Courtesy of Engine Builder
Mike Dalton bought his first truck nearly 18 years ago, back in 2004. At that time, his primary reason for going with a 24-valve Ram was simply to save some money on fuel; if you can believe it, Dalton remembers paying $0.99 for a gallon of diesel.
This was a year after he opened his own shop, Cookeville, TN-based RLC Motorsports. The 13,000 sq.-ft. shop employs seven people and houses 10-12 vehicles at any given time. Alongside general repair, RLC completes suspension upgrades on the 4WD vehicles that come in and on the diesel side, engine, transmission and drivetrain work takes priority.
The Cummins platform was the focus in the early years, but an influx of technicians experienced in different areas allowed for the shop to work on Duramax and Powerstroke as well. Mike says they also handle performance work, but generally stay at the street level with builds below 1,000 horsepower.
A few years after purchasing that first Ram, Dalton began diving deeper into diesel performance and the racing scene. Around 2008, he had made a 12-second quarter mile pass in an ’06 Ram and officially caught the diesel bug. By 2012, he was working with Ryan Milliken and built a 4th Gen truck that put down just over 800 horsepower with a Suncoast 68RFE transmission – a feat that was rather impressive for that time.
In 2015, Dalton decided to take his racing to the next step and built a diesel pro-street truck, the same one he currently races today. For the next few years, he’d campaign the ’12 Ram 1500 with a 1,200 horsepower 5.9L Cummins engine he bought off a friend, but after getting more and more serious about racing and taking on new sponsors, he knew he’d have to build something even crazier.
