Sometimes it is funny how we start down a path knowing where it goes, but before we realize it, we are in a completely different place than we thought we were going. This is certainly is the case for Darvin Bradley. If his friends had told him that pulling in the work stock class a few times a year to have a good time would mean that he would have a full blown highly competitive pulling truck and a drag truck within a couple of years, he would have laughed.

“It all started when I painted Dan Vallance’s truck,” said Bradley. “We were talking about pulling and it sounded like fun. So, I came out to a couple of pulls and we hooked my wife’s truck up and had a good time,” continued Bradley.

As Bradley continued to pull, he continued to modify and eventually converted the truck over to a 1 ton. Then before Bradley knew it, it was time to build a full-time puller. “It was cheaper to convert the wife’s truck over to a full-time pulling truck than it was to start over. So, I had to buy her a new truck,” chuckled Bradley.

Over the following winter, he built what you see here. “Half Breed,” as Bradley endearingly named his truck is a 2007 Dodge Mega cab. The cab and chassis are all from the same truck but the bed is off of a 2010-4^th gen RAM. So, the name Half Breed is due to the two different generations that make up this beast.

Now, before you start trying to pick this apart, Bradley owns Mineral Wells Collision Center and is an expert body man. So, you aren’t going to see any odd gaps or mismatched body lines. Bradley cut about 6 inches off of a 4^th generation Mega Cab and folded it into his ’07. Then he turned around, and modified the bed so that the gap was consistent and looked good. The end product leaves even the most experienced Dodge guys puzzled as to how he made it work, because it looks so factory and good!

Now, when he finished with all of the body work, he needed to paint the truck. So, he rolled it into their paint booth and gave the truck the custom paint job that you see here. While they were at it, they went ahead and built a custom weight box in the front that, also, serves as a water reservoir for his air to water intercoolers. In the box, they built a custom tailgate and set of stacks.

Under the hood, is the ’07 5.9 common rail block that has been machined .020 over. Filling the cylinders is a set of Ross Racing Pistons that are connected to 12 valve rods. The machining work was done by D&L Performance out of Wichita Falls, Texas. A Hamilton Cams 220/240 camshaft moves the Midwest Truck Products pushrods, which are connected to 24 valve rockers, pushing against the Midwest dual spring, valve springs.

A Premier Engine Design port job lets 258 cfm of air into the cylinders that has to flow through a Joker Fabrication intake manifold. Holding the head on, is a set of ARP aged 625 studs. These are needed because the Exergy Performance 250% over injectors flow a ton of fuel. That fuel is being supplied by Motorsport Diesel dual CP3 kit. With the TTTPA (Texas Truck and Tractor Pulling Association) class being limited to a 2.6, Bradley opted to call up Haisley Machine and have one of their custom 2.6 turbochargers built off of a HX60.

To really make this combination of parts work, Bradley is running an EFILive tuner with custom tuning from Dan Clark of Dan’s Diesel Performance. This combination is laying down north of 1,100 horsepower to the rear wheels.

So, you know there is a bunch more power than that available at the flywheel. Bradley couldn’t afford to waste that power by burning up clutches. So, he called up Dan Vallance (the guy who got him into this), who owns Valair, and had a 10.5 triple disk clutch sent over. Before bolting everything back together, Bradley went ahead and upgraded his input shaft on this manual transmission to a 1 3/8 billet input to avoid breaking the input shaft.

The front axle is running a set of 4.56 Yukon Axle and Gear gears with a Eaton True Track locker and 38 spline axles. In the rear, Bradley is running the same basic combination in the rear with the exception of a spool. Unfortunately, Half Breed doesn’t seem to like these gears because after only a few hooks, the ring gear teeth started to break and bend. So, to keep an eye on things, Bradley installed a mammoth peep hole. “This way I can see how the gears are doing and I don’t have to keep draining the fluid,” explained Bradley.  

The power is put down to the ground in the rear by a set of factory 17” dually wheels mounted on 315/70R17 Bridgestone All Terrains and up front are a set of 17” Eagle Alloy mounted on Trxus STS 35/12.5R17’s.

Making sure the truck stays planted and heading straight down the track is a set of custom ladder bars in the rear along with a custom block to prevent the truck from squatting too much.

The interior of this truck is all business. The interior seats have all been removed and a drivers racing seat is the only seat in the cab. Front and center is a 10,000 rpm gauge, but really only the first 6,000 are used. On the A-pillar are a pair of Isspro gauges (Boost and Rail Pressure), along with an Auto Meter EGT, and two Sunpro fuel pressure gauges (the truck used to run two AirDog fuel pumps, but now only runs one FASS pump).

The truck comes in right at 8,000 lbs (max weight for the class). Over the past few years, Bradley has really been able to dial in the truck and by the end of last season; he was routinely placing on the podium and even on top. Even with all of that success, Bradley is the first person to say that without all of the support from his wife (Danita Bradley), Nick Starr, Garry Wolf, Dan Vallance, and Buck Hyndman he couldn’t have done it.

If you like what you see here and are thinking about getting into pulling, hit Bradley up on his Facebook account as he is selling this truck to focus more on his drag truck.