Season 2, Episode 46 - S&S Diesel’s Andrew Stauffer, ’24 Ram 1500 Ramcharger, Lightning’s Trip To “Mexico”

 

 

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Jay “Lightning” Tilles (0s):

Tesla. What? Tesla. Fricking what on the way here? Holman two fricking Tesla threes decided to roll up on me. You know,

Sean P. Holman (10s):

Like what, where were you driving?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11s):

The TRX. Okay. And one was on the 6 0 5 and one was over here on Springdale coming off the freeway. Oh,

Sean P. Holman (17s):

There wasn’t at the same time. There’s no coordinated effort? No, no. There wasn’t a Tesla app sharing where they said, go get this

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23s):

Guy. No one was black, one was white. I think most of ’em are black and white. Sometimes you’ll see a red

Sean P. Holman (27s):

And they have like

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27s):

Colors Red. Yeah, whatever. You know they’re charging more for white now. Yeah, they’re trying to even out the colors. ’cause there were so many white ones. Yeah, well

Sean P. Holman (33s):

Because white was their volume even though it was the cheapest. So they’re like, yeah, we’ll show you because it charge more for it. That’s typical.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (39s):

So on the 6 0 5 traffic, and this is one of the Southern California freeways. I’m cruising along and I’m not in sport mode. I just, I’m in like automatic mode and just, just doing my thing. Chilling at like 1100 RPM at whatever, it’s 75 miles an hour. Okay. And just cruising. We slow down for some traffic. There’s like a cop stopping the traffic. Then all of a sudden we go and this Tesla next to me is like, he’s gonna race me. ’cause now there’s no one in front of us. The the highway is open all four lanes and he gets,

Sean P. Holman (1m 8s):

And you’re not dumb enough to take that challenge, right? Hell yeah. I am,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 11s):

Dude. And I smashed

Sean P. Holman (1m 13s):

Him. No, I smashed him. If, unless he is the,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 17s):

And when I say smashed him, I mean kept up

Sean P. Holman (1m 18s):

With him. You ran into him?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 20s):

No, no, no. Like he expect, I can only assume he expected, here’s this dumb big black truck next to me. I’m gonna dust him. I’m in this little lightweight Tesla three and I can scoot around on my battery and he just punches it and I hammer down. And I wasn’t in sport mode. And I was neck and neck. And then we hit about, I, let’s say we’re in Mexico for a minute, because that’s what you’re supposed to say when you do illegal stuff. I, I pulled away from him at about a hundred.

Sean P. Holman (1m 46s):

Nah, he let up. There’s no way he has the aerodynamic advantage at that point. And he still has way more torque than you do at this point.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 53s):

Than, than he, than he gave up. He pulled out that he, well, whatever

Sean P. Holman (1m 56s):

Up you’re

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 56s):

At a hundred. So, so they, that’s okay. Maybe you’re right. Because

Sean P. Holman (1m 59s):

Dude, here’s the thing about that. When, when two idiots get together and do something like that, it’s not who wins the street race. It’s who gives up first?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 6s):

I, well I,

Sean P. Holman (2m 6s):

That’s, that’s how those things are won. So that, who’s got the balls to stay in it longer? That’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 10s):

Funny that you say that. ’cause on Springdale right here, Springdale Mexico Tijuana, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because again, that’s what you say. Right? And we leave this light while your new May hare, whatever it’s called, your, your gas station May Hare, what’s it called? Messer May Hare your gas station over here. The new green one at Springdale.

Sean P. Holman (2m 26s):

That’s not new, but, okay. What is that?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 27s):

Don Don’t know. It’s wanna

Sean P. Holman (2m 28s):

Seven 11. That’s a private guy owns it. Oh, is it

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 31s):

Moser Moss Moser? Yeah. Okay. Whatever It is, we go to the next light. He rolls up on me and he hits it and he thinks he’s gonna walk me. And this time I’m in sport and I’m neck and neck with him. And we did, this time we got up to about 70 or so. And then he just, he lets off. And I’m like, dude, weak sauce. Weak sauce. I don’t care

Sean P. Holman (2m 52s):

How fast you think you are,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 53s):

You have no balls buddy and a Tesla. He was fun. I gotta say I had fun on the way here.

Sean P. Holman (2m 59s):

Okay. And

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 60s):

Now none of that happened because it’s illegal. I made it all up

Sean P. Holman (3m 2s):

And none of it could have happened because you were half an hour late. So, exactly.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 6s):

Tim, one of our artists at work, so he has an older SI don’t know, it’s, let’s call it five years old or something. Okay. He bought it used and we got off the freeway. Does

Sean P. Holman (3m 14s):

It

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 14s):

Make it better? We, we got off the freeway at Irwindale Avenue. It’s not a pla don don’t know. He’s, he’s just a regular s whatever. I don’t even know how many motor it has. I didn’t read it. And he rolls up on me and he had probably heard that, oh, lightning’s got a TRX. He thinks he’s fast and he mobs it off a off a green light. And we are neck and neck and we didn’t get you necking fast neck. No, no, we, we didn’t get that fast. ’cause there’s, there’s cops on this particular street over by work. But we got pretty quick and as soon as we went to the next light, he rolls down the window and he goes, damn, that is fast. I’m like, I wasn’t gonna let up.

Sean P. Holman (3m 49s):

Meanwhile, he only has 70% of battery capacity left.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 51s):

He just crushed it. I’m like, I gotta a full take, ready to go, buddy. I’ll do it over and over

Sean P. Holman (3m 55s):

Again. Didn’t have a full tank after that. I mean I had a T rx for a year. I And it wasn’t on 37. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 1s):

The license plate is accurate. Yes. Yummy, yummy. Gas

Sean P. Holman (4m 4s):

I mean, I I told you it’d be the one to go.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 6s):

And I have had some compliments on it. So thank you again for that. Even despite the fact that I didn’t agree with it at first, I have grown to love it.

Sean P. Holman (4m 13s):

Well, I, I managed to get 33 miles to the gallon coming home from SEMA in my little crv. So no,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 20s):

Well, you look like a, an old man in that thing. I gotta say

Sean P. Holman (4m 24s):

Don’t care. I don’t care what anybody says or looks, although I will say this, people do not respect you when you’re in a little car.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 31s):

Nope.

Sean P. Holman (4m 31s):

But when I’m in a little car, I don’t care because there’s so, there’s an eco button on that thing and the dash turns green when you’re being really good And it goest

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 39s):

To white And. it doesn’t, it doesn’t do much. It

Sean P. Holman (4m 40s):

Feels like a supercharger got turned on. I hate CVT transmissions and it’s got a CVT. But I gotta say the Honda has one of the better CVTs. There’s a lot of junk ones out there. You’re

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 48s):

An ap but,

Sean P. Holman (4m 49s):

But there’s a s for sport on the shifter. No s is for suck. Completely changes that thing. S is for suck And. it makes it zippy and fun. But when you’re just, when you’re loafing around, so good So I left SoCal. I drove all the way to Vegas. I drove around at Vegas and I drove like a third of the way home before I had to fill up. and then I put like 14 gallons in it. And it was like, this is amazing.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 15s):

I get it. That’s, no, that’s neat. But it’s, it’s whatever. It’s not. So what I went through three tanks to get to Vegas. Who cares?

Sean P. Holman (5m 21s):

It rides so cushy. It’s got these wide flat leather seats in it. It

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 25s):

Looks dumb and you look dumb in it. Don’t

Sean P. Holman (5m 28s):

Care. Don’t care. Because You know what I know. It’s in my garage. I can look cool if I wake up in the morning and I go, no,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 34s):

No, no. But,

Sean P. Holman (5m 34s):

But the fact that you, if I wake up in the morning and I decide I wanna look cool today, I have that choice. No.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 40s):

If I

Sean P. Holman (5m 41s):

Wake up in the morning, I’m like, I wanna be able to afford lunch. Guess what? I take the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 45s):

Crv. No, you don’t understand that cool can be taken away.

