truck technology – special report
CUMMINS COAXES TRIDENT
News has emerged of a Mack Trident punched by a 15 litre Cummins X15 engine starting long-term trials with high-profile Queensland company Followmont Transport. While a cone of silence has descended on most people involved in the exercise, history has a profound habit of repeating itself and a successful trial over the next year or two could have a far bigger impact than simply turning Trident into a dog with more bite. Steve Brooks writes
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Below: On show. Euro 6 version of Cummins X15 at the 2019 Brisbane Truck Show. The big attraction is that it meets Euro 6 without any EGR input
60 OCTOBER 2020
T’S MORE than a fair bet that right now, somewhere on the Bruce Highway, there’s a Mack Trident belonging to Followmont Transport running B-double shuttles between Brisbane and Far North Queensland. Nothing particularly unusual about that, except for one rather pertinent and compelling detail: Instead of Mack’s 535hp (399kW) MP8 13-litre Euro 5 engine under the snout, typically married to the 12-speed mDrive automated transmission, there’s a 580hp (433kW) Cummins X15 Euro 6 engine coupled to Eaton’s automated Ultrashift-Plus 18-speeder. The truck is being trialled in what is effectively a shared project between Cummins and Followmont Transport principal, Mark Tobin. Meantime, Volvo Group Australia (VGA) and its Mack management insist they are in no way connected to the exercise light-heartedly known within Cummins and Followmont as ‘Project Wilson’, named after Tobin’s pet bulldog. Despite the fact we’ve known for the better part of two years about Cummins’ plans to trial an X15 in a Trident, details remain decidedly scant as insiders at Cummins and Followmont stay steadfastly tight-lipped. Even so, if Cummins field tests over the past decade and more are any indication, the trial will run indefinitely, most
likely over the life of the truck and over a range of routes, combinations and power ratings. According to one ‘outside’ source, for instance, the engine will be uprated to 620hp (462kW) for A-double (roadtrain) runs between Townsville and Mt Isa after first accumulating high kilometres on B-double shuttle work. Yet, despite the lack of official comment on the exercise, it’s not difficult to appreciate the attraction of the project for Followmont Transport. The company is a consistent customer of VGA and Mack, and the combination of Trident’s relatively short 2,960mm bumper to back-of-cab (BBC) dimension with the bigger, stronger and subsequently less stressed X15 in place of Mack’s MP8 offers a number of potential benefits in some of the company’s heavier workloads. For Cummins, the long-term benefits of showcasing the X15’s performance and commercial attributes in the Trident chassis are even more profound as the engine maker unequivocally strives to ignite the interest and involvement of Mack and its corporate master – and no doubt, a swathe of existing Mack customers – with the obvious end goal of adding a major new account to its customer portfolio. It’s early days of course, but the start of the trial is the culmination of a Cummins engineering initiative two years in the making, resulting in an engine installation and cooling package said by one astute observer to be as neat, practical and effective as any in the business. There’s also a whisper that first impressions on performance and efficiency are highly positive. Nonetheless, it could prove to be a hard sell for Cummins. From the outside looking in, there’s not the slightest sign or suggestion that Mack has current or future plans to offer an X15 in Trident, or any other model in the Mack range for that matter. Mack is obviously well aware of the trial – with rumours abounding that a number of middle and senior managers have been to Followmont for a very close look at the engine installation – but in a brief phone discussion, bulldog boss Gary Bone was quick to refute any suggestion of Mack or VGA involvement. “What Followmont is doing with a Cummins in a Trident is an interesting prospect … but as far as we’re concerned, it’s a project between the customer and Cummins. It meets what they need to do, but purely that.” So there is no agenda that might one day see a Cummins X15 in a Mack on the Australian market? Pausing for a moment, a somewhat hesitant Gary Bone
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