuse better, but the increased wall clearance required, the wear characteristics, and the oil ring differences make them a poor choice for anything that sees regular street miles. They even mention their factory 6.7 cast pistons surviving a truck that averages 2200 horsepower down the track, and what that says about how capable a properly built cast piston really is.

The 12 valve guys get their section too. Stock pistons, the early first gen wider bowl swap, and why the shop has largely moved away from recommending low compression pistons now that six seven blocks are the go-to platform for high-output Cummins builds.

Piston coatings and cylinder honing round out the episode. The guys cover their coating experiments on Myer's race truck, what coatings can and cannot protect against, and why proper piston wall clearance is still the thing that determines whether any of it survives.

Subscribe on YouTube and follow the Power Driven Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you do not miss episodes like this one.

Everything from pistons to full build components for your diesel is available at PowerDriven.com. If anything from this episode sparks a build question, the team there can point you in the right direction.

Shop Power Driven Diesel: https://www.powerdriven.com

Myer's drag truck just ran a 4.99 in the eighth mile, and the engine making it happen is almost offensively simple. On this episode of the Power Driven Podcast, Todd, Will, and Myer break down what it took to get there and why the technology available to diesel builders right now is changing what is possible at every level of the sport.

The guys dig into what that number actually means in context, where the money goes in a build like this, and why high level diesel performance is more attainable today than it has ever been. The conversation covers everything from drivetrain decisions to turbo costs to cylinder head development, all through the lens of what it took to put a tow truck in the fours.

Pro Street diesel is growing fast and the boys make a strong case that now is the time to get in. Multiple trucks are running deep fives and dipping into the fours, the parts are better, and the price to compete has come way down compared to even a few years ago.

Everything the guys talk about in this episode is available at PowerDriven.com. Links below.
Shop Power Driven Diesel: https://www.powerdriven.com

Every diesel guy has been there. The truck feels great empty, pulls hard, and you love it right up until you hook a trailer to it. Todd, Will, and Myer dig into exactly why that happens and what you can actually do about it.

The conversation starts with a real story about building a 12 valve for power without thinking about what it would have to do. Big pump, big single turbo, five speed, and a trailer to tow. The result was exactly what you would expect from a setup built for the strip and not the highway. It towed, but it was miserable, and that experience sets up everything else in the episode.

From there the guys get into tuning strategy for trucks that need to work. Pedal mapping and throttle input are a bigger deal than most people think, especially when your transmission is mechanically activated and does not know your engine is making twice the power it was designed around. If your transmission thinks you are at light throttle while your engine is at full pull, you are going to have a bad time. Getting the tune and the transmission working together is step one.

Turbo selection comes up as one of the biggest places guys go wrong when building a tow truck. Oversized turbos that are great for making peak power numbers are often terrible for towing because they surge, they come on hard, and they kill drive manners under load. Compressor wheel clearances also factor into efficiency and reliability in ways most people do not think about. The right turbo for towing is not the biggest one you can bolt on.

Fuel system choices matter too. Massive injectors and multi-pump setups introduce complexity and reliability concerns that become a real problem when you are stranded on the side of the road a long way from home. For a dedicated tow truck, simple and reliable beats flashy every time. Carrying spare parts because you know your setup is likely to break is not a strategy.

Tires are another thing that can quietly kill your tow truck. Load ratings, tire size, and how they affect your effective gear ratio all play into how your truck behaves under a load. Going up in tire size without accounting for everything downstream can smoke a transmission and make towing miserable regardless of what else you have done to the truck.

The core takeaway is something the guys come back to repeatedly. You have to decide what your truck actually is before you build it. A dedicated tow truck and a street truck that occasionally tows are two completely different builds. You can have a modified truck that tows great, but the parts and strategy have to match the application.

If you are building a diesel and towing is part of the plan, this episode is worth your time. Subscribe on YouTube and follow the Power Driven Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.

Everything discussed in this episode is available at PowerDriven.com. If you are building a tow truck or a street truck that needs to work, the team can point you toward the right parts for your application.

Shop Power Driven Diesel: https://www.powerdriven.com

Todd poached a purse and the diesel community is not happy about it.

He showed up to a Blue Collar class drag race in Phoenix with a high mileage Cummins truck, a nitrous setup thrown together the night before from used shop parts, and no real plan to win. Then he won. Now there are posts. Now there are opinions. And now Todd, Will, and Myer are here to talk about it.

The truck was not purpose built for the class. It fit the rules close enough to enter and that was the whole strategy. A 62mm turbo, a 52 jet, and a flat foot launch that just happened to hook. No PDD resources, no race prep, no endless planning.

The guys break down the full story, get into the spirit vs. letter of the rules debate that followed, walk through exactly what was on the truck, and dig into whether nitrous should be banned from the class or just opened up to everyone with a standardized jet.

Not all Cummins blocks are built the same, and if you are pushing serious power, the one under your hood matters more than most people think. Todd, Will, and Myer break down the full spectrum of Cummins engine blocks in this episode, from the various 12-valve generations to the 5.9 common rail and the 6.7, and explain exactly why the differences matter when the power numbers start climbing.

The 6.7 gets a lot of attention here, and for good reason. The conversation covers what makes it structurally superior to earlier platforms: a thicker deck, a larger bore, longer wrist pins, and pistons that have held up to 3,000 horsepower in competition builds without giving up. The guys talk through how modern tuning lets builders get even more out of what is essentially a factory race motor sitting in everyday trucks, and why the 6.7 has earned its reputation as the current king of Cummins diesel performance.

The 12-valve conversation goes deeper than most. There are meaningful differences between block variations that matter at high power levels, and the guys cover what to look for. Power Driven offers a 14-millimeter main stud upgrade across their block lineup, including as a standard feature on their 12-valve block, because the math on clamping force versus a stock bolt simply does not leave room for argument.

One topic worth paying attention to is the roller lifter issue on newer 6.7 trucks. The guys call it out as a real problem already hitting a significant number of engines, potentially on the scale of what the VP44 pump failure was for the 24-valve crowd. If you own a 2019-and-up Ram with a 6.7, this part of the conversation is worth your time.

There is also a breakdown of why dropping a 12-valve head onto a 6.7 block causes combustion problems. The 12-valve injector enters the cylinder at an angle, so the piston bowl is offset toward that injector. A centered bowl piston paired with an off-center injector creates combustion characteristics nobody wants. It is a simple geometry explanation that answers a question the comment section apparently asks regularly.

The guys wrap up with some real-world context, including Todd running 10-second passes in his tow truck and a story about winning the fastest pass at an airport drag race against mustangs and a supercharged F-150 on a 6.90 slip. The point being that the power these engines support on the street right now is genuinely historic.

If this episode has you thinking about your next block build, Power Driven has you covered with prepped and upgraded Cummins blocks and everything else mentioned in the episode at PowerDriven.com.

Shop Power Driven Diesel: https://www.powerdriven.com