Archive for the ‘Banks Power Products’ Category

34 ENGINES

by Doug Stokes
Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

I just went out in the shop and counted for myself.

Thirty-four.

There are thirty four engines presently taking up just about every spare square foot of the race car shop floor here at Banks.  The crew has been pulling them out of storage for a couple of days now in preparation for a new museum exhibit that opens in Pomona on December 3rd.

I guess that I should have said, “Our exhibit,” because the show at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum is actually entitled:  “Banks Power, The First 50 Years.”

Now you know the reason for all the engines.  Going back at least forty of Gale Banks’ 50 in the business, they are the living lexicon of Banks Power.

From the latest 1200+ horsepower twin-turbo diesel dragster engines to an early marine engine which was so good that it got itself legislated out of competition,  they’re all here, each representing the Banks heritage and that well documented corporate credo to do it better every time.

a race shop full of enignes

There’s the engine that put the Banks Dodge  Dakota in the FIA world record book as the fastest-ever diesel pickup through the traps in a two-way average.  There’s a tiny Buick V-6 engine that, with Banks turbocharging, started a whole line of production super cars and racecar derivatives and that even powered Indy Cars.  There are a couple of early attempts on diesel design that, in the day, were considered radical departures from the norm.

All will be cleaned up, checked over, and shipped across town Monday to take their places of honor on the floor at the museum.

New entries in the engine field include Banks’ long-awaited and much anticipated return to the waterways with its Duramax-based Marine engine. Looking every bit the part, the powerful twin-turbo diesel V-8 “wet workhorse” is almost as stylish as it is powerful.  Back now from “touring” major boat shows around the country the prototype is all set to turn the heads of fans in whole new setting.

And then there are the oddities, an early GM diesel V-8 with tall foot and a half intake runners that must have made a whole lot of power way down low in the rev band, and the half dummy/half real engine built for display on the hyper-exotic, one-off Arex rear engine sportscar.  Its block and heads are real but the space-age looking water-to-air intercooler that dominates the complete top of the engine is all styrofoam and dynoc.

There are 454’s, 390’s, Fords, Chevys, Dodge/Cummins and other engine brands on.  The eldest among them painted a bright blue and the later ones painted “Banks Red”.  Here’s an insiders’ tip:  anything painted blue was built before the turn of the century (2000)  and the “red engines” have all come to life thereafter.

For the historians, Banks did, very early-on, paint many customer engines a bright yellow.   However, all of those examples were repainted during the Banks “blue period” and appear that way today.

The most interesting thing about having almost 40 years of Banks Engineering on the hoof and under one roof has been the reaction of the employees.  Break and lunch hours have been strolls through a time tunnel that extends back in many cases to before some of the young engineers, designers, and technicians were born.  There’s been many a curious look and even more questions for some of the longer-serving employees.  The development and evolution that still goes on today can be seen in these historically significant reminders of the company’s longevity.

When something really needs some historic perspective out in the shop the go-to guy is Bob Robe, who last year celebrated 30 years with Banks.  Robe has had a hand in every engine designed and produced by Banks since 1977.   He also has a multi-megabyte storage unit safely ensconced in his head where he has faithfully filed and cataloged every bit of information about each of these mills.

Bob, who is generally a very popular guy, anyway is now even more revered by the staff.   “Yeah, we were trying for (this).  But we found out more about (that) … and then we applied it to (something different),”  he explains.

Robe understands the relationship pure research, running for records (he’s been in on many of them), and outstanding everyday product effectiveness, and overall quality.  He wears a few hats (chief designer, fabricator, occasional crew member) and wears them all quite well.

All of this “Banks’ Biggest Hits” collection (and more!) will be on view at one time at the museum during the multi-month exhibition.  Some of the engines will be on leave from “active-duty” (examples of the latest Banks engine mods for trucks and motorhomes) and will be rotated out for trade shows.  The good news is that they’ll be replaced by other examples of Banks Power, so multiple trips to the NHRA museum should yield different looks at this fascinating motor-lineage.

Of course, there’ll also be complete Banks racing machines (record-setters all including three red Banks Sidewinder pickups built for three distinctly different  purposes: Drag Strip, Salt Flats, and Road Racing).

