While our Black Fridays feature videos generally focus on Ram pickups powered by an inline 6 cylinder Cummins Turbo Diesel doing little more than filling the sky with thick black diesel smoke, this week we take at a diesel powered Dodge Dakota that sends more smoke off of the tires than from the exhaust. The Dakota was never offered with a Cummins but the owner of the truck below took it upon himself to swap in a smaller Cummins to make for one torque-tastic small pickup.
Unlike the diesel engines offered in the Ram Heavy Duty lineup, the owner of this Dakota opted for a 4 cylinder Cummins engine with a pair of turbochargers helping to produce around 400 wheel horsepower. The owner doesn’t specify what kind of torque he is making but with 75 pounds of boost and a quarter mile time in the high 12 second range – I would bet that this small Dodge truck is packing some serious torque to go with those 400 angry ponies.
You will notice that unlike our normal Black Fridays features, this video has only a touch of diesel smoke out of the single exhaust stack at the beginning and end of the video but I think that the amount of tire smoke produced by this diesel powered 1st generation Dakota makes it more than worthy of being included on this Black Friday. As burnouts go…this is a pretty incredible one…showing what happens when you put a monster diesel engine (even a 4-cylinder) in a lightweight pickup truck.
"Before I was old enough to walk, my dad was taking me to various types of racing events, from local drag racing to the Daytona 500," says Patrick Rall, a lifetime automotive expert, diehard Dodge fan, and respected auto journalist for over 10 years. "He owned a repair shop and had a variety of performance cars when I was young, but by the time I was 16, he was ready to build me my first drag car – a 1983 Dodge Mirada that ran low 12s. I spent 10 years traveling around the country, racing with my dad by my side. While we live in different areas of the country, my dad still drag races at 80 years old in the car that he built when I was 16 while I race other vehicles, including my 2017 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and my 1972 Dodge Demon 340.
"Although I went to college for accounting, my time in my dad’s shop growing up allowed me the knowledge to spend time working as a mechanic before getting my accounting degree, at which point I worked in the office of a dealership group. While I was working in the accounting world, I continued racing and taking pictures of cars at the track. Over time, I began showing off those pictures online and that led to my writing.
"Ten years ago, I left the accounting world to become a full-time automotive writer and I am living proof that if you love what you do, you will never “work” a day in your life," adds Rall, who has clocked in time as an auto mechanic, longtime drag racer and now automotive journalist who contributes to nearly a dozen popular auto websites dedicated to fellow enthusiasts.
"I love covering the automotive industry and everything involved with the job. I was fortunate to turn my love of the automotive world into a hobby that led to an exciting career, with my past of working as a mechanic and as an accountant in the automotive world provides me with a unique perspective of the industry.
"My experience drag racing for more than 20 years coupled with a newfound interest in road racing over the past decade allows me to push performance cars to their limit, while my role as a horse stable manager gives me vast experience towing and hauling with all of the newest trucks on the market today.
