Diesel Tuner's Blog

You bought a diesel truck because you value power, fuel economy, towing capabilities and long-term durability. However when it comes to modern diesel trucks, performance seekers often face a dilemma: how to enhance power and efficiency while keeping emissions systems intact. With increasing regulations and the desire for cleaner performance, finding a solution that strikes a balance is crucial. Enter Calibrated Power's Emissions In-Tact Custom Tuning—the ultimate upgrade for your diesel truck that ensures you get the best of both worlds.

Unleashing Hidden Potential Without Compromising Emissions

Calibrated Power's Emissions In-Tact Custom Tuning is specifically designed to optimize the performance of your diesel truck while keeping all emissions systems fully operational. This means you can enjoy improved power, torque, and fuel efficiency without the need to remove or tamper with your truck’s emissions equipment.

Balancing Performance, Heat, and Reliability

Hold a cigarette lighter up to your thumb for a split second, and you can probably tolerate it.  Hold a lighter up to your thumb for 5 seconds, and you'll probably want to get the ice water ready.  During those 5 seconds you're quickly using up your thumb's heat buffer.  This parallels exactly what happens inside your engine when pulling up a grade at GVW or passing on the highway.  Your engine has been well engineered with heat transfer pathways, designed to dissipate heat from the 'front lines' the same way the blood in your veins moves heat away from your skin in the cigarette lighter experiment.  In the performance realm we are mainly concerned with 2 elements of these pathways, the first is the amount of heat the system can hold and the second is how quickly the system can move heat from the source. 

"Your engine has well engineered heat transfer pathways to dissipate heat . . ." 

The Duramax engine has a history that runs deep.  It has the following still to this day and continues to up expectations in terms of power and everything else. While it's history stretches back to 1982, we are going discuss the more modern years. The 6.6L was introduced in 2001 and replaced the 6.5L and the company hasn't looked back since.

2001 - 2004.5 LB7

The 5.9L Cummins engine has been regarded as revolutionary and has a ton of fans that backed it in its heyday. It's history is even more impressive, we're going to talk about the engine's run from 1989-2007. 

1989 - 1993 

The Cummins engine had been successful in agriculture implements for a few years prior, so in 1989 Cummins and Chrysler introduced the 12 valve as an alternative the the V8 gas powered Dodge.  It was a hit immediately for those that wanted double the torque and a better option for fuel economy.  These diesel powered trucks were introduced stock with a 160 horsepower rating.  The truck was very simple.  Between 1989-1991 they offered a non-intercooled, turbocharged, and a three-speed automatic transmission, as well as a five-speed manual transmission option. Interestingly it had a rotary style mechanical injection pump.  These were the reason the truck was fuel efficient, but also why the truck lacked power. Another interesting point is how the original injectors were bigger than the next variation which arrived in '91.5.  The updated 12 valve now came with smaller injectors, a larger turbocharger, Cummins would introduce an intercooler to the truck, and the automatic transmission now came equipped with overdrive.  

What is "Cost Per Horsepower"?

Cost Per Horsepower is a simple way to display and measure the cost-effectiveness of automotive performance upgrades.

In practice, this term is probably more often used to prove someone has wasted money on a specific upgrade or the purchase of an entire vehicle.  For the purpose of this article, we are going to assume the vehicle in question is either a Duramax, Cummins, or Power Stroke diesel truck.