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.