What is the fastest diesel truck in the world?

The quest for speed and how to be faster have always been in man’s many goals and dreams. It encompasses all aspects of his daily life- his car, career and work. It is the same for all of us, we aspire and admire those who break the limit in speed and engineering, especially in cars, airplanes and transportation. What a thrill and rush of exhilarating feeling the driver must have when he finally climbs into the driving seat or in the cockpit, straps on the safety belt, revs up the engine, and floors the pedal all the way down, feeling mother earth’s gravity fade away with adrenaline kicking in.

 In the same breath of wanting to experience the top speed of cars, we also wonder- which car is the fastest? How fast could it go? What was the build and the specifications of the said fast car? Along these questioning lines we answer one of the questions presented – What is the fastest diesel truck today? Well, we do not have to look far. In fact, the fastest diesel truck was known in October 2007, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Now normally diesel is not associated with speed, but with power, cranking out torque instead of accelerating. They are built that way as much as work horses are, with emphasis on the carrying of heavy duty loads and reliability.

Gale Banks and his company, Banks Engineering, a pioneer and expert in diesel engine development that includes the drive train and turbocharging diesel cars, proved that diesel cars did not have to be big, ugly and a smoke-belching machines. At the ACDelco NHRA Las Vegas Nationals the Banks Engineering team brought out their Chevy Sidewinder S-10 pickup truck and its amazing speed, recorded at an 8.21@165 mph second timeslip in four final runs. The innards of the car were handpicked. The main power is a modified 6.6 liter Duramax V8 with twin turbos for the engine. The V8 engine was modified, from the digital fuel injection technology, and some BankSpeed performance parts from their own, notably the valvetrain, cylinder heads and an intake, which increased port flow by 25% at its highest, upped the exhaust flow to 55% and maintained a high intake swirl for effective combustion. It also included twin Honeywell/Garrett turbochargers flowing into custom 321 stainless tube headers, customized wastegates and a Banks designed nitrous system to speed up spool turbos and provide a smoke-free staging. A Bosch fuel injection system is electronically regulated to provide over 1000 horsepower with just a single fuel pump to 1800 bar fuel pressure. Banks then quoted that diesel did not have to have the stereotype that it had then- it can have a clean performance and virtually no smoke-belching. The Banks Engineering team had special support from encouraging companies including Bosch in electronics, Garrett in the turbochargers area, Lamb Components for the brakes and suspension, and finally, the GM Powertrain.