Top Truck Challenge

You know, all work and no play is not a good thing.

Sometimes you just need to put the tools down

and go four wheeling and that is exactly what we're gonna do today at one of the wildest craziest off road events in the country. Now, everybody knows that there's different aspects of four wheeling. You got your rock crawling, you got your mud pits, you got your hill climbs. And the guys at four wheeler Maggot

have come up with the mother of all off road events. They call it the top truck challenge. Now, this pits 10 hardcore rigs, their drivers and their spotters

against some of the sickest obstacles that you can imagine. Now, does that sound cool? Are you ready? You better be

the top truck challenge starts easy enough with all the rigs being judged in areas like turning radius and ground clearance, ramp travel and overall design and engineering

and just for kicks, we checked to see if any could pass for street legal.

Ok. Maybe not.

The contest starts to heat up with a simple test of acceleration,

braking

and how well the truck rides and drives. And at this point most people have started to pick a favorite or two to put their money on. I know I have,

but hold on, hold on. I know looks can be deceiving.

So, before we get into the real meat and potatoes of this, I need to tell you,

you need more than just a driver, a spotter and a rig.

You need to be able to win the points.

The first real test of raw power is the hill climb. Now, this year, it's been shortened, but it's still plenty steep and loaded with ruts and rocks.

And that can only be conquered by a combination of throttle and driver finesse, meaning

you need to know how to read the terrain and douce your way to the top without stopping or taking out a comb

when it was all said and done, it was Warren Crier's highly modified Dodge M 37

that gave the best run of the day

and he calls this thing the articulator. And if you watch the movement of the cab in the bed, you can see why.

All right, after a good stretch, it's time to flex some real muscle in the towing event.

Now, this consists of basically hooking the rigs up to a loaded dump truck weighing about 35,000 pounds

and seeing who can pull it the furthest up the hill.

Now, as you can see, this is a little tougher than just yanking your buddy's bass boat out of the lake.

So with the engines roaring against the rev limiter and wheels spinning, clawing for every inch,

you can see that each of these guys had their hands full.

One casualty was Kurt Bolden's 72 GMC who was sidelined with a slip yoke problem.

However, all the guys felt his pain and voted to let him have another crack at it.

But when the smoke cleared, it was a Canadian Mr Don Henry driving his 1985 GMC one to creation

that gave the best poll.

Well, so far there hasn't been much damage in the competition. Most of the competitors are feeling pretty good and thinking,

you know, this isn't so hard. Well, that's all about to change with this next obstacle. The frame twister,

the frame twister is just what it implies. It's a nasty combination of logs, mud, water strategically located by the sick minded judges

to wreak as much havoc and damage on your rig as possible.

The challenge get through the run as fast as you can without any help and don't kill your spotter

penalties.

Oh, yeah. If you leave the course, take out a cone or have to winch, it'll cost you

big time.

Now, bonus points can be earned if you use some finesse in tackling the frame twister.

But for some drivers for this is the last thing on their mind, they just want to survive the course. Well, it seems like when he hit the telephone poles, it ended up snapping two bolts on the high steer arm for the steering. So we're going to try and uh get it back together for the next event.

This is definitely a course that relies heavily on teamwork.

The driver relies on his spotter's directions

and the spotter relies on the driver to get him back to dry land.

Now, you may be thinking all you really need here is some big old tires and a lot of horsepower and a heavy right foot.

No,

no knowing when to get on the throttle and when to back off becomes very important in a hole like this.

When the damage was done, it was Toby Harrell his spotter and of course, some 44 inch tall loggers

that helped him pound through the frame twister with the best time.

Well, that should give you just a small idea of what the top truck challenge is all about. Now, go ahead, go get yourself something to eat and then get back here because next we go in the mud pit and then we go rock crawling.

Hey, welcome back to trucks and our coverage of the top truck challenge.