Sean P. Holman (5m 48s):

33 miles per gallon is pretty nice to have. And that’s, and that was at, dude, that was at 85. Dude, there’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 53s):

Cool tax. You’re getting cool tax.

Sean P. Holman (5m 55s):

That big cruises so easy at 85. It’s just like, And it. I’m listening to my XM radio and I’m just chilling and I’ve got tinted windows on it. And, it just, you’re So,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 8s):

It’s fine. You’re so late. You’re such an apologist. It’s All,

Sean P. Holman (6m 10s):

Right? It’s All, right. You know what? and then you, when I got home, I went, I’m gonna go drive my 3 92. And I made noises and I was like, yeah, I got the best of both worlds.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 20s):

One cool car does not equal a cool person.

Sean P. Holman (6m 23s):

I, again, you are stuck on this need to be cool. I am comfortable with who I am. Don’t care. What I, what I care about is paying my bills. And the C RV allows me to do that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 34s):

All right? All right. I see it. I do like efficient vehicles. I just think that the CV is not Sean Holman at all.

Sean P. Holman (6m 43s):

It’s totally fine. I’m totally fine with that. Okay. I got, listen, I go to pick up my 5-year-old at school and I’m just amongst the sea of people

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 52s):

I know, but that’s what’s lame. So great. When you roll up, imagine your mom or

Sean P. Holman (6m 56s):

Dad. I have to push, I have to push the key fob to see which one is mine. There’s, there’s, I took a picture the other day. There were 70 white and silver cars. And the only reason I knew which one was mine, it was red because it

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 8s):

Chirped. Oh, it’s red.

Sean P. Holman (7m 9s):

I’m like, ah, Chi

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 11s):

Dude.

Sean P. Holman (7m 11s):

All, all the moms. They’re like, ah, that red’s nice. It’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 14s):

So average.

Sean P. Holman (7m 16s):

Yeah. You know what’s great? It’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 17s):

Just, it’s, I’m it’s Why don’t you just, it’s like having a barcode on your

Sean P. Holman (7m 21s):

Forehead. I’ve been commuting to LA because OVR has this massive display at the LA Auto Show. Yeah. 25,000 square feet and 30 plus vehicles on display, right between Hyundai, Subaru and Honda. So I’ve been doing the commute up there. ’cause I, I got a, yeah, I we’re, we’re doing it, man. And I have my This is the best part in the morning I get up, I go to my wife’s Keurig machine, I make myself coffee and a Tumblr actually tea. And I’m driving. I drop the kids off at school and I’m on the 4 0 5 and I’m looking to my left dude’s in his car. He’s got his Tumblr full of coffee or tea. Look to my right ladies in the car.

Sean P. Holman (8m 2s):

I’m like just hanging with my people on the freeway. Just chilling. We just nod. You nod to people. Like, before it was Joe only Jeep wave. I’m like, ah, I’m snobby Jeep coming. Wave, wave. Now I can nod to anyone holding up a Tumblr full of Starbucks and an efficient vehicle. It’s just a whole different world.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 19s):

It’s just like being invisible.

Sean P. Holman (8m 21s):

Oh dude, being invisible is nice. You could pick your nose.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 24s):

No, no, I’m saying

Sean P. Holman (8m 25s):

No. No, you can. Nobody

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 27s):

Cares. No, I’m saying like, it’s being invisible when you don’t wanna be invisible. You’re like, Hey, hey, has someone saved me? No, you Can.

Sean P. Holman (8m 33s):

You can’t be seen. I’m just invisible here. You’re

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 35s):

You’re, you’re invisible in your average crv. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (8m 37s):

That’s great. Oh

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 38s):

Guys, I know you’re with me, right? You gotta be with me. I

Sean P. Holman (8m 41s):

Literally,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 42s):

You gotta be with me on this. Holman has has drank the Kool-Aid here of, of Honda cvm.

Sean P. Holman (8m 48s):

It’s just, it’s, it’s just nice to be invisible. You know how many people No, it’s awful. Being invisible. Do people will, will, will bang down my door. They’re like, I know you. I know the adventure Jeep, I know that And it sometimes lighting. You just wanna be anonymous when you’re cruising around the mean streets of Southern, California. You just want to be a nobody. And after all of the notoriety that comes from The, Truck, Show, Podcast. I found my respite in the CRV and I’ve found peace. And dare I say some zen,

2 (9m 18s):

I got no game. I’m so average.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 28s):

Alright, so on this episode, if you are into fuel injection, which I know you are, and well, no, you might not be if you’re not tune out. But if you are, if you

Sean P. Holman (9m 38s):

Are in the fuel, well, lets not tell people to tune out. If

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 40s):

You, oh my gosh. If you’re worried about your CP four grenade, you definitely gonna wanna listen.

Sean P. Holman (9m 46s):

And if you own a diesel in general and you like things like injectors and fuel system performance, you also wanna listen. And if you don’t and you wanna see how the other side lives, kinda like how I am in my cv, but This is the diesel versus gas. Guys, you don wanna listen. Wait, you,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 1s):

You, you wanna know how the cool people live when you’re in your cv

Sean P. Holman (10m 4s):

Oh? no, I see ’em all the time. I’m like, yeah, that dude’s cool. I’m not right now. And I’m okay with it. Mm.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 8s):

Okay. And before we get into the episode, I want to thank our presenting sponsor Nissan. At a scant 29,770 bucks. You can get yourself into a brand new 2024 Nissan Frontier with dude 310 horsepower 281 pound feet of Torque with a maximum towing capacity of 6,640 pounds. If that’s not impressive, I don’t know what is. Nissan usa.com is where you’re gonna find both the Frontier and the Titan. The Titan’s got the industry’s best warranty at five year, 100,000 miles. Hit up Nissan usa.com or just roll into your local Nissan dealer to check out yours.

Sean P. Holman (10m 46s):

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3 (11m 7s):

Monitor key.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 8s):

You can’t say it parameters without me hitting that button.

Sean P. Holman (11m 11s):

I know, I know. You can get smart with ID dash. There’s info at a glance. It’s all the stuff the factory doesn’t want you to see. You can even control your bank’s tuner your speed brake or your pedal monster directly from the ID dash. And it’s compatible with any 52 millimeter hole or pod. And Banks just released a whole line of stealth pods, which will fit a bunch of different vehicles with more applications coming by the day. Again, head to Banks power.com, put in your year, make and model and find out if the bank’s ID dash is right for you.

3 (11m 43s):

The truck show. We’re gonna show you what we know. We’re gonna answer what the truck, cars, truck rides with the truck show. We have the lifted, we have the lowered and everything in between. We’ll talk about trucks that run on diesel and the ones that run on gasoline. The truck show. The truck show. The truck show. Oh whoa.

4 (12m 14s):

It’s the truck show with your hosts Lightning and Holman

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 21s):

All. right dude. Let’s talk fuel injection. Our buddy Andrew Stofer from SN S. Diesel Motorsport is standing by for a call.

Sean P. Holman (12m 28s):

He wants to come back on the show.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 31s):

Yeah, I guess he was. Well we’ll talk to him about that. You

Sean P. Holman (12m 34s):

Know what it reminds me of is like when you have your first kid and your wife says, I’m never going to go through childbirth ever again. And then about year two-ish that’re kinda like, Hey, let’s have another kid. ’cause they’ve forgotten all the bad stuff that came along with it. I Think this is that equivalent for men. They come on the show and they go, I’m never gonna do that again. And about three years later they’re like, well maybe, maybe I’ll do it again.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 58s):

The Truck. Show Podcast is as painful as childbirth.

