- Hey guys, I'm Kaelin.
This is my 2008 Duramax, and this is my episode
of The Builder.
♪ I'm in it just to rewrite history ♪
♪ Cause I'm in the mood to ♪
♪ Label us the leaders of, the leaders of ♪
♪ The new school ♪
♪ This ain't for the radio ♪
♪ Can't find this on YouTube ♪
♪ This the type of killin that these critics ain't used to ♪
♪ Victorious ♪
♪ In this day and age ♪
♪ I got time for innovation ♪
♪ Time to be creative ♪
(intense music)
(truck revving)
- Well, what got me into building
is when I was 15, I bought a Dodge Ram 1500.
It was a 97 and it was, had 2500 axles
and the day brought it home it actually,
the transmission blew up.
So from that point on we rebuilt the transmission,
put four, 10 gearing in it, and after that
I decided that I was gonna pull it into the shop
and just start working on it.
So I pulled it into the shop, and actually
worked on it for a year and a half to restore it.
It went from basically nothing to a pretty nice truck.
The condition when I first got it,
it was completely trashed and it had,
the rockers were rusted out, cab corners were rusted out,
the trans went the first day I brought it home,
and it just was, it was a bad truck when I first bought it.
Fast forward two years, I bought my first nice vehicle.
It was my senior year of high school
and I wanted to have something better
than anybody else in town or anybody else at my school.
So I went out, got my first loan, as I'm still in school,
and bought a 2007 and a half Duramax crew cab LTZ.
I didn't do much to that build,
but I had the front of it painted
and I painted the rear and just did some
plasti dip to it just for fun.
So, day one of my 2008 Duramax.
I have me and a buddy, flew out to Washington, DC
and we went to go look at this truck.
The guy that sold me the truck
showed up at my aunt's house who lives in DC,
and he showed up and it was everything I wanted.
It was perfect.
So we pick up the truck, we go to the bank,
I pay off his loan and pay him the rest the money
and then we start traveling all the way back to Wisconsin.
After everything was said and done,
it was a 17-hour trip and this truck is sitting
on three-inch drop shackles and it was dropped in the front
all the way as low as it'll go with the torsion keys
and it was sittin' on street tires when I first bought it.
The biggest snowstorm of the year
was when I was driving this truck back home
from Washington, DC.
We got six inches of snow in the matter of like two hours.
I was doing 35 miles an hour in four wheel drive
on the interstate and still going sideways the entire time.
So before I bought the truck, there was already
a three inch drop shackles and it had
all the compound kit, which is a 475
overstock compound kit, 60 over injectors,
built transmission, and twin CP3 kit done to it.
Soon as I got home, I decided to go right in
to start building this truck.
When I bought the truck at first,
a lot of the stuff on the front clip
and on the rear was actually spray painted.
So I tore off the front bumper and the grill,
the rear bumper and the tailgate,
re-sprayed it all because I learned how to do body work
while I was younger working on that Dodge.
Re-sprayed all of that stuff, changed out the headlights,
and then after that I sold my 20s
that it was sitting on before
and put a set of stocks on it just for the time being
until I could save up for my rims.
And then, obviously, you see the truck has the wrap,
which that's what makes it stand out the most
out of everything.
I spent about three months deciding on my own
which style wrap I wanted to go with
and then I spent about four weeks with a designer
over at Sticker Dude going over
and just, we went through probably six different designs
before we decided for the right one,
and it turned out just amazing.
So as far as other appearance mods I have,
I got just a cheap set of headlights
and then RECON tail lights, and then
my traction bars are powder coated
and everything, my turbo is powder coated and my engine bay.
For lighting it's got the regal underglow,
it's just a cheap kit, and then I also have
6K HIDs in the front.
So I finally finished my build
and I decided that I wanna go to the Daytona Truck Meet.
I spent a couple months looking for a buddy
to pull my truck down because I don't wanna
pull my truck down cause it's actually, has stock internals.
It doesn't even have head stud bolts
and it's pushing around 750 horsepower.
So I decided to load it up on a trailer,
head down for Daytona.
On the way down to Daytona we made it to about Tennessee,
and right before Tennessee there's some steep grade
and my buddy that was pulling my truck
actually cracked his whole bellhousing of his trans case.
Like an eight-inch crack in the bellhousing
and then blew his flywheel cover right off the transmission.
But we ended up just keep on chuggin' along
and we made it down there with the cracked
transmission bellhousing and the flywheel cover
not even transmission.
By the time we got down there, everything turned around.
We had a great week and I actually came home
with a third place for Chevys and GMCs in Daytona,
which is amazing cause I was competing against trucks
with hundreds of thousands of dollars in 'em,
and I just got my local truck from Wisconsin.
But then the trouble we ran into was on the way home,
which was even worse than the trans cracking.
We get, my buddy decided to leave with the truck
a day early before us, just so he could
get a head start cause it takes a lot more time
to get back with the trailer.
He made it about halfway home and had a wheel bearing go out
so he tried to do the wheel bearing
right in a rest stop area, and he couldn't get it
to come off, he needed heat to get it to come off,
so he decided to pull my truck off the trailer
and drive it the rest of the way,
which I was totally okay with.
And he made it 100 miles down the road
from the trailer, and actually my inner valve stems
snapped and the tire went flat.
So then we had to have another one of my buddies
come all the way from Wisconsin,
drive seven hours down, bring my stock tires,
and put them on the truck and then
drive it the rest of the way home.
I have a couple future plans for the truck.
This spring it will be getting a 63 and a half
wheel and cover from Dan's, and it will also
be getting head stud bolts.
I also own a 1977 F-250.
It's sittin' in Idaho right now.
It's my grandmother's truck and she gave it to me.
That's my next build and I plan on doing
a full build on that one, frame off on build
and doing powder coated axles, powder coated frame,
everything on that one with the 12 valve Cummins in it.
Some of my other hobbies include ice racing,
drag racing, and hunting.
I race four wheelers on Lake Wisconsin here in Poynette,
and then I drag race around Wisconsin quite a bit.
I also kind of have started building my own race quads now.
Starting on quads is kind of really
what got me into just anything with a motor.
I just, I love to go fast and I just, I don't know
It's just fun.
Yeah, so I've been actually trying to build this truck up
and I've been trying to get some followers on Instagram
and some sponsors, so if you guys wanna follow me
or sponsor me, follow me at digital Duramax.
This was my episode of The Builder.
Everybody have a good one.
(intense hip hop music)