The first 5 second 1/4mile Diesel pass in history and the technical breakdown on what it took to do it.

MarkBroviak

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May 25, 2008
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Hey guys, I figured this deserved it's own thread since it is not only a record that in it's own right is the last major milestone that was really left to hit for the diesel community. Second reason was that this car setup got completely changed from last year when it ran a [email protected]. Literally the only thing that didn't get changed from the last combo was the front side of the turbo(102mm Stainless Diesel Billet GT55), the motec system and the chassis. With the goals of the car needing to be competitive not only in the ODSS with our diesel brothers but also in PDRA and NHRA TopDragster class we had to basically start over with the combo to reach our goals. This meant having Jeremy Wagler build us the first billet drop-in replacement block to save us some valuable weight from the car(150lbs lighter). The new motor combo has a 4.200 bore with a 4.150 stroked crank to get up to 460cid. We had Wagler add an inch to the deck height so we could get a longer rod in it to help take some stress off the rotating assembly and block itself. This engine has Wagler Aluminum rods with Ross forged pistons all spec'd by Jeremy for the most reliable power plant we could hopefully get to reach our goals. Fuel system got an upgrade also to meet our needs and we went from 500% to 700%injectors! The traditional log style headers and uppipes were replaced with gas style longtube headers and 3" up-pipes to the turbo basically more than tripling the exhaust side volume. On the intake side of the system we went up to 5" plumbing from the turbo to the intercooler(Intercooler was also increased to a 4000hp core setup) and 5inch from core and it splits to dual 4" feeds and the heads have their own 5" tube plenums. We also went to a dual direct-port nitrous setup putting us at 4 kits being used total and 2 kits were direct port. All of this planning and work set us back 16months but was worth the wait to say the least!
In the behind the scenes processes of all of this there was a second billet motor that was done for Ryan Milliken's aussie customer Ned with the Blue 4th gen Camaro and they dyno'd that motor first and used the injectors from Paul's to test. It was at this point that Ryan jumped on the team to help us out and I can't thank him enough for that! He is 100 times more capable with the Motec than myself and helped me out with everything to get me up to speed with it and get more comfortable with it. There is no way we could have achieved what we did so fast without his help, period.
Fast forward to our first outing with the car which was the ODSS race in PA and we took our first stab at the track with it turned all the way down and the car went 4.235@164mph without lockup. Next pass we added a little to it and went [email protected] still without lockup so we addressed that. First qualifying pass we had the lockup working and the car went [email protected] and new PB for us! We had an issue with the merge collector and had to have it fixed so we missed a round of qualifying but when we got it back on the track we hit a homerun with a .990 60ft and 2.5877 330ft and a [email protected]! We were on cloud 9 with that pass and decided to turn it up again for first round of eliminations and it bit us hard! Car kicked the tires and shook hard and caused it to blow the intercooler pipe off the car and ended our weekend. Car had to go back to the chassis shop to be gone through to make sure that we didn't damage anything else and get the pipe fixed. Got the car fixed up and new tighter exhaust housing for it to help it spool up faster. Next stop was the PDRA race at Virginia Motorsports Park. We thought we would be good to start with the 3.90 tune up but that proved to be incorrect and we kicked the tires and blew the pipe off the car again. I thought that was the end of our weekend but we checked the car over and everything was ok so we got Cody Fischer to weld the pipe directly to the intercooler for us so we could keep racing. We basically slowed it down in the 60ft to get it to go down the track and it worked. We went [email protected] got in the field. Next pass we hit the nail on the head and went a [email protected] and got qualified in the elite catagory of Top Dragster! New pb and a first for the diesel group to get two cars qualified in the elite group and we were on cloud 9 again! Didn't last long lol. Get the car back to the pits and found a broken transmission so we were done for the weekend. Paul took the car home and yanked the trany out of it to find a destroyed planet set most likely from the tire shake issues we faced. Got a new transmission for it and also found an issue with the valves in the motor! We had reached the limit of what the 7mm stems could handle. Paul ripped the heads off and sent them back to Jeremy to get them upgraded to 8mm and shipped back so we could head to Maryland International Raceway for a Monday test session with Hollyrock after the Worldcup race. Well, again we couldn't get the tire to stick so we had to pull power from the hit. I told Paul if it felt good that he could run it out the back and he definitely did that! We slowed the car down to a 1.001 60ft and it had a new pb the rest of the slip! Went 2.557 to the 330ft and [email protected] to the 1/8 and went [email protected]! First time a diesel has ever broke the 5sec barrier!!! With the new combo it took us 7 passes to reach our goals( we had 4 botched passes that we kicked the tires on it). We tried to get after it on the next pass but it wouldn't take it so Paul aborted the pass. Now the the nitty gritty of the pass! We are on the staging limiter at 4650rpms and roughly 950-1000hp worth of fuel at 24:1 AFR 50psi boost and 52psi drive, IAT of 83*(ambient was 70*). When he let go of the trans brake the fuel jumps to 295mg and ramps up to 450mg in 1.2seconds, the converter lockup starts at .8 second off the button and the nitrous is all on 100% by 1.69sec! Car sees a peak boost of 86psi and 125psi drive peak in the front part of the track when the car isn't loaded up and it is spinning 6200rpms. Paul felt a peak of 3.29G's during the run. The only downside to the pass was that at 980ft it hit the egt limiter and pulled 150mg of fuel out of it. IAT temps were 122* at the end of the run which is awesome! There is still so much potential in the car and our next goals with it are to run constant 3.60 passes to be competitive in PDRA with it. I know this was a tough read but I hope I answered a lot of your questions but if not don't hesitate to ask! Thanks guys!
 