Sean P. Holman (13m 1s):

Oh, I think it can be. Have you heard of this show?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 4s):

So we Yes. I I actually tried to stomach an an episode the other day. Yeah. Andrew’s got some new wares that our audience needs to know about. One of which is 4 4 6 sevens. And it’s a, we let’s get to it.

Sean P. Holman (13m 16s):

Well, we have to call him first.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 17s):

No, it’s just you and I can just chat for a while. Just

Sean P. Holman (13m 20s):

Talk about ’em without him being here. It is 10 o’clock

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 22s):

In the East coast. He’s been staying up all night for us. You know,

Sean P. Holman (13m 24s):

We’re rusty here. We we’ve been, we’ve been out in the world for the past several weeks and, and it’s time for us to get back on our game Lightning. And what we need to do is we need to call Andrew freaking Soffer at SN S Diesel so that we can have a guest and people don’t have to just listen to us. Okay. I mean, I don’t even know how long we’re gonna go on like this without a guest doc. Go ahead dial. I’m dying.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 47s):

Good. Trying to save you.

5 (13m 50s):

Hey, what’s going on?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 52s):

Yo, Andrew Lightning and Holman truck. Show Podcast. How you doing?

5 (13m 55s):

Pretty good. Pretty good. How you doing? Good. We,

Sean P. Holman (13m 57s):

We were just looking back. Well, we were talking about you and we were saying, you know, it’s been about three years since he’s been on the show and it’s probably because his first experience was So bad. It took him that long to get that taste out of his mouth.

5 (14m 10s):

Has it been that many years? Yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 11s):

2020. According to your website, you have our audio on the SN S Diesel diesel Motorsport website. And it said it’s like, check out one of our founders on The Truck Show Podcast in 2020. I was like, Oh my God. Has it been that long?

5 (14m 25s):

That’s a long time ago. Yeah. I mean it wasn’t that bad of a thing. So you can have me on more often if you’d like.

Sean P. Holman (14m 30s):

We we’d love to except, you know, I’m like, Hey Lightning Can, you think of anyone we should have on the show? And he’s like, Hmm. So we’ll add you to the list of, oh crap, we don’t have a guest. Let’s call him Mr. Coverup. Well, you go, there you

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 42s):

Go. That’s So, the funny thing is, Andrew, we’ll get into this in a second, but how many times Holman in the last, let’s say three, four months have we talked about CP four death? All of them. I mean all of them. Every single show comes up and And, it was like two episodes ago. I go, I wonder if we should just call Andrew Soffer.

Sean P. Holman (15m 1s):

No,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 1s):

It’s funny. And and we’re like, oh

Sean P. Holman (15m 3s):

Crap. Oh yeah, we know him. We should call him. You know what’s funny is I had somebody was, was bitching and moaning about the CP four exploding on, on their Jeep. Right? And they’re like, oh, this is just a piece of crap. Well this particular person also has, I won’t name it, another manufacturer, full-size truck with the same CP four pump And. it went out on That one too. Oh no different, different manufacturer. And I’m like, yeah, remember that thing where I’m like, it’s not a Jeep thing. It’s a Bosch thing. He’s like, shut up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 30s):

All. right. Well we got a quick intro before we can officially get to the, the start of the interview. Hold on a sec.

6 (15m 44s):

It It is for you.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 51s):

That’s the inside job. So Andrew, I Think, we should rewind the clock a little bit and explain the basics about fuel injection. Take it through the I injectors, which you specialize in, and then move it to the high pressure fuel pumps. So you guys have been known for the last

Sean P. Holman (16m 12s):

And then move into carnage. Sweet, sweet,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 13s):

Carnage, And it, sweet carnage. Yeah. And, and what causes it and why we know about it, why it’s in the headlines, et cetera. But I wanted to just run people through the basics. I think a lot of times we just expect that our audience understands how this stuff works and sometimes they just, they don’t and they don’t want to admit it or we don’t and we don’t want to admit it. So take us through the, what a fuel injector actually does as opposed to what we think it does.

5 (16m 37s):

Well, I guess on the, the raw purpose of It is to spray fuel into the piston bull area at the best possible location. Basically to get good combustion. And for that, that de depends on your, how many holes you have in the nozzle, what your strangle is, just from the nozzle standpoint, and then functionally above that. Common rail injector is just a pressure balance system. So when It is closed, it has more pressure pushing down on the needle. When you wanna open it, you vent the pressure on top of the needle, effectively allows the needle to open And, it starts spraying pressure or fuel in. That’d be the, as simple of a way as I know to explain how a common rail injector would work.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 21s):

What is the standard pressure or a, a roundabout pressure that most of these modern diesels are under 30,000 PSI?

5 (17m 31s):

Yeah, that’d be, it’d be a rough, rough number. So idle, you’re about 4,500 PSI normally, and then at full load you’re between the older common rail systems are gonna be about 26,000 PSI. The newer ones are up to about 30, 35, 30 6,000 on the newer systems. So,

Sean P. Holman (17m 51s):

And then walk us through a solenoid style injector versus a pizo style.

5 (17m 57s):

Okay. Solenoid style. You’re using a coil, basically a magnet to lift up on a, a steel plate, kinda like the old school starter. Solenoids So. it lifts up on that plate that’s actually holding a ball in a, in a valve. And when it lifts that plate up, that lifts allows the ball to lift off. Then you’re venting pressure below there to allow the control or the Yeah. Control rod to move up, let the needle move up on the P eight. So style injectors, you have a crystal that expands. When you energize it, it’s pushing into a, a hydraulic amplifier to increase travel. ’cause the crystals don’t move very much.

5 (18m 38s):

And then So, it increases the travel through the hydraulic amplifier. And, it pushes, pushes down on a little valve that opens up to vent pressure. That valve looks like a, an intake valve and an engine effectively. It’s just a little, yeah, just a little valve like an intake or exhaust valve. And it’s cylinder head

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (18m 55s):

And, and Andrew, at what speed are these pulsing

5 (18m 59s):

Fast? So,

Sean P. Holman (19m 1s):

Well, you can have what they, you know, what they have is, is what they call like an injection event. So you can have upwards of seven injector events within one combustion combustion event. Event, right?

5 (19m 15s):

Yeah. So the on a PA two injector, the smallest amount of time you can energize them is a hundred microseconds. That’s not necessarily what your injection event time is going to be, but it’d be, it’d be about the same at the, at your minimum energizing times like

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 31s):

That. So wait a minute, Andrew a hundred microseconds, is that’s, is that a thousandth of a second?

5 (19m 37s):

Well, no, no. It’s a 10000th of a second I believe. ’cause one millisecond would be

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 43s):

That’s a thousand.

5 (19m 44s):

A a thousand. And we are a 10th of That. one So

Sean P. Holman (19m 47s):

I. Feel like Lightning is familiar with the 10000th of a second

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 51s):

How. dare you. My wife is more familiar with that. I am.

Sean P. Holman (19m 53s):

I didn’t go there. I wasn’t even talking about that

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 55s):

By the way. I have an injector bolted to me full time. You know what I’m saying? And it’s pizo.

Sean P. Holman (20m 0s):

I’m not even going there. And it

5 (20m 2s):

And it can react in one 10,000, 10 thousands

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (20m 4s):

Of a second. That’s exactly right.

Sean P. Holman (20m 6s):

It’s quite convenient. You don’t even know he is there. No. But It

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (20m 9s):

Is under high pressure. It’ll cut you and have like a water jet.

