 |
| See full screen photo and videos at The Drive. |
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
