Back in 2005, Huntington Beach, California’s Brian Howard had a Mercedes AMG car that he liked very much. Then a friend bought a brand new Chevy Duramax-equipped truck and Brian thought he was crazy. He even told him so. Then the friend took Brian for a ride and it was enough to completely change his mind.

The first thing Brian did with his truck was start a shipping company. He delivered RVs and put 220,000 miles on the truck.

“It was surprisingly nice,” Brian said. Then another friend with a 5.9 Cummins Dodge took Brian for a ride and he saw the power potential of a hot rodded diesel pickup. This truck had around 500-600 horsepower and it had the ability to get Brian’s attention.

“I thought, ‘wow’, if I can get a Duramax to go as fast as a Cummins…” Brian remembers thinking about the experience. He says he has nothing against Dodge trucks but they seemed to be a bit rough around the edges and the steering feel was questionable in his opinion. He felt that the Chevy’s were superior in interior plushness and road manners. “The Chevy’s were better looking, and they had a six-speed transmission. He wanted a truck that he could drive a long ways and still be comfortable. And blow the doors off any AMG’s he encountered on the road,” Brian commented.

Brian knew exactly what he needed to do. He had to purchase a Chevy pickup for the comfort he wanted and then build an awesome engine to make it just as powerful as a Cummins-powered Ram pickup.

The fifth-wheel hitch was used to pull a trailer for over 200,000 miles.

This ’06 Chevy was purchased new and then it was quickly pressed into service as Brian started a new shipping company. He put 220,000 miles on the truck before retiring the truck from the job. Then he decided to see what would happen if he started tinkering with the thing. Maybe tinkering is the wrong word. Full-on assault of power adders might be more appropriate. When asked what possessed him to take a journey down this path of pickup performance Brian laughed and simply said, “Insanity?” Just take a look at the engine Brian bought from Guy Tripp’s SoCal Diesel.

It’s a Stage II Duramax. That means the engine was fully disassembled, all components were mag tested and visually inspected. ARP main studs were installed and the main journals were align-honed. The block was set up in a CNC machining center where the head gasket surfaces were machined parallel to each other and square to the main journals. The cylinders were bored (displacement went up to 412 ci) and blue printed. ARP head studs were installed and torque plates were used to simulate the distortion of the block that occurs when a cylinder head is torqued in place (this assures that the finished cylinders are round and true when bored. To avoid the alignment pin issues that many Duramax’s have, they were removed from the crank and the slots were machined to accept 5mm alignment keys. This ensures the oil pump and harmonic damper won’t free spin.

Then, SoCal Diesels cut and coated .040-over pistons, Carrillo forged rods, and Mahle Aftermarket high performance bearings (mains, rod, cam and thrust) were installed. A SoCal Diesel Super Damper was installed, as was a custom camshaft. The new GM water pump has the impeller/gear welded on. Stage 2 cylinder heads with titanium retainers were used, along with chromoly pushrods. SoCal includes a billet flex plate and a rocker stud kit in the Stage II engine.

An intercooler from PPE keeps the engine supplied with cool air and a Garret 4094VA paired with a S483 double BatMoWheel turbo provides lots of it (that turbo has since been replaced with a Danville DPBillet 72mm turbo). The injectors are 70 percent over; the exhaust manifolds are from Pro-Fab, and PPE supplied the up pipes and dual CP3 kit. EFILive custom tuning makes everything come together.

Clearly, this is a serious engine and it needs a serious transmission. Luckily, Brian used to live right down the street from Mike Lovrich’s Inglewood Transmission, which is in Fullerton. Brian and Mike are good friends and Brian lets Mike use his truck as a guinea pig. So the trans has been rebuilt and tinkered with more than 20 times. “I have no idea what’s inside,” Brian told us. He does know that is has a Suncoast converter with a 2,400 stall speed.

Helping get all the power to the ground is an Eaton Tru-Trac locker in the rear end. Cal-Trac traction bars from Calvert Racing do a good job of planting the tires too. QA1 shocks all the way around give the truck a nice ride and help out on the drag strip. Mag-Hytec differential covers provide added fluids and fins for cooling. His axle ratios are 3.73:1. A Viair air compressor fills up the Air Lift air bags and also supplies the train horns from Horn Blasters.

Nitto Terra Grappler tires mounted on American Racing ATX wheels look good and can handle high speeds.

Brian chose American Racing ATX wheels (17×9) and Nitto Dura Grappler tires (285/75-R17).

The 8,000-pound truck gets about 16 miles per gallon and gets down the quarter-mile in 11.75 seconds at a top speed of 117 miles per hour. At least those were the figures when we shot photos of the truck. Brian is constantly making improvements so there’s no doubt that it’s running even better by the time you read this.

Brian says the truck puts out about 800 hp and  1400 lb-ft of torque the way it is now, but on the day of our photo shoot it had a dyno slip with 774.6 hp and 1176.6 lb-ft of torque. (Read the full story here.)

Chevy HD trucks are notorious for their steering issues and Brian didn’t want anything folding up on the strip. So he installed a massive centrelink and tire rods from Kryptonite that he got from the D-Max Store.

In the end, Brian got exactly what he was looking for. He can drive this truck anywhere he wants, for as long as he feels like, and still be comfortable. And he can blow the doors off a whole lot of very nice performance cars.