Sean P. Holman (20m 11s):

Now wait, Andrew, real quick before we go off this topic, while we’re kind of defining the playground that we’re talking about, maybe real quick, what was the difference between the old way that fuel injection worked and then obviously the move to common rail, which is pretty much standard across the industry now.

5 (20m 28s):

So the old way was, I guess the most common way is going to be your pump that hooks up to however many lines your engine has for cylinders. And then like the inline pump would be, it has a say, say for a Cummins in it, for example, you have six cam lobes in your pump and you have six plungers in your pump. And they hook up to the six lines that go to your six mechanical injectors that open when the pressure comes, you know, comes up, you’re basically adjusting how long you are pumping for with your plunger to mechanically inject. And that’s what changes your quantity.

Sean P. Holman (21m 9s):

Wow. That is, that right there is a, a sound clip. We should cut right outta the show and use it down the line.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 16s):

It describes so many things.

Sean P. Holman (21m 18s):

So many things. Honestly,

5 (21m 19s):

The, the mechanical systems are so much more complicated than common rail. Common rail is so easy. Mechanical systems are way, way more complicated.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 29s):

Why does, does everyone like old school diesel heads wax poetically about the old P pump, you know, on the, on the, the rams, right? Like they just all, you just crank up the P pump and they’d blow some smoke, which you could make good power.

5 (21m 42s):

Turn the screw. Turn the screw.

Sean P. Holman (21m 44s):

Exactly. Yeah. EG ts be damned.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 48s):

Yeah,

5 (21m 48s):

They’re, they’re, they’re amazing. If you wanna have like 300 horsepower, that’s treatable. But, but if you wanna have big power that drives good, you’re not gonna get it with a p pump. So unfortunately I mean, I guess if you had the old school P pump guys that, you know, worked on ’em back in the nineties, you could probably get a high powered P pump that drove nice. But they’re, those people are pretty much all retired I’d say.

Sean P. Holman (22m 13s):

Did you hear that Lightning all the gasps from our audience? What, what, how, how dare the bla femur a diesel blas femur.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (22m 25s):

He’s the authority. What you

Sean P. Holman (22m 26s):

Do. No, I’m not saying he’s wrong. I’m just saying there’s a hoard of listeners that just their jaws dropped.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (22m 30s):

So Andrew when you’re talking about SNS versus some of your competitors and there’s some good players out there, right? Some, some really knowledge folks, right? For sure. You’ve got some great competition. There’s some crappy competition too. Oh,

Sean P. Holman (22m 40s):

There’s a lot

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (22m 41s):

Of those. What makes a good injector from a poor injector?

Sean P. Holman (22m 45s):

One says SNS on it, I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (22m 47s):

Think is and the other doesn’t. And the other

Sean P. Holman (22m 48s):

Doesn’t. Yeah. Okay. All, right. Really simple Lightning. Okay. Really simple All, right?

5 (22m 51s):

Yeah. So looking at our testing capabilities and what we would look at would set us apart. So you Can you can have your standard four test points and you can get your quantity to match across your set of injectors and they can be so screwed up that you wouldn’t believe it. So instead of just looking at your quantity, at your different points, you’re, so we’ve seen a lot, we don’t see it as much now people are getting a little bit better, but you would see nozzle flow all over the place and they just adjust the shims and the injector to make the quantity match

Sean P. Holman (23m 28s):

So. it is kind of like the shower head in my, in my shower that has all the little tiny little holes in it with the little rubber things. Yes. And like one shooting off to the left, one shooting off to the right and half of it’s Yeah. All, right? Because I imagine

5 (23m 41s):

It’d be similar to that. Yeah. And they, and they just, what they do is they, you would adjust it the injector so that you’re one that doesn’t flow as much, you just hold it open longer so you get the same quantity in. But if you actually look at the rate shape of the injector, like how it opens, how much it flows, and when it closes, you’ll see that it’s has less peak flow rate when it’s fully open. But It is hang it open longer to get the quantity. You Can you can hide a lot of things with shimming, but if you have the right measurement equipment, you’ll, you can see right through it. So,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (24m 14s):

So that’s one of the ways that SNS is set apart from the competition. You’ve got a better test bench and better, better evaluation equipment. Yeah. Yep. So you, you know what my, my day job is at Banks when we have the ID dash data monster, which is a compact 30 52 millimeter gauge that does a lot, especially with diesels. And one of the parameters that you can pull up on a, on a, on a Cummins or a Durmax, even a Ford, is injector balance rates. So in the case of a, a durmax guys love looking at injector balance rates, but what they do every single time is go, what does this mean? It’s one says 5%, one says 4%, is this okay? No one ever knows, oh, what are injector balance rates?

5 (24m 56s):

Oh man, injector balance rates are one of the veins of my existence because most people, most people think they know what it means. They think it means that their injectors are bad, but they fail to look at anything else in the engine that could be contributing to that. Like say, what’s your compression, do you have a weak hole? Do you have a short connecting rod? ’cause you have stock rods and 800 horsepower. But effectively what, what the balance rates are, the ECU is looking at the crankshaft speed at every combustion event. And if it sees That one combustion event is not applying as much force to the crank, the acceleration rate is lower, it will increase the fuel quantity on that particular combustion event or that cylinder at the next revolution until it’s getting the same acceleration rate on all six or eight cylinders.

5 (25m 49s):

So it’s basically just looking at how the combustion is in, in each hole and how they compare to each other. That’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 56s):

Amazing that it knows the, the speed or the acceleration rate of every cylinder. Yeah. You know what I took away from that. Yeah. What’s that? Stop giving people that information on their ID dash because know it’s causing Andrew a whole lot of headaches. The problem is, is that Gail wants to know its, so we assumes that everybody else wants to

5 (26m 11s):

Know’s, employ the durmax guys to do that. It’s one of the durmax

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 13s):

Guys. Oh, is that true? Oh really? So, it was us. Are we exacerbating the issue?

5 (26m 18s):

I don know I mean that’s what I drive, but I don’t watch my balance rate.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 22s):

So, and you can only see it at idle, right? You can’t see the balance rates. At least it’s not broadcast by the ECM. Yeah. Yeah.

5 (26m 29s):

Well the, the, the newer, the newer the vehicles get, the more often they’re adjusting that. So, and, and or the yeah, the higher RPMs and higher loads, they’re actually looking at that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 40s):

Okay. Okay. So since we’re still talking about injectors and we’re gonna gonna get to, to the high pressure fuel pump shortly. Speaking of injectors, you are one of the authorities in this area, so why not ask you, do cleaners additives actually improve injectors? Can, can they, do they actually work well, the detergents,

Sean P. Holman (27m 2s):

Not even just the detergents, but also the additives for anti and things like that. I, because there’s two things. There’s one that cleans it and there’s one that adds lubricity, right? I mean there’s a couple different ways you can go there.

5 (27m 15s):

Yeah. So because of my background being at Bosch, it was beat into my head that that stuff is snake oil and we recommend not using any of that. But at the same time, while I was at Bosch, we had a corrosion problem on a one particular platform and the solution was to run an additive and they rebranded the Stanine additive as their own this particular oe and sold it for anybody with, with that injector that was having issues And it didn’t fix the problem, but it certainly bandaid it for, you know, whether it was 5,000 miles or 50,000 miles, who knows?

5 (27m 56s):

So my recommendation is run good fuel and you don’t need additives.

Sean P. Holman (28m 1s):

Okay. Now with that being said, is the one caveat are low sulfur, crappy ass fuel here in the United States versus the higher sulfur, more lubricity having, if that’s a correct phrase in Europe, is that contributing to some of the failures of the pumps and things? And if that is the case, do some of the additives on the market, in your opinion, help by adding lubricity back to the fuel?

