Lately, we’ve been seeing Dodge Ram trucks working very well off-road at rates of travel that are unbelievable. This is amazing since the Dodge Ram is certainly no lightweight, especially when equipped with the Cummins Turbodiesel. Kent Kroeker, CEO of KORE, a company which specializes in high-end suspension systems for Dodge trucks, has done very well in the Stock Full class in trucks equipped with KORE suspensions. Others equipped with KORE suspensions are also doing well with their own trucks.
Kent introduced us to Greg Boardman, owner of Desert Racing Concepts in Twentynine Palms, California. Greg is well known for having built many Dodge Rams for famous industry people as well as other magazines. Greg also owns his own Ram, “Big Red,” the cover truck on the last issue of DIESEL POWER magazine that you’ll be seeing in these pages in a few months too. We talked with Greg about building the ultimate Dodge Ram 4x4. “Ultimate” to us meaning that the Ram would work great on-road and off-road. It would have manageable (not overwhelming), reliable horsepower and torque, as well as a world-beating suspension. We’ll let Greg tell you about it…
Desert Racing Concepts is dedicated to building trucks that work off-road. Really work. When we first talked about building this ’04.5 Dodge Ram Quad Cab 4x4, we had a vision from the start. Let’s build the baddest Dodge Ram Turbodiesel truck on the planet — a 400hp desert assault vehicle. With a vehicle like this, you’d be able to travel off-road (or on-road) at high speed, over the roughest terrain, for hours on end.
At DRC, we’re not into big bling; awesome performance is our thing. We build trucks for the real world and for real people — truck people! From Unlimited suspensions to manageable power to looks that kill, we know where to bend a stock truck into a Great White! The shark, that is. A desert shark. So smooth, so fast, and so stealthy that you don’t even see it coming. Then, out of nowhere, it flies by in a blur of white and black. With the style of desert racing and the aggression of the diesel, this truck will be perfect.
The first thing we did was call Kent Kroeker and KORE, manufacturers of wellengineered, high-end suspensions for the Dodge Ram truck. Kroeker has been racing in the desert for years and is a Baja veteran. His experience in the off-road world is evident in his company’s products. The KORE Unlimited Series, the top of the KORE line, was the only suspension choice for a truck this bad.
Second, we called a buddy of ours, Fred Swanson, owner of Desert Diesel Parts in Phoenix, Arizona. We have been learning from Swanson for years and knew he was the man for the performance upgrades. He’s also the best transmission builder in the West, having built trannys before for our personal trucks without failure. Fred is the man!
We decided on old-school power not new kid PDAs. An Edge EZ and stage two injectors, Jammer BB turbo, Scotty intake, and Diesel Dynamics 5-inch exhaust are guaranteed to pack a punch and last for years. Add a built DTT auto trans with double-deep pan from Mag-Hytec, and the Shark is taking shape. To help get the power to the ground, we enlisted the help of Jason Hughes of Differential Systems in San Diego, California, to install 4.56 Precision Gear gears front and rear, an Eaton E-Locker up front, a helical-gear TracRite limited-slip diff in the rear, and our exclusive DRC front axle truss.
It was time to step it up a notch. Weld Racing Commando Pro beadlock wheels, the same wheels running on many Trophy Trucks, and 37-inch Toyo Open Country A/T tires require a special hand to massage into the Dodge wheel opening. We knew exactly what to do: Keep the truck low and add huge DRC/Glassworks fiberglass fenders and bedsides. We’ve done
excessive work with fiberglass, so it was a nobrainier. Add some specialty items from DRC, hang some HID lights, and button it all up.
Putting all of these pieces into one truck produced an amazing ensemble — something that turns heads just standing still. The suspension works flawlessly, the truck looks tough, and the power is huge. The performance off-road is even better. Eating up 18-inch whoops at 80 mph becomes second nature after a while. Moshing over cattle grates at 90 has little effect. How fast can we really take a truck like this? As fast as we want! That’s the whole idea at DRC. Make a truck that can go faster, fly farther, and be safer than any truck on the road. Adding the ability to haul your toys to the desert and back is an added bonus. Some even leave the toys at home, opting to drive the truck instead.
The Great White Dodge Ram really is good. Going above and beyond was our focus. Landing on the moon is where we ended up.
