The Smoke-Stang is back, baby! Two years after this Cummins-powered Ford Mustang came to life, Westen Champlin is still finding new things to do with the diesel-powered abomination. Sure, the locals are going to leave you alone if you live in a rural area, the land of the duallies, but what if you take something this dirty on a road trip?
This is like the farm truck of muscle cars. One of the most iconic American V8 engines gets replaced by a 12-valve 6BT 5.9-liter Cummins. It’s a rudimentary and quite heavy block, but it gets the job done.
In standard spec, this would have been making about 230 horsepower, which is lower than most Mustangs, even those from theย Malaise Era. However, YouTuber Westen Champlin also had a couple ofย Aggressor 80 turbochargers added to the mix. There’s no missing the foot of extra-thick piping sticking out through what should have been the hood.
This latest video of the Smoke-Stang sage starts, as usual, with some mechanical failures. The first one has to do with a leak. When a new pan was fitted to the transmission, the screws were put in with an impact drill and this put a hole in the housing. With all that diesel engine torque, we’d expect the transmission to just blow up, not get a “flat tire” like that.
This much smoke is normal in Arkansas
After a quick coolant flush, the Cummins engine is ready for a 150-mile road trip to the drag strip. On the way there, everything was fine. And by “fine” we mean the throttle got stuck open and the turbo began to leak a lot of oil. So what does Westen do? A burnout, because the parts store guy thought it would be cool.
Just one mile ahead of the drag strip, the Smoke-Stang filled up with diesel at a truck stop. Unfortunately, it also decided that a belt and pulley need to fall off just to keep Westen busy. Once at the track, she’s just not making as much power “for some reason”, which could be down to any number of reasons, including the malfunctions mentioned above.
The driver decides not to push it any harder because the Cummins engine needs to do something big in a week at a location in California. Whatever that is, it should be entertaining and possibly controversial. Rolling coal sounds like a big no-no in the land of the Prius/Tesla.
