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Dallaire’s Diesel Performance proudly displays on their business website that they are “Just a few grown-up 16-year-olds with diesels and a lot of wrecked parts.” The four-men running the Dallaire’s Diesel operation, three of whom are brothers, are now in their late 20s and have successfully cultivated a respected diesel performance shop in Bonnyville, Alberta, Canada.
The shop was originally founded by owner Jeremy Dallaire, who now handles most of the front end activities like sales and customer service. Jeremy’s brothers Shane and Colin Dallaire, along with Noah Alexander, focus on the technician work.
The shop moved to its current location three years ago. Despite being a small town, Bonnyville is situated on one of the largest heavy oil deposits in Canada. That, paired with the city having a strong tie to agriculture within the economy made it a perfect place to set-up a diesel repair shop.
“Even though it’s small, it’s competitive here,” Jeremy Dallaire says. “We have a lot of work to do at any given time and we’re always busy.”
The 4,000 sq.-ft. shop has three hoists and focuses strictly on diesel work, which Dallaire says is unique to their shop compared to others in the area. Cummins, Duramax and Powerstroke are all fair game at Dallaire’s with no engine type necessarily taking the top spot.
As a young team, Jeremy and his technicians had to work hard to make a name for themselves and gain trust within their small community.
“Before us there wasn’t much of a performance scene here or too much interest in it,” Jeremy says. “Being younger contenders to the game in our competitive hometown we needed something to set us apart.”
Along with their social media pages, Dallaire decided a good way to advertise and show off their craft was to build a performance shop truck they could drive around town and use as a “rolling business card.”
For the project, the team found a 2007 Dodge Ram 3500 single cab and later converted it to a dually.
“All we knew at the time is that we wanted something a little bigger than what you’d usually find around here, so the dually was something fun we could do,” he says. “Other than that, we really just wanted to keep it simple so we could drive it around on the street. We definitely didn’t want to have to tow it.”
Dallaire wanted a street truck, but didn’t want to waste any horsepower along the way. For the build, the team chose to start with an old 5.9L Cummins engine block and built up around it.
It originally had a compression issue, so it was stripped down and worked on, eventually getting bored to .020˝ over with a Stage 2 milled cylinder head with side draft intake and minor head flow work.
All of the machine work and bottom end assembly was done out-of-house by Al Lee Racing Engines, while Dallaire’s assembled the top end.
“We wanted it to be powerful, but stay original so that it would be interesting while not being too crazy to where people didn’t know what they were looking at,” Jeremy says. “First of all, we went with the Carrillo hybrid piston and rod configuration because that’s what was hot at the time and they’re reliable. They take the power well and it’s making power just fine.”
To support the bottom end, the shop used an Industrial Injection Gorilla Girdle for stability with ARP rod bolts. The engine has heavy-duty bearings, a stock crank, and a o-ringed cylinder head.
Hamilton 103-lb. valve springs handle the intake and exhaust during heavy combustion cycles, and additional components include a Stage 4 Colt camshaft, Fleece billet rocker bridges, and HD main bearings.
“It’s all a simple recipe, but it works really well and we all know that 5.9Ls like abuse,” he says. “We originally weren’t aiming for those higher horsepower numbers, but now we’re getting up there.”
The truck is currently pumping out around 1,200 horsepower, thanks in part to the compound turbo system the team chose.
“We have two turbos in our logo, so naturally we needed to have two in the truck,” he says.
The turbo setup consists of a BorgWarner S472 over an S488, which is externally gated with a Steed Speed manifold. For the fuel, there are Flux Diesel 300% over injectors, a 12mm S&S stroker pump, a 10mm stroker pump, and two Fass 150 fuel pumps.”
Dallaire’s ultimate goal is to up the truck to 1,400 horsepower for some extra oomph on the track. The engine is unsleeved currently and the team at Dallaire’s is considering moving up to a 6.7L block and sleeving it to a 5.9L for added strength.
Hopefully Dallaire’s “rolling business” card will encourage others in the area to follow their diesel performance dreams. We can’t wait to see what comes next from our friends up north!
Diesel of the Week is sponsored by AMSOIL. If you have an engine you’d like to highlight in this series, please email Engine Builder Editor Greg Jones at [email protected].