The event that dares to see who's got the top overall rig in about 15 different categories. Now, so far, the competition's been a lot of fun, hasn't been a lot of damage,

but now we get to see how a little bit of dirt and a little bit of water can make a really big problem. They call it the mud pit.

Now, when you're running in deep mud, wheel spin, tire size and horsepower, uh they all play a major role in making a good run.

But the line the driver takes to the pit is also very important.

The trick is to try to stay close to the side where the mud is shallow and the traction better. However, even understanding that didn't really help that much as each mud flinging rig was slowly dragged to a stop by the sticky gooey muck

you see in years past

the pit ended up being more water than mud. So the twisted judges put a stop to that and increased the difficulty by putting in more clay. The result,

an extremely gooey slick slimy mess that pretty much stopped everybody except for one,

this ingenious contraption

came in sixth place in the brain twister and next to last in the towing test,

but he was the only guy able to make a full run in the mud pit.

So as you can see, it's still anybody's ball game.

Now, while the guys were waiting to see who goes first on the mini Rubicon,

some finishing touches were being made to the course.

And here again, the S six judges have narrowed the course to make it tougher. Plus if you take out a cone, you're done, finished immediate disqualification.

Now, obviously, these guys have worked long and hard to get to this point. And it shows

with emotions running high. Your spotter and your winch are your only real friends.

But for the lucky ones, that's all you need.

What a spotter, I tell you, you got to leave it up to that guy.

It's a pretty good feeling to be out here right now.

One's for you dad

for the next event we get into the totally redesigned obstacle course

and it includes things like steep hills, hairpin turns and of course a nasty mud hole.

Now, when you're in competition and you're serious about winning,

you have to be willing to push it past the limit. Sometimes you make it,

sometimes you don't,

but at least you gave it your best shot.

I'm done.

When we come back, we get to the ultimate obstacle, the tank trap. Stay with us.

Welcome back to trucks and our coverage of four Wheler Magazine's Top Truck challenge.

Now you've seen some pretty hardcore wheeling so far. But this next 10, this is the bad boy. They call it the tank trap. And the rules are very simple. If you break it, you fix it.

If you stick it,

you winch it. If you roll it over

when you roll it back over and get going again because you've only got 30 minutes to make it

starting right now.

First up Warren Crier's Dodge articulator

now being first is tough because no one knows just what to expect.

But the big M 37 hybrid made it through some mud holes and even through the canyon until luck ran out with a busted winch,

the CJ showed some real promise with enough power and driver skill to run the distance.

Unfortunately, time ran out just before making it all the way.

Don's Big GMC won the engineering competition

and even placed first in the tow test.

But when the big rig tackled the tank trap, he ran into a whole bunch of problems including a locked up transmission that finally finished his day.

Terry

Dile

and his heavy duty willies were up next

and they were sitting pretty well with a third place finish in the frame twister

and a win in the mini Rubicon.

The driver spotter and truck clawed their way heroically through the trap but they just didn't have enough time.

Paul Foster's beast was a head turner from the start finishing well on the first day

and a for Banger took a beating in acceleration,

but it was the only rig to make it through the mud pit. Now struggling in the clutches of the trap. Paul's run is cut short with a nasty snapping sound from the transfer case

back at the start. Bill Fisher's

Venator may seem to be lacking on the technical stuff,

but he made up for it with his driving.

No.

And the teamwork with his spotter was fantastic.

But after taking a swim and finally destroying his van,

he had to call it a day.

Toby Harrell's Blazer also wasn't too impressive to the engineering officials,

but he consistently finished high in all aspects of the competition.

But when he entered the trap, it was make it or break it.

He was on his side, swimming,

winching, sweating

and slowly he and his spotter clawed their way to the top.

Who

next came the final remains of Chris Bowen's beater.

Now it doesn't come in with the best record for the week, but who cares with a lot of heart? The team pushes and pushes, struggling to beat the clock.

