After creating a compound turbocharged LB7 Duramax with more than 1,200 horsepower, Mike Maas, the owner of Dark Horse Diesel, is eager to get more. He decided to build this LMM Duramax engine and now sees the potential to reach 2,000 HP. Find out how he got there!
Diesel by this week
Mike Maas is a know-it-all guy. Like most people in the car repair and performance industries, he began to repair friends' rides. This slowly but surely led him to expand his customer base in his community, which he eventually used for business.
Five years ago, Maas founded Dark Horse Diesel LLC in Watkins, Minnesota. Watkins has only 935 people, and Dark Horse Diesel's single-person operation scale is very suitable to complete the job and meet all the diesel demand in the area.
Maas has a crane in his 28'x60' workshop, which is mainly responsible for the maintenance, performance and adjustment of Chevrolet and Dodge trucks. Dark Horse Diesel also specializes in Duramax engines and Allison gearboxes.
For machining work, Maas turned to Craig Brutger of Craig's Machine and Dyno, who said he was the best company in Minnesota. For this week’s diesel engine, we will introduce Maas’ 2003 Chevrolet Silverado, which is equipped with a complete 6.6-liter Duramax LB7 engine.
"When I got it, it was just a typical store truck," Maas said. "This is a toy that we often run around and mess up. It has been in overtime and has undergone a lot of changes to reach its current level."
According to him, Mas still uses trucks as his daily driver. Because of his love for the LB7, he decided to choose an ordinary taxi in a sea of three-door and four-door trucks. In fact, he has owned seven LB7 trucks over the years, all of which have left a deep impression on him.
Over the years, this Silverado has undergone a gradual evolution, from a modest store truck to a powerful truck. Earlier versions included LB7 bore cylinder blocks with balanced cranks, Carrillo connecting rods, MAHLE Motorsports casting valves with pressure relief valves, and 16.1:1 compression ratio de-bowled pistons.
For the camshaft, Maas made a customized firing sequence camshaft with the help of Craig's Machine and Dyno to move the valves in a pair of Wagler Competition street cylinder heads. The engine is also equipped with a compound turbocharger, consisting of a BorgWarner S485 atmospheric turbocharger and a BorgWarner S369SXE valley-borne turbocharger, which are connected by an HSP diesel engine.
These components, along with some other customization additions and EFI adjustments from Danville Performance, brought this early version to peaks of 1,244 hp and 2,193 lb.-ft. The torque. Maas drove the truck to Scheid Diesel to participate in the dyno competition, and finally won for two consecutive years.
Since completing this build in 2017, Maas has made some significant changes, adding more than 300 horsepower to Duramax.
"We increased its power to more than 1,500 horsepower, but in fact it didn't go further than that," Maas said. "There is still a lot of fuel. If I have to guess, I think if we keep going, it might reach 2,000 horsepower."
The new motor that Maas updated and manufactured this year is another LB7, as for the nozzles, injectors, etc., but this time he chose to use the LML block.
The engine has a Callies Ultra billet crankshaft and CP forged pistons. The Callies hybrid kit is also installed. The bottom of the engine is all steel billet, with billet SoCal stud belt, SoCal power supply and ATS flywheel. Most importantly, Duramax is now equipped with a set of Kill Devil Diesel cylinder heads.
Maas also chose to change the compound turbo settings to increase power. HSP Diesel took care of the turbo setting again, installing a BorgWarner S476 in the valley with a 12mm S&S pump on it, a Garret 102mm GT55 on the top, and a 10mm S&S pump on the belt. S&S 300% more fuel than injectors and completes this great setting.
"It's all very reliable," Maas said. "I haven't really encountered any problems, and I hope it stays this way."
Although Maas's Silverado looks like an inconspicuous store truck on the outside, when it flies off the trailer belt, it will definitely draw the attention of onlookers.
This week, the diesel engine was sponsored by Amso. If you have an engine you want to highlight in this series, please send an email to [email protected] to Engine Builder editor Greg Jones
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