There’ll be an “illustrated” time line tracing the company history back its first 50 years, and memorabilia ranging from trophies to intake manifolds, and from turbochargers to wooden bucks for parts casting.  Hundreds of other “trick” parts and pieces that have been part of the long high performance road that Banks’ has been on will be on view as well.

This will be the first time that Banks has ever been so honored by a museum.  In Banks’ own words:  “We’ve been on hundreds of magazine covers over the years.  (Visitors will see a number of blown-up copies at the museum.)  But the real thrill is having the NHRA Museum ask us to be on exhibit celebrating our ‘first’ 50 years in the business,”  said Banks.  I hope that everyone who can, will get by the museum while our show is there,  it’s truly one of the best motorsports museums in the country and we just could not be more proud of our participation there.”

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CBC News

by Pat Ganahl
Friday, December 13th, 2002

A lot of our products tend to sound like TV stations.

CBC

It’s called an acronym. In this case it stands for Computerized Brake Controller. And it’s a patent-pending Banks exclusive that is now an integral part of our Banks Brakes. Other diesel exhaust brakes are controlled by a micro-switch, which is a simple on-off device just like a light switch at home. It must be physically mounted to contact the throttle, which means it must be adjusted to turn on when the throttle is closed (and, more than likely, readjusted periodically to keep it working properly). And, since it’s a mechanical device, it can stick or otherwise malfunction. And it only knows how to do one thing: turn on and off.

The Banks CBC is much more talented. You could say it has a mind of its own. It’s not a switch, it’s a computer. You hook it up with wires, and it adjusts itself, constantly.

But it does considerably more than that. That’s the great thing about computers: they’re multi-taskers. They can do more than one thing at the same time.

Unlike a micro-switch, which is mechanically mounted to the throttle linkage to activate when it’s closed, the CBC is electronically hooked into the throttle position sensor (TPS) to tell when the throttle closes; it’s hooked into the vehicle speed sensor (VSS) to tell it how fast the vehicle is going (including when it’s not moving); and it’s hooked into the engine coolant temperature sensor (ECT) so it knows what the coolant temperature is.

Therefore the Banks CBC can do things like turning off the brake below 15 mph. This helps you accelerate more rapidly from a standstill or low speed, with the added bonus of helping the turbo spool up more rapidly. The CBC also “cycles,” or exercises, the brake on every cold start, whether you have the brake turned on or not. This provides several advantages. First, it keeps the mechanical parts limber, so they will never stick from lack of use. Second, it helps warm up the engine more quickly. And third—this is the one you’ll like the best—that means your heater will be effective sooner. How does the CBC know whether it’s a cold start or not? Remember, it’s hooked into the throttle position sensor, the vehicle speed sensor, and the engine coolant temperature sensor. So it knows when the engine is idling, it knows the vehicle is not moving, and it knows what the coolant temperature is. At idle, the CBC keeps the brake closed on Ford Power Strokes and Dodge Cummins until the coolant reaches 140 degrees. On Chevy Duramaxes, with EGR, it keeps it closed until 125 degrees. And, incidentally, the CBC makes the Banks Brake compatible with EGR-equipped Duramaxes—the only one that is.

The CBC also cancels cruise control whenever the Banks Brake is activated.

Most drivers take their foot off the accelerator while shifting gears with a manual transmission. If all you have is a mechanical switch on the accelerator linkage operating the exhaust brake, that means the brake will engage every time you shift gears. You don’t want this. When you’re up-shifting, you want to be gaining momentum. And you want to maintain the turbo’s momentum, as well. You don’t want to damp it with a closing exhaust brake between each shift. Some brakes slam shut as soon as the micro-switch is engaged.  Ours has a graduated closing rate engineered into the brake itself, so it doesn’t slam shut during gear changes. This is not a function of the CBC, directly, but it’s still good.

In fact, if the brake does slam shut, this can cause a back-pressure spike in the exhaust system, which can lead to possible engine damage if it exceeds the back-pressure limit. If the brake is designed to keep this spike at or under the engine’s pressure limit (so it doesn’t “float” the exhaust valves), that means the effective braking pressure will fall to some lower amount. The Banks Brake is engineered in such a way that the valve closing rate does not create a spike, so that it can come up to maximum allowable braking pressure for the best possible braking action. This is better, no?

