Doug Stokes « Banks Blog - diesel performance

A Meeting of Engineering Minds

by Doug Stokes

Thursday, June 12th, 2008

More than 50 members of the Society of Automotive Engineers gathered in the tech bay of Banks Power’s North Engineering building on Tuesday evening to listen to company president and founder Gale Banks speak about the many great aspects of high-performance diesel power. The attendees, gathered from all around southern California, represented a wide cross section of industry and academia. Automotive engineers from Honeywell, Subaru, General Motors, Nokia, Mazda, Denso, HR Textron, US Hybrid Corp., and more mingled well into the night with representatives from local universities Cal Poly Pomona and the University of Southern California.

Gale Banks speaks to members of the Society of Automotive Engineers at Banks Power in Azusa, California

Gale took the attentive group on a 45-minute slide “tour” of his company’s long involvement in diesel design. The man who has led the growth of Banks Power from a one-man shop to raise college tuition to a multimillion-dollar business employing more than 200 and boasting upwards of 600 dealers covered many highlights of his company’s 50 years in business.

Gale spoke of the teamwork and engineering savvy required to seek and attain world speed records. He recalled the vision and dedication that his teams have shown on the Bonneville salt flats, on road courses, and on dragstrips to make clean diesel power a new and respected symbol of high performance.

Ever the futurist and always up on the cam, Gale was most enthusiastic when he began talking about his plans for breaking new ground (and records!) using diesel power. He indicated, smilingly, that there is still plenty of record-setting performance in both the Dakota Sidewinder Bonneville truck and the S-10 drag truck. He also talked about plans currently afoot to break the 200-mph barrier in the quarter-mile with a new rear-engine Duramax V-8 Top Dragster and to blast past 300 mph in a Banks Bonneville “streamliner” (one guess on the fuel for that one) also equipped with a Banks Duramax.

After Gale’s presentation, many attendees took the opportunity to stroll through the Banks race shop, dyno rooms, and design facilities and to chat with the legend of the automotive aftermarket. And, as often happens when engineers get together, a number of informal mini-seminars broke out on the shop floor.

Peter Treydte explains how competitive testing is done at Banks Power

A completely instrumented Chevy Silverado test vehicle was located just outside the bay, and factory test engineer Peter Treydte was on station to explain how Banks tests not only its own products but all competitive units as well.

Two BMW 7-Series sedans (one hydrogen- and one diesel-powered) are on loan to Gale Banks for his insights

A couple of high-tech BMW 7-Series sedans, one powered by liquid hydrogen and one by turbo diesel, were given more than a once-over by the engineers in attendance. Both machines are on loan to Gale Banks for his evaluation and feedback to BMW.

Hayes Diversified Technology displayed its 600cc diesel-powered motorcycle at the SAE event

Hayes Diversified Technologies brought in one of its diesel-powered motorcycles. The 600cc paramilitary machine is a marvel of technology that a lot of civilians would like to get their hands on — power, torque, and diesel fuel economy on two wheels!

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Tags: Gale Banks, S-10 Drag Truck
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The Indy 500s first and only turbo diesel

by Doug Stokes

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

Q: When did the first turbocharged car appear at the Indy 500?

A: It was in 1952, and the car was not only turbocharged but it was a Cummins diesel - a first for both!

The inline 6-cylinder engine displaced 401 cubic inches and made 400 horsepower at 4,000 rpm on 20 inches of boost. The smart-looking yellow and red car sat on the pole for the 1952 Indianapolis 500 Mile Sweepstakes Race with California kid Freddie Agabashian in the driver’s compartment turning a track record 139.10-mph lap.

The diesel engine’s great mileage meant that the race car could theoretically go the full 200 laps of the race without stopping for fuel. Unfortunately, tire wear with the overly heavy car was dismal. (The machine came in at nearly 2,500 pounds dry and weighed a whopping 3,100 ready to race!) In fact, in qualifying trim, future racing hall of famer Agabashian had very nearly worn out a set of tires just running his four laps for the pole!