5 (28m 26s):

Oh boy. There are so many theories on specifically why CP fours have issues. Lubricity being one of them, but don don’t see a lot of evidence of that being a primary failure point.

Sean P. Holman (28m 40s):

Interesting. Okay. It

5 (28m 40s):

Could be, but so on on the, the LM ls, my particular theory on why most of those fail, I have two theories. Inlet restriction being the number one, because we did a lot of CP three conversions on trucks I know had inlet restriction problems and were failing pumps and also debris from, you know, outside sources, even from the fuel filters, non non GM fuel filters getting into the pump. And then it gets, the filter media was getting between the roller and the shoe and stopping the roller from rolling. Oh geez. So just the actual filter media from non, you know, non-GM filters are causing problems with

Sean P. Holman (29m 22s):

GMs. So, so let’s pause that thought for a second because now my next question is going to be everybody in their mom who is a fuel Diesel fuel system expert because of the inter internet, their experience or what Joe down the road told ’em will tell you that the OE filter is a cost cutting filter and you can do better in the aftermarket. My point that is no, usually the OE filters are really good because they’re protecting warranties and investments and things like that. Yes. And a lot of people think, oh, if it’s aftermarket it’s automatically better. And don don’t subscribe to that at all.

5 (29m 59s):

I believe we have a video I, don Dunno if it’s on our YouTube or Facebook or something of an aftermarket filter system that was on a Ford and it was generating, there was water in the fuel, which is a problem. And then the filters were actually rusting sending rust through the system. And because it’s an aftermarket set up and the factory filter was deleted, they had no water and fuel sensor anymore. So they had no idea they even had water in the fuel. So if you want to add filters, I’d keep the stock ones in there too. Extra filters aren’t gonna hurt you any, but don’t get rid of the factory stuff. From my experience, factory fil filtration is very, very

Sean P. Holman (30m 37s):

Good. Okay. I think that’s, that’s a great point to, to put out in the world because I think there’s people who are on the fence and they’re, they just bought a truck or maybe they’re a year or two into it, they still are under warranty and they’re fighting all of the different opinions out there and they’re going, man, I wanna keep this truck forever. Well, I’ve been sticking with the OE filters or I’ve been sticking with this thing, but I really have this want or desire to have something quote unquote better. And I’m not saying that all aftermarket are bad, but there are definitely a, a wide variation in what the actual product is. Oh

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 8s):

Yes. So as an example, I do know we did some extensive testing at Banks when we, we offer an oil cooler kit. We basically retrofit a 2020 to 2023 Durmax oil cooler, and you can put it on your oh, one to 19. So, okay, there, there are more copper plates inside, it’s far better cooling, et cetera, et cetera. so we built, you get the whole thing as a kit. Anyway, we wanted to offer a filter. We were gonna offer a a AC delco filter. And then we said we should test these. Why don’t we, why don’t we test these and see if there’s something better. We found out. so we, we, I I can’t tell you the research that we did, but I will tell you that I have reams and reams of data on this. The best filter for that application is not the AC delco, it’s a Baldwin.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 54s):

According, really, according to our research, bald

5 (31m 57s):

Baldwin makes very good filters. And

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 59s):

You know what was one of the worst?

5 (32m 1s):

The AC Delco? Nope.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32m 4s):

The guy’s running a cat conversion.

5 (32m 7s):

No way. Oh. Yes. Interesting. Yeah. The one that that so many people swear by.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32m 11s):

Yeah. Yes. So there’s a couple of issues and don don’t want to, I don’t want, I gotta be careful about what I say here because there’s some things that are in the works. But I will say that not only is the cat not the best in many cases, at least the ones that we tried, I can’t see for all applications. Obviously that will be stupid. But I would say that in some of the ones that we tested, it’s surprisingly not as good as the factory filter. It does have more, it has more capacity, but you lose, you lose pressure, which is not a good thing. And we also discovered that some of them are not made to be placed at angles that where you, how they’re, so it’s supposed to be one is hung vertical sideways is not bingo.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32m 54s):

Yeah. So what’s happening is you are, you’re collecting the dirt and the debris And, it goes right back into the engine because it’s not settling like it’s supposed to. So there’s Yep. You might be exacerbating the issue. So there’s about to be a campaign, which you’ll see from us at some point that’s explaining some of this stuff. I think it’s gonna be an eyeopener, but I, I want to go back for a second and so we don’t get off track here. Let’s stay kinda linear. We take you through the injectors, the high pressure fuel pump. I haven’t, I didn’t know what a CP three versus a CP four meant. I until someone actually opened it and I saw the lobes and how it worked. It was just, it was not intuitive. Can, you explain to the audience what it actually means.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (33m 34s):

What a CP three versus CP four and why one is self destructo.

5 (33m 39s):

Okay, so the CP three, it’s hard to explain without a whiteboard and a, and a couple markers, but we’ll try. The CP three is a eccentric lobe in a cam with a, they call it a polygon, but it’s basically a triangle that’s on the cam. and then you have what looked like buckets that ride on the flats on that triangle. And then your plunger is on top of that. It’s very, and there’s three of them. So, well obviously the triangle, but it’s, you get very smooth fluid motion. It’s just a very, you don’t get high plunger speed, so you get more leakage. But it’s been a very proven pump as far as that’s how the bottom end would work.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (34m 18s):

So if you were so Andrew wise, so if we were had a whiteboard and you drew a triangle in the middle of that triangle, there’s a whole cut out of it. And that’s where the cam goes. But the cam is off center. So the cam makes this triangle move around in a, in a, in a wobble, think of a, a suspension centric, effectively your

5 (34m 39s):

Flats, your yeah, your flat stay pointing the same direction that they are always. And your plungers would be effectively riding on those. And then as your cam spins around, the triangle is pushing each plunger plunger individually, one at a time, you know, moving them up and down and around. So you get a very smooth pumping motion from the pump. Yeah, low drive torque fluctuations, just a, a really good design.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 4s):

And then the CP four, then

5 (35m 7s):

CP four is a dual lobe cam. And then on the cam you have small rollers. They’re roughly 10 millimeters in diameter inside of a a, they call it a shoe. So instead of like a, a needle bearing with a roller, like the old P pumps would be, that is a pretty reliable setup. It’s this little roller that’s in a encapsulated in what they call a shoe, but it’d be like two thirds of the way around The roller is encapsulated. It’s all fuel lubricated. So you get really high plunger speeds because you’re getting two pumping pulses per revolution out of it. So your plunger has to move twice as fast as it would in a CP three. You get a more efficient pump that way because you have higher plunger speed.

5 (35m 50s):

So there’s less time for leakage. But the bottom end is just, it’s very sensitive to debris. It tends to have issues with a lot of high RPM use. There’s suspicions of problems with low RPM and like startup problems, you know, causing the, the shoe to rotate sideways and then where the, the roller out, that kind of thing. So it’s just in a laboratory setup, in a perfect environment, they’re great, but in the real world they, they just don’t do so hot.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (36m 20s):

So then the failures that we’re hearing about, I think the, the Jeep, the EcoDiesel Jeep community about a month ago had a, like you could hear them if you listen carefully. All 30,000 of went. Yeah. Like they, they all free because just STELLANTIS finally declared a, a recall, basically they said, we’ll we’ll swap out your CP four pump. And I think they were swapping it for CP three and collectively there was a sigh of relief among Jeep owners where

5 (36m 51s):

Thought saw, but they’re not, they’re swapping ’em with another CP four.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (36m 56s):

Oh really?