And a little, solid-state computer is much better at controlling multi-task functions than a simple on-off switch, which can’t multi-task at all. The news? As I alluded last week, we’ve had the CBC for the Ford Power Stroke and GM Duramax exhaust brakes for some time. And this week we are announcing a CBC for our Banks Brake for the 24-valve Dodge Cummins, as well. So now we not only have the only Computerized Brake Controller on the market, but we also have the market covered with CBC’s for the current line-up of turbo-diesel pickups and sport utility vehicles. It’s not a TV station. In terms of diesel trucks, especially if you’re towing a load, it’s better.

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Banks Power for Workhorse

by Pat Ganahl
Friday, November 15th, 2002

At close to 500 cubic inches, the GM 8.1L Vortec in the Workhorse chassis is already the most powerful gasoline motorhome going. So how did the Banks engineers figure out how to get 22% more power out of it? That’s 66 more horsepower and 77 more lb.-ft. of torque. They did it the way we always do—by building prototypes and testing them exhaustively to see what really works best in the real world. That’s why it always takes a little time for us to introduce new products for new vehicles. There are no instant solutions here. But the news this week is that we now have Banks Power available for the 8.1L Vortec in the Workhorse motorhome chassis at both the PowerPack and Stinger levels.

More specifically, Banks uses the same methodology for achieving power increases in nearly all applications: more airflow in, more airflow out. Both the PowerPack and Stinger systems include a Ram-Air intake filter to flow more and cooler air into the engine. It lasts a lifetime and doesn’t need servicing until 50,000 miles (servicing kit included). On the exhaust side, the Banks all-stainless, heat-shielded Dynaflow muffler (no, it doesn’t come from an old Buick; we make them specifically for each application), increases exhaust flow—that is, decreases backpressure—by 65% over stock. Behind that, our mandrel-bent, stainless steel, 4-inch diameter Monster Exhaust slashes backpressure a full 70% over the stock tailpipe. These are impressive numbers that anyone could claim, but we have accurate test data to prove it.

The PowerPack system also includes our stainless steel, mandrel-bent TorqueTube exhaust manifolds with machined 5/8-inch thick flanges for gasketless mounting. If you’ve ever run regular exhaust headers on a vehicle—especially in areas where they salt the roads in winter and especially in hot environments like a motorhome engine housing, you know that they are prone to rusting and warping, which leads to blown gaskets and lots of noise. Our TorqueTubes don’t do that. They’ll last virtually a lifetime. And they’re even designed to protect your spark plug wires (have you priced a set of those lately?).

Being a hot rodder, this last part is what always amazes me. If you take the hot rod approach, with more cam and compression and ignition and carburetion to make more power, you have to expect a decrease in fuel economy, an increase in coolant temperature, such things as a rough idle and noisy exhaust, and general abuse of components in your engine such as bearings, valves, pistons, rings, and cylinder walls. But the Banks approach—increasing airflow—does just the opposite. It actually lowers the engine’s operating temperature, which both increases the density of the air charge for more power and reduces wear and tear on the engine. And it also increases fuel economy. How can you increase power and increase fuel economy at the same time? That seems impossible to someone like me. But Banks does it by increasing the engine’s efficiency. Gasoline engines, in particular, are highly inefficient. They lose power sucking air in, compressing it, and pushing it out (pumping losses); through heat to the coolant; through heat out the exhaust; and to moving parts (friction and inertia). Reduce any of these losses, and you both increase power to the driveshaft and you decrease the amount of fuel needed to make that power. It’s called a win-win situation. And in a big motorhome like a Workhorse, you know you could use some more power—especially when you’re entering an on-ramp or climbing a grade—and you definitely could use some help in the gas mileage department. Come to think of it, the new Banks PowerPack and Stinger systems for the Vortec 8.1L V8 not only last a lifetime, but they’ll also pay for themselves over that lifetime. That sounds like a win-win situation, too.

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