A couple of notes from a guy who has an OM617 running over 120 MPH with a slipping clutch (more MPH to come!). As a side note - that's times on a race track with a calibrated timing system, NOT by someone's GPS.

1) No clue how much work it would take to coax more power out of a 617 with prechamber mods but the path to power is, for sure, injection pump mods done by a real pro. I'm VERY happy with Dieselmeken in Sweden.

2) More fuel needs more boost. That will have to come later.

3) As far as I can tell, the reason for the Mercedes prechamber is A) Noise and B) They didn't want to pay Riccardo for the license to use the Mexican hat/modified Mexican hat design. Most other Diesels in the world use some form of the Riccardo design because it works and works well. As emissions become a bigger issue we can probably look forward to different designs though the Riccardo design seems to like DI and common rain fuel systems.

I like my 617 even though I gripe about a number of dumb design features, like the rear main seal design. But all in all, it's tough and reliable and Dieselmeken tells me that the basic design can with live with as much as 600HP - amazing for 3 liters.

Dan