Freddie Agabashian in Indy 500 Cummins turbo diesel

As it turned out, the turbocharger took Agabashian out of the race at mile 175 of the 500 miles to the checkered flag. A low-mounted air scoop sucked every little bit of tire rubber and other crud off the track and right into the turbo, which did not react very kindly to that much roughage in its diet. On lap 70, the car was out of the race.

The Cummins-powered car was also one of the first true roadsters to run at the Speedway. Built by the legendary Frank Kurtis in Glendale, Calif., the racer was a real “Indy roadster.” A revolutionary design (for those days) offset the engine, placing the driveshaft next to the driver as opposed to having the driver straddle it as before. The side-by-seat driveshaft meant that the driver’s position could be much deeper in the machine, and the whole car looked as long, as low, and as wholeheartedly purposeful as any race car ever built - before or since.

Unfortunately, that was the first (and last) time that a diesel ran at the Speedway. New rules have made doing anything like attempting to get a diesel into the race a dream. Rarely will one who builds Indy race cars (or rather assembles from pre-made kits largely) be heard uttering the words “What if?” anymore.

Pining for the “good ol’ days” is not a very productive proposition these days. On the other hand, with the popularity of diesel power steadily on the rise in the United States and with so much emphasis on racing being the proving grounds for new consumer products, perhaps clean, efficient, smokeless (unless you’re referring to the tires of course) diesel power will once again be allowed to prove itself in the crucible of competition at the Speedway.

Interestingly enough, 50 years later, the Gale Banks Dodge Dakota, powered by a turbocharged Cummins diesel engine, established a new land speed record on the salt at Bonneville with an FIA two-way record of 217.306 mph that still stands!

From the “Who Knew?” file: The Champion Spark Plug Company, eager to claim that its wares were “in every car in the race,” had to improvise when it came to the Cummins diesel, which didn’t use spark plugs. Just as the race was about to start, one of Champion’s savvy PR people slipped a miniature Champion spark plug into the pocket of Agabashian’s driving suit so that the company could make its claim with complete confidence.

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Tags: Banks Dodge Dakota, Cummins diesel, Indy 500, turbo diesel, turbocharged
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The Re-Education of a “Gearhead”

by Doug Stokes

Wednesday, September 19th, 2007

Last Friday (really my “first day on the job”, even though I had only come in to fill out some employment papers), I was invited to sit in on meeting with Gale Banks and a number of members of the engineering staff.

My (just-bestowed an hour earlier) title is the lofty “Corporate Publicist” and so, I was pleased to be asked to be a part of the action so soon after signing on with the company.

As near as I could make out, the subject of the meeting was a new engine design, diesel to be sure, but after that the talk got a very technical very quickly. The parts looked familiar, lifters, valve train components and the like, but the numbers got blurry and the words became sort of muffled pretty fast from my side of the table.

Not unlike someone who has studied another language in school, but only now was in a place where that was all anyone spoke; I thought that I recognized certain key phrases and numbers, but the tribal council that Gale Banks had assembled around the table in his office seemed to be speaking in some arcane dialect of English that I was entirely unfamiliar with.

Oh, I could sort of make out a bit of what was going on, but there was still this complex series of handoffs and headings between design engineers and outside specialty suppliers that I couldn’t have followed with a GPS.

It was, in truth, a dizzying dance of numbers and notations which went whizzing over my head like so many swallows returning to wherever they go when they’re NOT hanging out at Capistrano.

My takeaway (which I dutifully wrote down) was that the new CNC-machined Banks cylinder heads not only increase power, but add very nicely to the overall efficiency of the motor as well. I thought that was pretty good for a guy who was “technically” stuck in first gear.

As the days go by I suspect that many of the words that are used around here which now make me wince in ignorance, will start to be making a bit more sense. This is sure highly technical fun that we’re having here.

So to working directly with one of the true heroes of hot rodding is something that will take a bit of time to get comfortable with. While I’m sure that this Gale Banks guy actually does put his pants on “one leg at a time”, I’ll wager that he does it faster, or better, (or something), than your average company President. His pride shows, his attitude is always “at altitude” and his appetite for the fray is infectious.