5 (36m 58s):

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. One of my employees actually has one. And we were, we’ve been waiting ’cause we were working on our, on our bypass kit for that. And then we heard, they recalled ’em. They’re like, well there’s no sense in making a bypass kit if they’re gonna put a CP three on, but it looks like it’s going to be a CP four from everything we’ve seen. So the bypass kit is back on the table for getting made.

Sean P. Holman (37m 22s):

So what is different? Is it materials, is it bearings? Is it, there’s gotta be something that’s different. They’re not gonna put the same, you know, pump out

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (37m 33s):

Or, or would they?

5 (37m 34s):

I haven’t, I haven’t seen, I haven’t seen the new pump yet. But my guess is it has the pinned pin buckets, so the buckets can’t rotate, which in theory should be better. But, you know, it hasn’t necessarily proven to be better in the Ram situation because with the rams, they had non pinned went to pinned and they still recalled them all and put CP threes on.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (37m 58s):

And that was in the hds right? That first happened Yep. In the, yeah,

5 (38m 1s):

That was in the 6 7 20 nineteens.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (38m 3s):

And now when you buy a brand new 2324 HD with a Cummins, it comes with a CP three, correct. Back to CP three. Yeah. Yep.

5 (38m 11s):

Interesting. Back to P three. Yeah. I couldn’t believe they changed so fast. They, they wasted no time in getting the, that engine put back to a CP three.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (38m 21s):

It sounds to me like you’re describing a situation where it’s just so susceptible to debris that you said, like it’s why would they, why would they continue with it? Where it’s dependent on the, the fuel, right? If there’s any fuel issue, any debris in the fuel tank, any water, any, any anything, it’s gonna, it’s gonna cause an issue with that.

5 (38m 43s):

It I mean cost is why they went to it. ’cause the CP three, if you’ve ever looked at those, they are a, a machining masterpiece. They have drills and boars and it’s just, it’s crazy the manufacturing in those and a CP four, when you look at that for manufacturing, it’s a piece of cake, you know, cheap aluminum cast housing, pop a cup of holes in it and away you go.

Sean P. Holman (39m 6s):

Ah. So when we, when we’re talking about CP four and the failure, what is the actual failure that’s happening? Like what, what is the piece? Or let’s say you’re a happy CP four and you’re doing your two pulses and you’re just right and all of a sudden here comes some angry debris, woo. In the fuel stream. What is the sequence of events that takes that sucker out? And then what happens downstream once it goes?

5 (39m 34s):

It’s hard to know exactly what takes out every time. There are a few theories. One would be the debris stops the roller from turning and then it starts sliding in the cam, which starts making lots of metal shavings for you. Another failure mode is a piece of something on the cam. When you go to start the engine, it’ll basically hit that And, it twists the roller and it’ll pop the roller sideways or the shoe the whole tap it sideways and then it starts wearing the cam, the roller in the middle. And we’ve seen failures of those. You know, you get those back in the cam as a big old v cut in the middle of it where the, the roller’s been sitting sideways. But those would be the two, I would say the two most likely causes of failure.

5 (40m 20s):

What happens when it fails? Because of the internal plumbing in the CP four, every bit of metal that is made in that cam box, it’s flowing. Either it tries to flow out the return back to tank. A lot of it makes it, but it also, that that’s where it feeds the metering unit or the IMV. There’s a million different names for that guy on, on top of the pump that goes to your plungers, it goes to the rails. So all that debris is heading right up to your rails, which goes through your injectors. Takes out your injectors. And so it’s complete fuel system when, when the pump dies,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (40m 55s):

And again those holes on the injector that a a, a piece of metal that you might not even be able to detect it on your fingertip. That’s how small they are. That can clog the ports on the fuel injector. The,

5 (41m 7s):

The bigger issue that we see actually isn’t plugging up of the piso injectors on with those applications. It’s eroding out the valve seed. Oh. So your return flow goes high. The the piso injector that comes in the, the lml durmax, which at the CP four, the Ford Scorpion or six seven liter, even the, you know, the EcoDiesel is not EcoDiesel has solenoid injectors. That injector’s an amazing injector. But pump debris will absolutely ruin them.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (41m 34s):

Okay. Well let’s get onto the solution then. You have launched a couple disaster preventions solutions and let’s, let’s go through a couple, I think the, the most recent is the Ford for the Ford six seven the Scorpion. And that is buying a different truck, right? No, he can

5 (41m 50s):

Save That one answer.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (41m 52s):

The

5 (41m 52s):

The problem is there are, if you look at the, the vehicle sold, Ford has the most diesels out there these days. So they’re not losing sales based on the CP four issues. Originally our solution for that, because we couldn’t find a pump that would fit in the valley, the CP three didn’t fit in that engine, was to do a bypass kit to change the, the plumbing. That way when the, the pump did fail, it wouldn’t take out your fuel system. It was an easy containment process. But what would that have been? Well,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 23s):

Hold on Hold on Hold on a second. I don’t understand how you’re bypassing ’cause you just talked about that because of the, the, the, the ports in the CP four, they would send the, they would send the shrapnel in both directions. Well how, how do you, how do you, you’re not putting like a diverter valves or something in there, are you?

5 (42m 41s):

So what we did for, for the bypass kit is we come out of the filter head that’s up on the, you know, driver’s side of the engine and we split the fuel there. so we have the normal path goes right to the, the cam box feeds into there, but we have a TI don’t know, six inches off of, probably four inches off of that filter head. And the other hose goes to a, a block that mounts where your metering unit goes. And the metering unit, it kind of goes between the pump and the metering unit. So you block off the factory flow from the cam box up to the metering unit and we’re feeding it with fresh fuel straight from the filter. Oh,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (43m 19s):

Brilliant.

5 (43m 19s):

And then, and then we also add a return filter. So at the return from the low pressure line, you know the return line on the engine, we go through a Donaldson filter there. It collects all the debris that gets outta the pump with that kit on there. We’ve actually tested it on two of our in-house Fords and ran ’em till, till they wouldn’t run, you know, fuel system’s fine injectors fine everything. We just clean out the return lines, put a new new pump in and away you go.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (43m 49s):

Saves the truck, saves the injectors.

5 (43m 51s):

Yeah, it takes it from a, you know, 10 to $15,000 repair down to putting a pump in. Pretty, pretty cheap at that point in time.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 1s):

This is now what solution do you have for the six seven? so

5 (44m 6s):

We, we wanted to do a different pump for a long time, but nothing that was on the market would fit. But the Stanine DCR is a, it’s a horizontally opposed two cylinder pump. It’s a very ingenious bottom end. It actually fits in the valley, the six seven. so we, we teamed up with Pure power, which is part of Stanine to get that pump into the 6, 7 4, get a whole kit together, no tuning required, carb compliant, the whole nine yards. We have it currently released up through 2019, I believe the last year for 2000 for the 2000 bar system. It will be released for up through current production.

5 (44m 49s):

As soon as we get our new high pressure lines in. We had a little, a little clearance issue on those on the original release, but as soon as we get the new lines in, it’ll be good through current production. So, but that pump is, yeah, it’s, it’s proven to be a very good pump. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (45m 5s):

And and Stanine for those who don’t know, have, have been around for they’re an o long time. They’re an OE supplier. So, it’s not like some Yep. Chinese company that’s making something that just looks

Sean P. Holman (45m 15s):

Similar out of Chinese,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (45m 17s):

Out of Chinese museum. No, no. It’s, it’s the, it’s a real deal.

