2006 Chevy Kodiak 4500 - Street-Legal Monster Truck

Carson Braga likes big trucks. The bigger the better. So he started out with an ’06 Kodiak 4500 and then went a little nuts with it. Unlike a lot of super-lifted trucks, this one is still street-legal and it does just fine on the highway. In fact, he drove the truck to Pismo Dunes three times in the first three months after the truck was completed. He has driven it to Yuma, Arizona, and back, all without any tickets from the California Highway Patrol. The two times the truck was pulled over, however, went without a citation thanks to Carson’s understanding of the vehicle code. The officers in both cases were pleased at his knowledge of the codes and laughed at the fact that he carries copies of them in the truck for reference.

Perhaps the first thing that makes a monster truck truly monstrous is its tires, so we’ll start from there and go up. Carson chose 445/65R22.5 Goodyear tires and Alcoa wheels to plant the traction to the ground. Metric tire sizes don’t really do the tire justice though, as they sound even more impressive when you realize that they are more than 45 inches tall and 17.5 inches wide.

To run that massive rubber, Jose Carranza installed Atlas springs on the Kodiak in the shop at Braga Ranch. The 12 inches of added suspension combined with the new tires lifted the truck over 2 feet, out of normal-truck territory and encroaching into the monster-truck realm. The suspension on the Kodiak is actually very comfortable thanks to several key additions. Triple-bypass King shocks ride on each corner of the truck, and additional road damping comes from two small airbags at the rear of the cab that allow the cab to float over the chassis, pivoting from the front. Custom sway bar mounts, both front and rear, allow for confident on-road driving, and the steering got a boost from an ORU hydraulic ram assist that makes turning the huge tires much easier. The turning radius was also reduced when the front axle was narrowed 5 inches on each side, a modification the commercial vehicle enforcement of the California Highway Patrol indicated as necessary for the truck to remain street-legal.

Of course, the massive rubber had other consequences, and the 6.6L LLY Duramax and Allison 1000 received upgrades to compensate. Southeast Diesel Performance in Yuma, Arizona, installed an AFE filter and PPE Hot+2 programmer before Luis Cardenas bent up a custom 5-inch exhaust that ends with a 6-inch MagnaFlow tip. The grand total for the Duramax is 485 hp and 850 lb-ft of torque. The added power from the engine and resistance from the tires would have spelled disaster for even a transmission as stout as the Allison 1000, so it got a fresh batch of internals from Tom Georgalos at Lee Myles Transmissions, including a Sun Coast Stage IV trans kit with triple-disc converter, new clutches, and a new valvebody. A Mag-Hytec pan also adds insurance with increased fluid capacity. A lot of people think that a truck this big must be slow as heck, but actually Carson is usually in the fast lane doing an average of 75 mph.