During the month of April 1994, Bill Jones, owner-operator of a Kenworth Conventional powered by a high performance NTC BCIII 400 Cummins called Diesel Injection and asked if we have ever heard of Lucas Fuel treatment. My answer was "no but why do you ask"? Bill stated that his friend tried 1 gallon in his 400 CAT and after 100 miles of driving felt an improvement in the performance of his engine. Bill's Kenworth has all of the necessary gauges to monitor a performance engine and he has a steady haul of bark mulch from Montreal to Boston. His trailer is 45 ft long, had ribbed sides, triaxle and a walking floor. Certainly not an easy pulling unit. Bill tried 1 gallon of the Lucas Fuel treatment and also noticed a power increase after approximately 100 miles of driving. Bill's manifold pressure increased by 2 to 3 lbs, his pyrometer was 50 deg. cooler and he pulled the hills one half gear higher than he did before.

This seemed like a truck stop story to me. However, Bill Jones from Manchester, New Hampshire is an outstanding mechanic and is very well respected by the owner-operators he works for. He trucks and wrenches. This way he never gets bored.

With this kind of recommendation I had to call Forrest Lucas in Riverside, California to find out what was in this treatment. I ordered one case, 4 gallons, at $17.99 per gallon. I gave one gallon to my brother for his 444XT and the next day he called and said that his engine was also running better. When he ran out of Lucas Fuel treatment he felt a loss of power and response.

Prior to the recession, my brother was an assistant golf pro. He understands golf clubs, not engines. For him to feel an improvement in response was surprising to me. My Dodge Cummins pickup now performs as it did with high sulfur fuel.

One gallon of Lucas fuel treatment will condition 400 gallons of diesel fuel. At $17.99 per gallon, it costs 4 cents per gallon to treat your fuel. My feeling is as follows: with this conditioner you will gain approximately 5% fuel mileage, which saves you 20 gallons of fuel every 400 used. At $1.00 per gallon your fuel savings will be $20.00 minus the $16.95 for the conditioner, or a total savings of $3.05 every 2100 miles driven, or approximately $158.60 per year. Forget the savings, I like the fact that my engine responds once again. Call us at 724-274-4080, try 1 case for $71.96 plus U.P.S. and call me with your opinions of this product.

Now for horsepower: Engine timing, you must retard the timing as the horsepower increases. Lower the compression ratio, increase injector flow, increase fuel pressure, retard the timing and increase the manifold pressure. That is the formula for increased horsepower and must always be followed. Now here's the problem. A lot of owner-operators that do their own mechanical work are not taking the time to retard the timing. They are doing everything else correctly except the timing. I realize that it's a lot of extra work when doing an in chassis rebuild. However, it's the most critical part of the horsepower formula for engine life. With stock timing the engine will be extremely responsive and great for drag racing. However, piston life will be greatly reduced. Retard the timing for piston life!

Air Cleaners: Now is the time to completely remove your air intake system for a thorough cleaning and inspection. Look for salt corrosion and rust on the air cleaner housing, especially on the inside. Wash the aluminum piping and rubber elbows and spray the inside with lubriplate white grease. The white grease will eliminate corrosion on the inside and hold any dirt that gets past the air filter. The cleaning should be performed at least once a year. Also, grease the aluminum piping where the rubber elbow fits over the piping.

The removal of air from Diesel Fuel: Charles Ekstam and his invention, the Fuel Preperator, continues to do wonderful things for the performance of diesel engines. We have installed for systems this past month and the owners are very pleased with performance and smoothness of the engine. It's truly amazing that the engineers at the diesel engine companies in the United States haven't designed a system to remove the air from fuel. They have known for many years that fuel oil was 2 to 3 percent air by volume. It's amazing what a sharp mechanical minded owner-operator can develop while driving down the highway. The Fuel Preperator comes with a 100% money back guarantee if you're not completely satisfied. Remember: Life is too short to drive slow trucks!!!!!!

Now for horsepower and torque:

If your in the market for a used truck the price is generally lower if the engine is an NTC 354, 400, or 444 with STC (step timing control). These engines are great once they have been properly tuned up. Increasing the flow from the injectors and increasing the pressure from the pump. These STC engines will fly. What is so incredible about the STC engine is how long it lives. We have never had a failure, regardless of the horsepower, from one of these engines.

Please keep in mind that the vibration damper on the front of your crankshaft is supposed to be changed every 380,000 miles. The following is list of what the damper saves in your engine: crankshafts from cracking and breaking, excessive bearing wear, excessive gear wear, broken accessory drive shafts, broken flywheel bolts, broken camshafts and reduced fuel mileage. Always replace the damper with the largest one available. We sell the highest horsepower damper for $490.00 brand new, no exchange.

What’s hot? Turbo boots, a simple little item that keeps the heat in the turbine housing which in turn causes the turbo to spin faster. Its hard for me to believe that after building high performance Cummins diesel engines for 22 years that something so simple can do so much. By keeping the heat in the turbine housing the turbo boost increases, you will have more power at 1500 and 1600 rpm, and less smoke between gears. Yes, the turbo boot is the most economical performance item you can add to your engine. Performance, efficiency, horsepower and fuel mileage. What a great way to get more of it. By utilizing wasted heat going up the stack.

STC, step timing control injectors, we now have all of the new equipment to build and calibrate the NTC 365, 400 and 444 injectors. If you're unhappy with the performance of your STC engine we will custom build a set of injectors for you. The STC engine is extremely durable because of the variable timing and, as of this writing, we have never had a premature failure from one of these engines. Please keep in mind that all of the NTC 365 h.p. engines are cut back NTC 400 h.p. engines and some of the 400 h.p. engines are the same as the NTC 444 except with a 5 thousandth's timing change. However, they use the same offset cam key. As you can see its very easy to convert a 365 h.p. engine to 444 h.p. with minor changes. On the 1210 CPL 444 and the 1211 CPL 400 h.p: There is a .005 timing difference and .5 compression ratio change to the piston. Even with out changing the timing and pistons we have produced in excess of 500 h.p. from CPL 1211 and no failures!