First Impressions: Whacked Out Diesel Rat Rod

See full screen photo and videos at The Drive.

A rat rod is a custom car with a deliberately worn-down, unfinished appearance, typically lacking paint, showing rust, and made from cheap or cast-off parts. In the rat rod scene the cars are as unique as snowflakes, each reflecting the eccentricities of its owner. That's what makes the rat pack so much fun. 

One other common denominator in this automotive genre: every vehicle has a story. 

Last week Caleb Jacobs of The Drive posted a story about a very cool Chevy drag truck named Burnie.  The name itself is a story, which we'll return to shortly. 

The truck's own, Robert Berry, has his sights set on becoming the fastest 2-wheel drive, street legal diesel truck in the world. Yes, that's an ambitious goal, but he's clearly marking a path to get there, learning the ins and outs of nitrous, and all the other tricks he can from others who have been in active pursuit of diesel drag records. 

The opening line in Caleb Jacobs' story on Burnie is clever. "Old trucks should never die—they should just be repurposed," he writes, and then admonishes us each to do our part to keep cool old trucks from being turned into scrap.

The aim of this story, besides highlighting features of a very cool truck, is to dissect what it takes to create a top-notch record-breaking drag truck. The world, Jacobs says, needs more eight-second trucks. Here is what Berry Builds has done with Burnie.

The power plant is a 5.9-liter Cummins built by Industrial Injection, a diesel shop located in Utah with a gold star reputation. "It runs a compound turbo setup with an 88-millimeter Garrett GT55 on one side and a BorgWarner 7378 on the other, helping it pull 1,283 horsepower on a dyno without nitrous." That's a pretty solid foundation as a starting point, but add in the Nitrous Express system with 46-136 and you've got a screamer. "Pair that with Burnie's dual FASS Fuel CP3 delivery systems," Jacobs adds, "and it's getting plenty of sauce to fly down the strip."

The name Burnie has a double meaning. Drag racers love doing the burn-out thing. Builders, however, dislike it when things catch fire inside the truck. Evidently there were rats nests in the truck that caught fire when Berry Builds first started working on it. (Remember, this was a 1945 Chev that must have had a stretch of downtime before its resurrection and renovation.)

One of the main obstacles to achieving record-setting paces on the track is traction. This rod has a Moser M88 rear end with 45-spline axles designed to harness the power which has been channeled through a Goerend-built 48RE tranny. Even so, they've had trouble getting their 17-inch-wide Hoosier drag slicks to hook up. Sigh. 

Burnie had a "best time" of 8.90 seconds at Tulsa Raceway. Jacobs says the time could have been better had the windshield not been sprayed with fuel while rocketing down the track. 

It's noteworthy that Burnie is street legal. Every effort is being made to get the truck down into the 7s, but whether successful or not, this rod is guaranteed to turn heads wherever it goes. 

Related Links

1,283 -HP Chevy Diesel Rat Rod Truck Runs 8s and Is Still Street Legal

More Stories by Caleb Jacobs

Page of Images Featuring Burnie  

'58 Oldsmobile 88 Diesel Rat Rod Lowrider Makes Waves on Social Media

1958 Olds, getting the Rat Rod treatment.

The SoCal street rod scene has deep roots stretching back seven decades. Through the medium of Hollywood, street rodding became a transcontinental phenomenon. 

During that evolution, car collectors invested increasing amounts of time and money into creating pristine showcase vehicles that are strikingly beautiful. Just as a few of today's billionaires compete in a rich man's space race, so we've found others who seek out premiere builders to win them awards. "Whatever it costs, I want you to win me a Ridler Award." 

It was against this backdrop of perfection and prestige that the rat rod scene emerged. Instead of seeing who could spend the most money to re-create the perfect dream car from the past, rat rods allowed wrench-turners and welders to focus on creative self-expression. You didn't have to worry about a perfect paint job. In fact, the grittier the better.

A lowrider look is the final vision for this build.

What caught our eye about this rat rod build featured at autoevolution.com was how they dropped a diesel engine into a 1958 Oldsmobile 88. Those were the days when an auto body was truly substantial. Some cars were built like a tank. Fuel was abundant and cheap. Style took precedence over aerodynamics. Fuel economy wasn't even a consideration.

According to the article by Aurel Niculescu, the 88 as a brand was born in 1949 and had a 50 year lifespan. Some considered the late Fifties era to be a forerunner to the 60's Muscle Car era.

The car featured in this story was created by THD Performance. (THD is short for True Horsepower Diesel.) The author notes that THD specializes in all things diesel, including Cummins swaps and fabrication. It's obvious they have fun in the Rat Rod realm as well. 

Now that we live in the social media age, it's no longer good enough to create a car and use it for local cruising. Which leads to the next part of this story. THD Performance asked Dom Höst, a pixel artist, to make a dream version of what they were intending to create so they could share it on Instagram.

There weren't a lot of details posted, other than the fact that it's likely to be powered with a Cummins diesel. The author speculates it will likely be mated with a twin-turbo companion kit. 