Greg is colorful. He gets into his work and it shows. The Great White ’04.5 Dodge Ram Quad Cab 4x4 pickup works better than any truck we’ve ever driven off-road. Its high-speed dirt performance is stunning. Its crawling performance is superb! With the 4.56 gears, ELocker, and helical-gear LSD, the truck goes anywhere it fits. Also amazing are its great onroad manners. In the next two months, we plan on two more features detailing the build of this truck from the suspension and powertrain to the fiberglass and accessories that have been molded together in a synergy of pieces that are greater than their sum.
In back, the KORE Unlimited suspension includes Fox reservoir shocks specially valved for the application and Deaver spring packs. It isn’t surprising that the Deaver springs work great off-road. What is surprising is how well they work on-road when towing a flatbed trailer with a vehicle on it. We thought there’d be tradeoffsmade when the Great White was built to work so well off-road. Those\ tradeoffs didn’t have to be made after all. Note the highcapacity American Axle 11.5-inch differential cover from Mag-Hytec. Inside the diff, Differential Systems installed 4.56 Precision Gear gears from Reider Racing and a TracRite helical-gear limited-slip differential. The Diesel Dynamics 5-inch exhaust is BIG but flows great!
Up front, the KORE Unlimited system includes a new Panhard bar and Fox steering stabilizer. We’re a little worried about the Schrader valve on the stabilizer, but we’ll see if it survives pointing down the way it does. The front differential houses 4.56 Precision Gear gears and an Eaton E-Locker. DRC’s axle truss allows us to jump the truckwith no bent-housing worries.
A Mopar Parts RB1 navigation radio was installed. The radio featuresmapping and GPS features as well as the Sirius satellite radio that we love.
Greg performed a clean installation in Great White’s dash. The upper toggle controls the SolteK HID lights, and the lower is a three-position switch for the Edge EZ.
LT355/70R17 Toyo Open Country A/Ts are mounted on Weld Commando Pro beadlock wheels, just like Trophy Trucks use. The big 37-inch meats and beadlock wheels haven’t been balanced and don’t shake at any speed. At all.
Great White’s heart is the Cummins 5.9 Turbodiesel inline-six. The reliable, super-tough engine’s potential has been unleashed with the addition of a Scotty cold-air intake system, Edge EZ and Jammer BB ceramic ball-bearing turbocharger, and Diesel Dynamics stage two injectors and 5-inch exhaust system.
The Edge (Jammer ???) BB ceramic ball-bearing turbocharger provides both fast spool-up for snappy acceleration and increased airflow to help keep EGTs down. Compared to conventional bronze thrust bearings, the ceramic ball bearings have 50-times greater thrust capacity, spool up 25 percent faster, and are more resilient under hightemperature shutoffs. We’ll talk more about the turbocharger and other engine mods in our powertrain feature.
If the Cummins is the heart of the Great White, the KORE gives it its soul. With patented shock towers, proprietary Fox 2.5-inch reservoir shocks, tuned coils, hybrid billet control arms with KORE spherical bearings, and the new KORE sway bar that’s a giant torsion bar as used in racing applications, the suspension allows you to travel at unbelievable speeds off-road and even handles jumping the heavy shark well.
The TireGate carries the big 37-inch Toyo Open Country A/T and Weld Commando Pro beadlock wheel in prerunner fashion. When you need to get into the bed, it opens like a tailgate. It can also be reversed to carry the tire out of the bed if you need the load capacity.
We already got the Mag-Hytec double-deep transmission pan dirty. It’s attached to a 48 RE automatic overdrive tranny built by Fred Swanson of Desert Diesel Parts, a DTT transmission guru. We’ll tell you more about the tranny mods in the powertrain installment, but take it from us — it works great!
The DRC racing bumper is much more than a light bar. Strong enough to use as a jacking point, the heavy-tube DRC bumper protects the front end of the Dodge from just about anything. A nice aluminum skidplate protects the underside while SolteK HID racing lights from Baja Designs reside up top. Have you ever seen sunlight at night? It’s hard to overdrive these lights, even at 90 mph!
A Diesel Dynamics three gauge pod holds gauges that monitor turbo boost, EGT, and transmission temperature.
On the other side of the column, Greg found that the switch for the Eaton E-Locker fit exactly into the cigarette lighter hole. Like everything else DRC does, this is a clean and simple solution. There’s another 12V power point lower in the dash.