5 (45m 20s):

They’re known for making mechanical pumps that will eat just garbage fuel and keep on going. So, and from that reputation, they built their common rail pump and we’ve actually, we had one of our pilot vehicles, that’s the guy that had the aftermarket filtration system with the corrosion little water and fuel. His truck started running funny. And what did it do? It set a low pressure rail or low pressure supply code, something like that. But we got in to look at it And, it was just full of water. Oh

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (45m 51s):

My God. so

5 (45m 52s):

We, we, we did not replace anything in the system. We put the pump back in that ran on water. It has all the injectors that ran on water. We had to take the screen off of the DRV and the rail ’cause it was all plugged up and rusted. So, but put the whole thing back together and he’s still going. So Wow. That pump is, it’s proven to be able to eat water quite well. I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m not gonna warranty something on water, but it can certainly do It

Sean P. Holman (46m 21s):

Is that a, a close related cousin to the fish carburetor.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (46m 28s):

So for less than two grand you can convert your potential grenade to a seat. A-A-D-C-R pump. Yep. That is gonna prevent your truck from, from dying on you. It’s, that’s the about the best insurance you’re gonna get.

5 (46m 43s):

Oh yeah. And from, from what everything I’ve seen on the Fords, that’s the only thing you need to do on those to make them extremely reliable on any, any of the newer ones anyway, the first couple years they had some, you know, valve seed issues and that, and turbo issues, but since then that engine has been just a really solid package. So get rid of the, get rid of the factory pump and you’re good to go.

Sean P. Holman (47m 5s):

I, I’m going to assume that because you have a company that supports all of the, the truck manufacturers that you have no biases whatsoever in your, in your truck diesel loving life and oh man,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 20s):

Here it comes.

Sean P. Holman (47m 21s):

If you had to recommend somebody, what is the most reliable out of the box, out of the big three today?

5 (47m 30s):

Oh,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 30s):

Now you’re talking Holman. You, you’re talking about if someone won the lottery and they’re gonna buy a 23 or 24,

5 (47m 35s):

They’re gonna buy a brand new truck. They’re

Sean P. Holman (47m 36s):

Buying a brand new truck. And everybody, because we have plenty of listeners go, listen, I’m not brand loyal. I like ’em all, they’re all great trucks. Which one should I get? I I’m not gonna tow at 10 tens, I’m probably gonna tow at Sixten. So they all meet my towing requirement. They all meet my power requirement. They all meet everything I need. I I’m, I’m the average everyday customer that’s not gonna use it to the extreme. I just want a, a good truck that’s gonna last me 10 or 15 years. Yeah.

5 (48m 1s):

So I I’ll, I’ll admit my bias to start with. I, I’m, I’m a I’m a Duramax guy. I love, I love my duramax, but if I was going to recommend a truck, oh,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 16s):

Oh man, I know it’s

Sean P. Holman (48m 17s):

Hard. I knew. I, I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 18s):

Figured Wait a minute, Hold on a second. Why are you so, he says, I’m a Durmax guy, but he’s leaning toward, there’s no, he is gonna choose a ramp. There’s I mean there’s no way he’s, he’s leaning towards a Ford. It’s

Sean P. Holman (48m 28s):

Gotta be and it’s gonna hurt his soul. And

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 29s):

By the way, they’re both v eights, So I. Wonder why one V eight versus the other. And unless I’m totally wrong and he chooses to come, there’s no way he’s choosing the

Sean P. Holman (48m 36s):

Cums. Let’s see. There’s just no way. Well Hold on, Hold on. I did, I did put the caveat on there. All the trucks meet his requirements. So you’re not towing at 10 tenths up a grade and all. You’re the, you’re the average fat middle of the customer.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 47s):

But he’s a performance guy. I get it. Cu cums, let’s let him answer. Cummins is so fricking slow out of the hole.

Sean P. Holman (48m 52s):

You know, I mean, let’s let him answer,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 53s):

Grown a beard faster. You can get to 60,

Sean P. Holman (48m 55s):

Let’s let him answer

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 57s):

All. right, Hold on a second. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Don’t, don’t answer yet. Hold on a second. I got

5 (49m 2s):

All, right.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (49m 5s):

All. right. So Andrew, if you had to choose one of the big three, what’ll it be?

5 (49m 14s):

I’d go for the Ford High output. I, the, the, the Rams. I don’t know that I trust the hydraulic lifters in that engine yet. They’ve had enough issues with that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (49m 26s):

And there’s no problems with the, there’s, there’s no issues with the grid heaters in those either.

Sean P. Holman (49m 31s):

Ouch.

5 (49m 33s):

Ouch.

Sean P. Holman (49m 34s):

There’s a bunch of cums guys that are cringing right now. Send the hate mail to Lightning at truck. Show Podcast. I love the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (49m 42s):

Truck. I just don’t love the issues. Yeah. So, you know, the, the, the high output with 1200 pound feet of torque as you drive off the dealer lot

Sean P. Holman (49m 51s):

Is that Yeah. Is that amazing to you guys though, that in the span of 10 years, Cummins went from being the end all be all most reliable, wouldn’t choose anything else and Ford and GM have upped the, the reputation so much that it’s actually a difficult choice as to which power plant is best. Yeah. And it was pretty, pretty amazing.

5 (50m 13s):

The trans, the transmission thing Yeah. Really gave team an advantage with the, with the durex

Sean P. Holman (50m 17s):

Hundred percent. I, I think that if they would’ve put that eight speed ZF in the, behind the, the Cummins of the six speed Isen, which there was a truck, a prototype or a few that existed, that completely changes the Cummins in being able to grab those extra gears and not, you know, not be able not have to, you know, run out of rrp m climbing grades into those things

5 (50m 43s):

And not drive like a semi-truck, but actually drive like a little bit sportier, I guess. Sure. You know, that’s the thing with the the, the GMs and the Fords now is, they actually shift quick, but the, the rams aren’t, aren’t quite as speedy.

Sean P. Holman (50m 56s):

I mean there was a time, but they kind of have fallen behind. Like I love the Rams so much good stuff. Interior, the tech, the ride on a lot of ’em. Oh on a lot of ’em. All of that stuff. But yeah. Yeah, the powertrain, I isn’t the the best out there anymore. It’s damn good. Yeah. And for most people, they’re going to love that truck and I still love that truck. But there are, you know, depending on your use case, better choices out there. I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (51m 22s):

Have towed with all three with the 2020 Ram. We have an ho I’ve towed, I haven’t towed with the Ho Ford yet, but I’ve towed with our 2022 cross country pulling the trailer. And I’ve towed with our 2020 Denali, our, our GMC with the, with the Durmax. And the best one that towed was the Ford. The one that acted the strangest at altitude was the Ram constantly hunting for gears was the oddest thing. We put 30 sevens on it. I’m sure that messed with it a little bit.

Sean P. Holman (51m 50s):

Oh yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (51m 51s):

I’m sure it did. But it just, it was annoying. People who’s hunting for gears

Sean P. Holman (51m 56s):

Nonstop. People think you don’t need a regear when you go 30 sevens are bigger. Oh, I’ve been driving that. I don’t need re Oh. no, you need a regear. Again,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (52m 3s):

Again, I’m not, not saying that we shouldn’t have, but boy and And it wasn’t great be beforehand. It

Sean P. Holman (52m 8s):

Worse. But that’s mean, it’s, it’s not apples to apples. They were not stock trucks. Correct. So. Correct. So that’s good to put that out there. Yeah.