If you want to see some very cool builds, you should check out their gallery on Instagram Do a search and you will find them at truehorsepowerdiesel. 

The original article about the build can be found here at Autoevolution.  

Follow THD Performance on Facebook here.

Here's another build they've been working on at THD.

Do you have a cool diesel ride that you're proud of an want to share? Tell us about it in the Comments section and leave your contact info. We'd like to see it and share it here.

Diesel Vehicle of the Week: 2-Stroke Monster Truck Rat Rod on the Wild Side

Steve Darnell gets dreamy about his Diesel 2-stroke.

While scrolling through sites looking for a worthy candidate to be Diesel Vehicle of the Week I came across this YouTube video of a most unusual creature, a 2-stroke Monster Rat Rod. The rat rod's builder, Steve Darnell, is founder of Welder Up, now in the limelight on the Discovery channel's show "Vegas Rat Rods." This Brit is also into dirt bikes. 

He thought there might be a way to tie in his truck concept to the vintage two-stroke bikes he rides. He designed the truck to be used to haul dirt bikes to interesting locations and trails.

This is what an original 1958 Chev Apache looks like.

What he decided to do was drop a Detroit Diesel 2-stroke engine into a 1958 Chevy Apache. It's an homage to 2-stroke dirt bikes and the history of the motorcycle. The video I found details the story of this build and its unique features. "2-strokes are always fun," Steve says at the beginning of this story.

There are pros and cons to dropping a 2-stroke engine into a truck. First, they do not produce a lot of horsepower and torque, and this one is a bit under-horsepowered. But it's functional and very reliable. Because of their reliability they were used in trucks, boats, pumps and tanks in WW2 and Vietnam.

Another problem for these old motors is the matter of engine runaway. The term runaway is exactly that. There's enough heat in the engine to cause preignition and it keeps accelerating until the engine fails. This was a serious problem for vintage motorcycles. One solution, to prevent that, was an air shutoff, which is effective because ignition power is generated by the air-fuel mix.

After describing what he's created, the camera draws in close to show what's under the hood, which has been cut away to make room for the turbos. It's a V-6 with an intercooler-radiator combo that he calls "confusing, but it looks cool."

Cue up intense guitar music and we get footage of the best clawing through rugged terrain. The drone camera work adds a nice touch there on the mountainside.

Darnel says he and his sidekick Merlin first started thinking about this truck when they were in Big Sky country. For sure it's always fun to be paid to do what you love. Kudos to the whole team at Welder Up.

Related Links

See several other whacked out Welder Up builds here.

YouTube video in which Steve Darnell talks about his Monster Truck Rat Rod. 

Rat Rod Selected For Hot Wheels Immortality

When I was in college a friend of mine went to Utah and came back driving a 1949 Nash. That's a car you don't see every day, though if you watch old movies that take place in the early 50s you'll catch 'em. We were in the East so it was quite a haul. The primary feature for my friend was that the car had no rust. Utah is dry.

This memory came to mind when I read this story about Greg Salzillo's Rat Rod that had been selected at last year's SEMA to become a Hot Wheels toy. In his case it's a 1957 Nash Metropolitan. Salzillo's custom car shop, Speedtech Performance, is also located in Utah. St. George in the Southwest corner, to be specific, just North of the Grand Canyon. It's a beautiful part of the world in any direction. And the best part, for a car builder like Salzillo, Highway 95 gives him a straight shot to Las Vegas and on to the City of Angels.

I think it's cool the way Hot Wheels, a company whose reputation was built around toys for boys, is an active participant in SEMA, the world where grown up boys live out their childhood dreams. (Reminder: Registration is open for Virtual SEMA 2020.)

The article I saw had been written by Hollie Stark. It begins, "On a sunny mid-week morning, a 1957 Nash Metropolitan sits outside Speedtech Performance, a renowned custom car and aftermarket suspension and chassis shop on River Road in St. George."

Not everyone knows what rat rods are, so Stark makes sure to describe that specific category for non-enthusiasts. Classic car collectors try to re-create their dream 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s cars, spending oodles of dollars to win awards if possible. There are people who will spend a million dollars, or two, on a single car. 

The rat rod scene became the "poor man's playhouse." That is, the goal was creativity, imagination and straight up fun. Hence Salzillo names his car the "Nashole" and dresses it up with massive white sidewalls. The color scheme matches that classic Sixties turquoise and sour cream white that was popular 60 years ago.

In actuality, the only real relationship between the Nashole and a Nash is the body. Everything else from the Nash was removed and the body was placed on a custom chassis with a small block Chevy engine. 

No, it's not even a diesel, and it shouldn't even be featured on the Blue Flame Diesel site here, but it's cool. Follow the links below to find some classy Diesel Rat Rods.

You can read the full article here. 

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Pinterest wall with page full of Diesel Rat Rod Ideas

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The photo was used without permission. My aim is to draw attention to the original story where there are scads of additional photos.