Flashback Friday: Chasing Power While Stock to Not’s 4WD Chassis Takes Shape

Continuing to chase power in Stock to Not while the 4wd chassis gets finished

While our 4WD chassis gets odds and ends finished up, we’ve been working on getting our Northeast Diesel Service of Springfield 12MM P7100 Dialed in that we showed you earlier in this issue with our current setup (S467/DDP Stage 3 injectors) and we CAN confirm that with big power, you will find ALL of the remaining weak points in your engine!

Once the pump went on, we immediately found that the head had not been machined perfectly flat when we originally put this project together, and it has held for about 40,000 miles until we gave it 630CC’s of fuel instead of our old 160HP pump that came on the truck. We ended up getting the head done again correctly, a fresh valve job and valve seals, and using the same head studs we had before to secure it back together to make the weekend at FASS Motorsports for their Dyno day.

We got on the Dyno with high hopes but were a little disappointed with a number of 605HP/12xxTQ and the truck was getting hot quick, along with not feeling like i was able to get on top of the charger, which we’ve never had trouble doing before. We left the awesome event and did a 5 hour run home – all was well.

One more time

The next day, we went to find the root of the problem with some test hits (in Mexico of course) and 2 pulls in, major power loss and an oil and coolant mixture out of the catch can…. Not good at all. Head gasket #2 in 48 hours.

We got some custom aged ARP 625 head studs to replace our possibly compromised ARP 425’s to help hold our cylinder head down with the extra power. We are also trying a new to (us) style of head gasket, which is called a Multi-Layer Steel gasket. They’re made with layer of metal rather than rubber and composite to withstand higher cylinder pressure in high HP applications.

With a lesson or 2 from one of our other friends over here in Oklahoma – Miller Built Diesel – the head went back on with the new ARP 625’s and MLS gasket along side a major coolant system flush and new radiator.

Everything has been good for the 500 miles we’ve put on the truck since writing this article, and we are gearing up to see everyone at UCC 2025! We will be reporting back with an update after a proper beat down and long highway drive with Stock to Not!