5 (52m 12s):

The one thing I don’t like on the Fords is you about have to put airbags on ’em to pull a trailer from the factory. ’cause they squat so bad. At least the ones we have. I don’t know if somebody took leaves out of ours before we bought ’em or something, but my, my 15 duramax versus our two Fords, you put the same trailer on ’em and the, the Fords just squat way worse. Well,

Sean P. Holman (52m 36s):

And I would say the Fords ride a little bit better, whereas the GMs ride like pretty much ass when they’re unloaded and the GMs tend to ride pretty nice with a load on em. And I used to joke that the Yeah, that might be part of it. Yeah. And I used to joke that it was all the dry back drawbacks of IFS and none of the benefits because they, they were so, at least the ones, the current generation and we’ll, we’re gonna get into this ’cause I just drove the 20 Fords, but prior to that they were not, you know, for IFS they didn’t ride very well, but with a trailer on it, they’re, they’re pretty damn nice. But one of the things I’ve always liked about Durmax and don don’t know if Ford does this yet, because I, I honestly, I haven’t driven one of the new ones in, in a while, but Duramax has always allowed you the over rev feature for grabbing a gear.

Sean P. Holman (53m 23s):

So if you’re high in your RPM range coming down a hill, you don’t have to stab your service brakes. You can grab the next lower gear and the duramax will allow you a short window of over rev so that you can get into that lower gear. And that was something that towing is really nice to have because you’re not on your service brakes and Oh yeah. Saving that overhead of, of heating and thermal performance for when you need it.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (53m 46s):

I though, I I the durmax has the worst of the exhaust breaks by far. Yeah. The Cummins has the best, the best for a second. The, yeah, the Durmax is like, it’s not even there. It does, it doesn’t, you can’t feel it. You can’t hear it. It’s almost like you’re, you’re hitting, I literally in, in three different trucks, I was pushing the bug going It is anything happening? And I was relying on the brakes the whole time. Yeah. It just, It is so lightweight and you know, the 24 they went with heavier duty springs valve springs to, to help that a little bit.

5 (54m 14s):

I have a 24 and the exhaust break is way better than on my LML. Yeah. which is a, a 15,

Sean P. Holman (54m 19s):

It’s almost like they felt like they had to have the feature because Ford and Ram did. And it, it wasn’t something that they necessarily had planned for It is kind of how it felt to me in the early ones. ’cause otherwise they would’ve been more aggressive or Yeah. It, it was something that, you know, they added late in the program and they kept it soft because they didn’t want to have any valve train issues or anything like that. Or turbo issues or, or what was already specked was already specked. Something like that I’m sure happened. Because you’re right, the, the VGT style exhaust break on that is not, is not as good as forward. Like you push the forward and, and you know, something that you push the Ram and you can hear it and you’re like, yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 2s):

So I. I wanted to loop back around to SNS ss diesel.com. Some of the other services you guys offer. You do rebuild injectors. Correct. For the common man?

5 (55m 13s):

We don’t, we don’t usually rebuild them, but we will repair people’s injectors as long as they’re not too far gone. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 20s):

I. I guess that’s where I wanted to ask you.

5 (55m 22s):

Send them in for testing. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 24s):

So Andrew, I wanted to find out like, at what point do I buy injectors because they’re freaking expensive or repair them. I don’t know where, how do you draw that line?

5 (55m 35s):

Depends on what we’re seeing in ’em. If, if we get ’em, we test them and they’re, you know, they, they function okay. But we have some solenoid issues putting new solenoids on, it’s not a big deal. Even putting new nozzles on It is not a big deal when it comes to, if we’re putting new valve groups in, at that point in time, you’re gonna be, it’s gonna be more cost effective for you to get a new set than to have us repair ’em now. You know, we’re just not set up for that.

Sean P. Holman (56m 0s):

A a customer might not know that. Right. Sending it in. Will you call the customer and say, Hey listen, these things are too far gone. Here’s your options. Yeah, we give them,

5 (56m 8s):

We give ’em a whole bunch of options. Like there’s the, there’s the get back on the road and have, you know, reliability for X amount of time or there’s the, you know, the solution that’s gonna last you a long time so we can talk ’em through their options on that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (56m 21s):

So you offer a whole bevy of services. I, it’s not just high pressure fuel pumps and injectors. So you’ve got, you’ve got all ax Cummins, Powerstroke, even BMW, fuel injectors, fuel pumps, fuel systems, electronics. The breadth of the company has grown over time. Where did you start and where do you want SNS to get to?

5 (56m 43s):

Oh boy. We started with primarily a performance focus. Like we were most interested in doing the racing and we did basically replacement parts just to help pay the bills and fund the fun stuff. As we grew, we saw more and more the regulations were getting stricter and the government was getting, you know, cracking down on people that were doing tuning. So we’re like, we need to, to diversify, we need to focus more on carb compliance solutions. Let’s work on durability improvements. So that’s when we started actually our first carb EO number was for the LML CP three conversion. Also getting rid of a CP four ironically.

5 (57m 24s):

But yeah, that would’ve been in 2014 is when we started working on that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (57m 31s):

Okay. So and that has been a, that’s been wildly successful for you, right? Oh

5 (57m 35s):

Yeah, yeah. We, what do we sell? 80 to a hundred a month? Something like that. A bunch of those. A bunch of those.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (57m 44s):

And those are new pumps? Or you take a Bosch pump and you redo it?

5 (57m 50s):

We take a new Bosch pump and redo it.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (57m 53s):

Gotcha.

5 (57m 54s):

So we get a new, a new CP three, basically the, the L-B-Z-L-M-M CP three and then we’re modifying from there to make a drop in replacement that, you know, meets emissions, no tuning required, just bolt in and go.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (58m 8s):

And a lot of these will support huge horsepower as well. So you can take an SNS quote, unquote drop in replacement that has a carbo. And if you did wanna tune the truck, if you actually were gonna put it in a race vehicle, you can get I mean Some of these support up to 3000 horsepower. Is that correct?

5 (58m 25s):

We are, I’m actually building a pump stand now to be able to test our newest pump. That’s a little, it’s a little V eight. And we’re, we have that on the prototype on an engine that’s almost 3,700 horsepower.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (58m 40s):

Whoa.

5 (58m 41s):

With a single pump. How do

Sean P. Holman (58m 43s):

You

5 (58m 43s):

Do So? I? I think, I think, I think it’s, I think it’s 4,000 horse capable. Maybe a little more, but that’s gonna be about it for that pump. But yeah. Holy crap. I’m trying to get the test test bench together to be able to run that thing. ’cause we have quite a few of ’em. We need to be getting out there. So,

Sean P. Holman (58m 58s):

So speaking of test bench, some of the other services that you offer are for testing and development and also engineering consulting. And I, I, the reason I bring those up is not because our listeners necessarily are gonna be that customer, but the fact that you offer that you have that engineering acumen inside the business and what you guys do requires such a high level of engineering ability because of the precision of the products. Whether it’s the pump, whether it’s the injectors. I think it’s important for people to know it’s a legit engineering company. Really.

5 (59m 33s):

Oh yeah, yeah. I mean myself and my business partner are both engineers by, by degree. You know, we, I was what, 10 years at Bosch? He was eight or nine years at Cummins. So it’s yeah, definitely a engineering background. We not very good as far as salespeople go, but technically we’re really good. So,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (59m 55s):

Well So I was gonna send people to SNS to ss diesel.com but to buy their, their CP three conversion or their CP four disaster prevention kit. But you sell only through dealers, is that correct? I’m seeing that’s correct. Yeah. Now why you could make more money if you sold direct to people or you just don’t want the hassle because you’re not good salesman.

Truck Show Podcast is a production of truck famous LLC. This podcast was created by Sean Holman and Jay Tillis with production elements by DJ Omar kh. If you like what you’ve heard, please open your Apple podcast or Spotify app and give us a five star rating. And if you’re a fan, there’s no better way to show your support than by patronizing our sponsors. Some vehicles may have been harmed during the making of this podcast.