Right-Hand Drive RAM Down Under
The thought of owning a big, powerful American diesel truck spans the globe. Australia’s Stephan Martinovic has always wanted to join the ranks of the oil-burner crowd and finally has with his near-new 2015 RAM dually. “Having a truck like this is a childhood dream come true. The long and the short of it is that there are not too many of them out here. There’s about 20 or so mega cab duallys in the country. I went looking here in Australia, and there was just nothing, so I decided to go shopping in the States. After a little research, I knew exactly what I wanted. I’ll tell you, your car sales reps in the US couldn’t believe that someone from Australia wanted to buy a truck and ship it to the other side of the world. Many didn’t take me seriously, but a dealer in Houston had what I wanted in a 2015 Megacab with only 6,000 miles on it. I snapped it up and shipped it 11,777 miles home! The ‘small’ task of teaching her how to speak metric and swapping steering wheel, among other things, from the left to right was started and eventually completed nine months later thanks to COVID.”
“The next thing that I wanted was efficiency. While the RAM brand has a growing presence in Australia, finding an expert is challenging. I did my own research and discovered Gale. What an impressive guy. The integrity of the product is not an accident; it’s backed by rigorous testing and tonnes (that’s metric) of data. The one that really stuck with me was a race truck going up a hill, and when the driver pressed on the gas, there was just a slight puff of smoke. Gale said there wasn’t enough air density, and I thought about that, leading me into a rabbit hole. There are great videos from Banks to learn from. I’m not into racing my truck. My motivation for it is simple: add the best parts money can buy, make her efficient and reliable, and she’ll pay me back with more torque, more horsepower, and a long life. I love the Banks philosophy so I bought the Ram-Air Intake, Monster-Ram and Boost Tube Kit. The Monster-Ram and Boost Tubes are sitting on the shelf right now because the right-hand conversion has the batteries in the way. I’m going from a dual battery setup to a single high-powered 2000CCA lithium one which should give me the room that I need, although I may need to lower the engine a bit.”
What he has installed, however, is the Ram-Air Intake, which surprised him by just what a difference it made. “I remembered what Gale talked about better breathing in his videos, and it all sunk in. Kind of a lightbulb moment. Looking at the stock intake system with its bumps and squished bends compared to the Banks, you can see that the air flows so much better. Frankly, I thought I broke her when I squeezed the loud pedal on my test drive and heard the turbo whistle and the induction noise. I soon realized that this was the first time she could actually breathe! There was a very noticeable difference in how quickly the turbo spooled up. The second surprise came when I lifted off the throttle. The exhaust brake cut in and the sound was what you’d expect in a Kenworth truck. I can’t tell you how many mates grin and chuckle when they hear it from the passenger seat. The whole experience was addictive. I needed more Banks!”