34 ENGINEBUILDERmag.com | AUGUST 2020
Diesel of the MonthPlowboy Diesel
When the Mollet family, the folks behind Plowboy
Diesel in New Douglas, IL, got invited to the SEMA
Show a couple years ago, it was a pretty big deal
for the small engine shop. The reason for the SEMA
invite? The shop’s 1962 Dodge pickup with twin 5.9L
compound turbo Cummins diesels under the hood!
“After SEMA, we had finally got a name for
ourselves and got notoriety,” says shop owner
Jody Mollet. “I feel like our shop represents all of
the small guys who build things in their shop and
don’t get any recognition for it. We’re out here in
the middle of nowhere. We’re just farmers and
there’s lots of guys who work out of their garage
or their farm shop building cool stuff and nobody
even knows it. I feel like we represent those small
guys.”
The Mollets also run Mollet Farm, which is the
primary reason the engine shop exists in the first
place, but Plowboy Diesel takes on more than just
farm equipment.
“We’re farmers first and foremost,” Mollet
says. “We’re green farmers, so we’re always
tinkering on things and building stuff. I started
when I was in sixth grade and built my first truck.
I was just slowly waiting for the day I turned 16
and could drive, like most boys. From that point,
up until about 40, I just worked in the shop doing
my thing and making money. We didn’t really build
anything custom.
“One day I decided, because I was only gettingolder, if I don’t do some of these projects I’ve
always wanted to do, I’ll just keep putting them off
and never do them. That’s when we came up with
the idea of the twin Cummins in one truck.”
Under the Plowboy Diesel name, the shop
became incorporated just three or four years
ago, but has been an engine shop for many years
prior to that. The shop will do work on just about
anything from tractors, cars, pickups, bulldozers,
combines, and more. However, John Deere
equipment, Dodge and Mopar are among the more
popular things the shop sees.
Plowboy Diesel features three generations of
the Mollet family helping out – Jody, his son Dakota,
daughter Mallory, and Jody’s dad Mike – plus
another employee named Kyle. The shop has some
machining capabilities, but will send out certain
jobs when things get too busy and the shop falls
behind. Plowboy also recently began selling
aftermarket parts.
“We’re not a big shop, but we’re moving
to a new shop soon,” Jody says. “Our current
shop is 40’ by 60’ and we outgrew it years ago to
where our farm equipment wouldn’t even fit in it
anymore. Our new shop we’re building is 72’ by
160’. The new shop is supposed to start being built
the first week of July.”
The 1962 Dodge with twin 5.9L Cummins was
Plowboy Diesel’s first major, full-custom build
from the frame up. The idea for the build stemmed
from something Jody said one day jokingly.
“We were working on some equipment
getting ready for fall harvest and we had a Dodge
pickup truck out here with a diesel engine in it
and we just happened to open the hood one day
and I said out loud, ‘It looks like you could fit two of
those things in there,’” Jody says. “Of course, we
went in and got the tape measure and you can’t
quite fit two in it. However, we had an old green
truck out in the shed that we didn’t use anymore,
so we went out and measured that and we thought
it was doable.”
The next day, the Mollet’s brought the 1962
Dodge into the shop and pulled it all apart, andsure enough, there was enough room for two 5.9L
Cummins engines.
“Since the two engines take up all the engine
compartment, the radiators were moved behind
the cab in the bed,” Jody says. “We actually made
and pressure checked the frame rails in order
to run coolant through to the back of the truck,
which has the two radiators and fans tucked
under the bed, alongside the transmission cooler.
The coolant passes through those and then routes
back to the engines on the opposite frame rail.”
Radiator Supply House built the intercooler,
the two radiators and the transmission cooler.
The fuel system has a Rhodes Racing 20-gallon fuel
cell and two AirDog transfer pumps. Area Diesel
Service supplied the two injection pumps, the
injectors and the quadruple BorgWarner turbos.
The custom engineered gearbox is from Modern
Machine, which is transmitting the power from
both motors to a 47RE Track Master transmission
from BD Diesel. Each engine has a Fluidampr
harmonic balancer. Monitoring all of the functions
of the two engines are 18 gauges that were
compiled into five large gauges from SpeedHut
Custom gauges.
“The engines are mainly stock,” Mollet says.
“We’ve got compound turbos on each engine – a
57mm and a 66mm turbo. We’ve got 60-lb. valve
springs in them. Together they will produce
approximately 1,200 horsepower and 2,200 ft.-lbs.
of torque.”
According to Jody, the truck build went
together pretty smoothly and was meant to be a
can-we-do-it type of build. Now it’s a conversation
piece more than anything.
“Coming from a small town of 300, when we
got invited to SEMA, we were thrilled,” he says.
“It was such an amazing show that opened a lot of
doors for us.” EBDiesel of the Week is sponsored by AMSOIL. If you have
an engine you’d like to highlight in this series, email
Editor Greg Jones at [email protected].Twin 5.9L Compound Turbo Cummins
Jody Mollet | New Douglas, IL
34 eb.aug20 DOTW.indd 34 8/7/20 8:57 AM
Naresh Jariwala