Turning A Chunk Of Metal Into A Wagler Competition Products DX500 Billet Block!

Wagler Competition Products has built quite a reputation on pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the world of big gnarly diesel, and a big part of that is their ability to find and overcome weak points in components. If there isn’t a more reliable or durable option out there, they just make their own.

Some of these engines are being crammed with three-digit boost numbers, so the block itself, as crazy as it seems, can become the “weak link”. How does one solve that problem? You make your own, and you make it better. For years now, the drag racing world has had the luxury of billet aluminum blocks, literally a huge chunk of solid aluminum machined into an engine block that provides a great deal more reliability, sheds a little weight, and just happens to look really cool too. Plus, how cool it is to say “billet aluminum big block”?

The guys at Wagler have followed suit, tooling up a CNC machine to whittle away a monster chunk of aluminum into the shape of a billet diesel engine block. For anybody who’s never seen a CNC – that stands for computer numerical control for those who don’t know – in action, it’s sort of like the opposite of a 3D printer. You start with a solid block of metal and the machine uses a variety of bits and tools to shave off the excess, literally carving components right before your eyes. It really is an amazing process, all the more mind-blowing in extreme slow motion, that requires an exacting amount of precision, but the end results are well worth the tediousness of the process.

This video, which is far too short to be totally honest, gives you a glimpse of the machining process in action. I would love to watch the massive CNC whittle away the whole block, but there’s a good chance that would reveal secrets they don’t want the competition to know if they shared the whole video, so this is all we get for now. Check it out and let us know what you think about the machining process!

Wagler Competition Products – Diesel Billet Engine Blocks at PRI (Performance Racing Industry)

Screwed Coupe – Screw-Blown DX500 Diesel Power