Glad to be a part of Competition Diesel. We have been browsing the sight for a little over a year now and finally decided to join. Thought you guys may find our #lildebbie build interesting. Lil Debbie, our 1997 freightliner mt35 box truck, was purchased in August of 2016 and has since been transformed into a “race truck”. Term used very loosely. The original plan was to do some minor upgrades on the 4bt as a running test platform for the future swap into a Ford Excursion with maybe 300 hp. It would have been a nice commuter/daily driver that would seat 7 comfortably and get decent fuel mileage. We have about 6 years of experience running motor oil and vegetable oil in 2 different 12v trucks and thought this would be a great way to have a nicer vehicle with a motor that will still run the oil. With that we decided to install some 4k governing springs, AFC live from Powerdriven Diesel and bump the timing up to around 22* of timing. This was the first time we had real experience with the AFC Live and man what a difference it made. With just these few simple upgrades it felt like an entirely different truck. Probably the most gain with the least amount of money to date and can be attributed mostly to the AFC Live. Shortly after we installed the upgrades we posted a video online, which gained the interest of Will Terry aka bigblue24v part owner of Powerdriven Diesel. Will proceeded to convince us that we needed more upgrades and run it down the dragstrip, now who can argue with that? One thing lead to another and now we are currently attempting to race it and break into the 13 sec ¼ mile range with #lildebbie. Which with a 4bt and an 8000 lbs box truck may be wishful thinking.
And the build begins. First thing we did was contact bigblue24 about what we should get for some power adders. We ended up acquiring some 5x.012 injectors and some 7mm delivery valve from PDD to see how they would do in the little 4bt. Following that we had to get some bigger piping and an intake horn from the local big rig junk yard. That gave us some 3 in intercooler pipes, 4 in exhaust pipes, 6bt intake horn and an assortment of clamps and intercooler boots (nothing better than some junkyard boots). We then fabricated intercooler pipes to mount to a 6.oh intercooler laying around the garage that could finally be used on a real motor. We also installed a pyro and boost gauge to monitor the engine a little bit. And then the most important part was getting rid of the tiny hx25 turbo and replacing it with a “rebuilt” WH1C off of a chicken truck sitting in the woods.
Intake horn.jpg
Intake horn comparison
intercooler comparison.jpg
Intercooler comparison stock vs 6.oh
intercooler pipe comparison.jpg
2.5 in intercooler pipe compared to 3 in junk yard pipe
Turbo Comparison.jpg
Hx25 compared to WH1C
single turbo.jpg
WH1C mounted on stock manifold
We then decided we would see if the intake boot we had would hold up to the amount of boost the hx35 was putting out and that didn’t go so well.
blown boot.jpg
As you can see in the picture it blew apart at the seams, sending a shockwave through the truck, busted the plastic power steering reservoir and scared the crap out of both of us. With that lesson learned, we refabricated the intercooler pipes so that there are only straight boots on the entire system, replaced with a steel reservoir. Then off to the strip we went to see what all of the upgrades actually did. As soon as we got to the dragstrip the crew was definitely skeptical about letting our bread truck taking a pass down the NHRA sponsored strip (no joke it was a wonder bread truck). Reluctantly they passed it through tech. Probably the only bread truck to have gone through tech at the Atlanta Dragway and probably the last time. Not surprisingly it laid down a blazing fast 23 sec ¼ mile. More to come #followthebuild.
#lildebbie - YouTube
First video of #lildebbie untouched
#lildebbie box truck 4bt - YouTube
After the AFC Live, 4k springs and timing
#lildebbie first time at the track - YouTube
#lildebbie first time at track