No

tight turns. Haven't exactly been this Jimmy's strong suit

but Kurt Bolden's rig was fast enough and ran pretty strong all week,

but a problem with his transmission finished his run early

and finally the last rig in Pat's S 10.

Now it gave a good showing for itself all week and for a while was looking strong in the trap

until things went sideways on him and from there. Well, it all just kind of went downhill.

Now, see, I told you this was a crazy event. Now, the winner,

Toby Harrell and his awesome blazer. Toby. Congratulations. You guys rocked. Now, if the rest of you think that you've got a vehicle worthy of the top truck challenge,

I'll pick up a copy of Four Wheeler magazine or check them out Four wheeler.com

and who knows? We may catch you on tape next year.

We'll see you in a minute

question. What does your dirt bike, a snowmobile and your weed eater all have in common with the Super charger on your hot rod and the turbo on your import.

Well, the answer is they all get part of their roots from an old Detroit diesel. Now, I know a lot of you are probably thinking, wait a minute. I don't get that. How does that work? That's what we're gonna show you

how it works is brought to you by Wyotech.

Ah, there it is an old Detroit diesel, two stroke diesel. Tell us about the mentality behind a two stroke diesel. You know, there's not a whole lot of difference between a two stroke diesel and a two stroke weed eater or a motorcycle or a snow machine. It's basically all the same.

Ok. What are we looking at here in the valve train? We're looking at uh four valve exhaust system that we have the

injector sets right in the middle and the four exhaust valves on the outside. Ok. Like most two strokes we're seeing the exhaust valves.

Where's the intake valve?

It does have an intake valve. It's just not like the traditional one that we think about

the piston actually is the intake valve along with the holes that are in the liner.

So as the piston goes down, pulls the mixture in. Sure does. Ok.

What's this sitting up on top? Looks like a supercharger to me. It is blower super charger

now is this where that all originated. It sure did. It all started right here with uh this blower, this super charger and guys started taking those off, put them on their hot rods, no doubt. Ok. Now, they of course, are belt driven. Now, this isn't belt driven. What's going on back here? We've got uh a big gear train back here. And what it does is, is this gear up on top, it has a shaft running through it that actually powers the blower. Ok.

Now, on top of the blower, you

got a turbo charger.

Interesting combination. How does that work in the old days? Um All we had was the super charger.

We didn't have this, this turbo charger sitting up on top of it.

What we wanted is more horsepower. And so the way

the way that we did it was stick more fuel to it. If we stick more fuel to it, we gotta have more air. So we just put that turbo charger right up on top and got some more and they work well together. Yes, they do. Ok. Now, one thing that's inherent with a gasoline two stroke is high winding

a lot of horsepower on the top end and that power band,

not much on the low end diesel. The same way, same thing

um on the bottom, our peak torque for the most part it is at the upper RPM level um at the lower end, uh a little bit slow Yes.

Now how does something like this compare to a four stroke?

What we've done today? When you look at the, the four stroke six cylinders going down the road that are in the trucks today, we have backed off the RPM. Our peak torque horsepower is right around the 12 or 1300 RPM range. These up here quite a bit further.

Hot

rods.

They

were

like,

get into

it. They're quick. Um, a lot of fun.

They really are. Well, hopefully this gives you an idea of how much diesels have influenced the whole automotive world. Matter of fact, your new truck or dirt bike, it's got a lot more in common with an old Greyhound than you might think. All right, I want a set of those valve covers. Those are so cool, man.

This is something that's gonna make you dodge cummins, diesel guys happy because this is yet a

another way to get more power out of your engine. Now, these are called the jammer injectors and you can get them from diesel dynamics.

These are gonna give you power in a couple of different ways,

gonna give you better fuel atomization and a faster fuel flow.

Now, you can get these in a stage one that'll give you up to 65 extra horsepower

all the way up to a stage five, which will give you an extra 175 horsepower add to that, that these are very simple to put in

and you've got yet another reason to call diesel dynamics

that takes care of it for today.

We'll see you next week.