To call Guy Fieri an interesting TV personality is certainly a massive understatement. He loves food (naturally), has an awkward fashion sense, owns a vineyard in addition to restaurants, and used his charisma to raise millions of dollars for the newly minted “Restaurant Employee Relief Fund” in just a few months last year. But, above all, he loves to collect both classic and modern American cars.
One of his daily rides is just as eccentric as Fieri himself, as that's a massive Duramax-equipped 2018 GMC Sierra Denali 3500HD. Although it towers over much of the surrounding traffic, the white behemoth would have remained inconspicuous if not for the famous presenter’s recent desire to perform some upgrades.
The Columbus, Ohio-born celebrity chef seems to have decided the 6.6-liter turbodiesel Duramax V8 engine needed some additional oomph to better perform its workhorse duties, which naturally include lots of hauling and towing of all sorts of stuff (from boats to food prep trailers).
For the modifications, he asked Banks Power to provide the necessary upgrades that were then installed at the Cartronics shop in Santa Rosa, California. Those include a Ram-Air cold air intake to smoothly increase power, a huge 5-inch (12.7 cm) Monster Exhaust “with patented zero-backpressure SideKick tip” for a meatier voice, along with a Derringer Tuner with iDash 1.8 DataMonster, as well as a PedalMonster throttle booster and Ram-Air rear differential cover.
Well protected and capable of adjusting to various conditions thanks to the Banks iDash, the Sierra HD gained an additional 98 horsepower from the tune-up as well as a much faster throttle response that certainly seemed to the liking of Guy Fieri once the presentations were over and he got behind the wheel for a quick ride from the 5:43 minute (video embedded below).
Basically, his GMC – which was already good for some 445 horsepower and 910 lb-ft (1,234 Nm) – probably now sports around 543 horsepower and well over 1,000 lb-ft (1,355 Nm) after just a few enhancements. That certainly qualifies as a “side dish” of cool performance in our book.
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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