Part of the reason is that they are arguably, the noisiest of all the 5.9L Cummins engines (electronically-controlled). But that’s just up front. Depending on the aftermarket exhaust set up on a given truck (be it stacks or conventional exit), they just sound the closest to big-rigs out of all the Cummins engines (turbo-back).
The fact that they are one of the least loved when it comes to high performance makes sense as well, but for a near stock, or under 500 hp truck, you just can’t beat their exhaust/engine note combination.
We plan on showing the VP44 Dodges some love in the April issue with an install of one of the latest tuners available for the old noise-makers.
So, how about it? Would you like to see more love shown to the VP44 trucks, or older diesels in general?