It didn't take long for the word to get out; the news spread like wild fire. The message was clear: get to your computer as fast as you can because H&S Performance is about to blow up a truck on the dyno. Emails, text messages and even phone calls were being made between diesel enthusiasts with the urgency like no other. Once you found it, you couldn't help but let someone else know to get online too so they could watch the live event broadcast via the Internet.
The live feed was held on the afternoon of the last day in February and based on the over 5,000 people filling up the message boards, word quickly got out on this event that H&S Performance titled, “Breaking Point.”
Leave it to H&S owners Bentley Hugie and Casey Shirts to dream up something like this with their crew. They say during the NCAA basketball tournament that productivity in the workforce drastically slows down as fans—as well as casual observers—gather around computer screens to agonize over their bracket picks. But in the diesel industry, this event was our March Madness. I can only imagine how it slowed down shops across the country as everyone was curious about what it would take to find the breaking point of a Ford 6.7L Super Duty that for the most part was completely stock.
According to the H&S website, the truck was “stock except for an aftermarket single turbo and twin pump fuel system.” They used nitrous to increase the power, along with changing tunes to see what they could get. The intent was to see how far you could push a stock truck until it broke and for one afternoon they had our full attention.
We've all been to those dyno events where crazy torque and horsepower numbers are put up, but in most cases these trucks have been tuned to walk a fine line as they flirt with the possibility of danger. No one goes into a dyno run wanting to break his truck, but for the guys at H&S they not only wanted to, they expected it! Mechanics program custom tuners the way an accountant does your taxes: get as much as you can without causing any future problems.
There were several polls and side bets going on as arm chair quarterbacks speculated on what would go first. Another fun prediction was to try and guess the kind of horsepower this stock 6.7L Power Stroke could reach before giving up the ghost.
Being a live event only added to the excitement because you had no choice but to anticipate what was going to happen next. Between runs on the dyno, Hugie would step in front of the GoPro camera and proudly announce the latest numbers as well as the game plan for the next run as they continued to pump more and more nitrous to find the truck's breaking point.
The time between dyno runs could be quick or it could be 10 minutes; with these live events you just don't know. Guys were glued to their computer screens afraid to go on a much-needed bathroom break in fear of missing "the one run" we were all tuned in to watch.
In the end it was the tranny that finally gave way, but not before the truck reached a mind-blowing 884 horsepower and 1668 lbs/ft of torque. For those kicking yourself for missing this event, the good news is you can still find the video link and watch the highlights. But the even better news is that they’re already making plans to break the 1000 hp mark, which no one will want to miss.