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JoshH

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What an incredible accomplishment, Mark! Congrats to the whole team.

I have a few questions if you don't mind me asking. I noticed you mentioned the car running at 6200 RPM. Is that the max RPM you see, or does it run over that crossing the finish line at 230+ MPH? On the intake manifold, are you running individual runners sealed to each port from the plenum pipes, or is it setup like stock where there is a "clam shell" plenum bolted to the head also? If individual runners, are the siamesed ports divided also, or do they share a runner? I see you mentioned the 700% injector size, but I don't see anything about the fuel supply side. What are you running for CP3s and what about the low pressure side? How many lbs of nitrous does the car use on an 1/8 mile pass? What about the 1/4? Are there plans to reset the 1/4 mile record, or was that just done to do it? If y'all are planning to go after it again, is there a plan in the works to keep the EGTs in check? Sorry for all the questions, but this is very interesting and some good tech if you don't mind sharing.
 

Dm23

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That's awesome!!! Congratulations on pushing the limits. Definitely looking forward to see some videos and to see how far you guys can push this thing.:cool:(y)
 
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MarkBroviak

DMax Junkie
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May 25, 2008
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What an incredible accomplishment, Mark! Congrats to the whole team.

I have a few questions if you don't mind me asking. I noticed you mentioned the car running at 6200 RPM. Is that the max RPM you see, or does it run over that crossing the finish line at 230+ MPH? On the intake manifold, are you running individual runners sealed to each port from the plenum pipes, or is it setup like stock where there is a "clam shell" plenum bolted to the head also? If individual runners, are the siamesed ports divided also, or do they share a runner? I see you mentioned the 700% injector size, but I don't see anything about the fuel supply side. What are you running for CP3s and what about the low pressure side? How many lbs of nitrous does the car use on an 1/8 mile pass? What about the 1/4? Are there plans to reset the 1/4 mile record, or was that just done to do it? If y'all are planning to go after it again, is there a plan in the works to keep the EGTs in check? Sorry for all the questions, but this is very interesting and some good tech if you don't mind sharing.
Ok, so we have the car setup at 7200rpms for the hard limiter currently. Last year we ended the season with it shifting at 6600rpms but this season the data for this new billet engine combo with 460cid wants to be shifted sooner so we keep turning the shift points down and we are currently asking for 5800rpms and its shifting by 6200rpms. At the 1/4 strip he was 230mph at 6440rpms so plenty of room there to go! We are basically following the g-meter and it's telling us what this combo likes and we apply the changes according to it. Our 3.90, 3.87 and 3.83 passes were all the same 450mg of fuel tune-up but it was the little details in the rest of the setup that was allowing it to continue to go faster and faster each time on the same fuel tune-up. The intake runners are direct-port full length divided into the plenums and each direct port nitrous has a jet in a runner(each cylinder has 2 intake ports so 1 kit is in the left ports and the 2nd kit is in the right ports). We are currently running 2- S&S high-speed reverse rotation 12mmCP3's and one has their sp3000 mechanical lift pump on the back of it supplying 130-250psi of supply pressure to the system. The car generally goes through 4.5-5lbs of nitrous in a single run but this also includes the spoolup and burnout and the nitrous is also used to shift the car and to launch the parachutes. The 1/4mile pass was about 8lbs. Technically speaking we can only run 6.10 in the car during NHRA racing(Class rules) so everything is good and happy to do that as we will have to turn it down some to run that number. Egt's just got to 2000* at 980ft on that run so not a big deal, we are playing it extra safe and could do a couple more things to help keep them lower if needed. Not really sure if we will really try to push that number any faster unless someone gives us a reason too since we can't do it in competition anyways. We did it because it has been a goal of ours for many years and figured someone(Jared Jones) would beat us to it but in the end we were able to secure that record ourselves. Hope this helps and makes sense!
 
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darkness

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Why nitrous for shifting and parachutes instead of co2? Weight savings or simply packaging problems being a rail?
 

JoshH

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Hope this helps and makes sense!
Makes perfect sense, and thanks for sharing! Using the N2O instead of CO2 is interesting. I'm a little surprised the 2 12mm pumps were enough to make the power you're making. Is there a limit on what you can run in the 1/8? Congrats again on being the first to the 5s. Anyone can attempt to beat the record, but nobody else will ever be able to be the first. That's a record that will stand.
 

MarkBroviak

DMax Junkie
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May 25, 2008
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Danville Indiana
Makes perfect sense, and thanks for sharing! Using the N2O instead of CO2 is interesting. I'm a little surprised the 2 12mm pumps were enough to make the power you're making. Is there a limit on what you can run in the 1/8? Congrats again on being the first to the 5s. Anyone can attempt to beat the record, but nobody else will ever be able to be the first. That's a record that will stand.
804ma is the lowest we get in the 1/8th for the pump control so plenty of pump still left. Their high speed pumps are no joke for sure. As far as I know there is no limit for us in the 1/8th just figuring out how to get it down the track. Completely agree on the record stuff, FirePunk was first diesel to run a 3second 1/8th, Hollyrock was the first Dmax into the 3's and will always be and we were the first diesel to the 5's and currently 2nd quickest diesel ever but hoping to change that record also soon enough. Thanks guys!