Banks Vehicles « Banks Blog - diesel performance

What’s Happening Lately?

by John Espino

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

What’s been going on here lately you ask? As always it’s been a bunch. Some of the stuff I can share, while other things I’m not at liberty to say. Here’s what I am at liberty to say:

2011 Ford 6.7 liter “Scorpion” Power Stroke:
We just got one of the new Ford beasts in here at Banks and the thing is awesome, eerily quiet and pretty powerful. It’s a major improvement over the 6.4 liter that’s now on its way out, and everyone we’ve talked to at Ford has high hopes for the engine. There’s a lot riding on this new masterpiece that’s been designed and built by Ford as the problems with the last two iterations were plagued with those nasty engine gremlins of legend. From what we’ve seen… and we’ve seen a lot… this is a winner and puts Ford officially back in the game.

About 4 minutes after the truck was parked in the shop it was swarmed by engineers from the Electronics , Mechanical and CAD groups. Each department began carefully examining and removing parts. Be on the lookout for some of the fruit of their labor really soon. I had wanted to show you photos of the thing being worked on, but really… you couldn’t even see the truck for goodness sakes with all the guys swarming around it. So instead I’m going to show you a photo of a cool mug I got from my pals at Ford and BOSCH who worked on the project. The other little thing in the picture is a temporary tattoo (flipped around in Photoshop for better viewing). At least it’s related.

ford_scorpion_mug_450 Automotive Balancing Service merges with Engineering:
Since 1953 ABS has stood for something other than Anti-Lock Braking System to hot rodders. ABS has balanced some of the fastest, most high-performance engines the world has even seen. From the first engines Gale worked on to monstrously powerful diesels motorsports engines we make today all of have been balanced by ABS. A few years ago we acquired ABS and brought it into the fold as a subsidiary of Gale Banks Engineering (check out the ABS website).

For some time we’ve kept the business in a separate building, but we’re doing something really neat. We’re moving the entire thing and merging it with our Engineering department, the portion that handles our race vehicles and prototype engines to be more exact. It’s not being gobbled up, on the contrary it will be conducting itself as usual. It just makes more sense to have everything needed to build a performance engine, diesel or gas, in one spot. Streamlines things, if you will. An added bonus is that there are going to be more performance parts to our arsenal than just the usual. Heck… we’ve already done our homework, why not make it available.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, and that’s another story for another time.

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Running After the Ice Cream Man, or Picking up the Sidewinder

by John Espino

Wednesday, June 29th, 2005

Remember when you were a kid and you heard that sound? You know, the sound that could motivate the dead to rise and you to drop whatever you were doing and run like hell screaming with whatever coins you could find clinched into your tiny hands? It was a melody that seemed to carry through the air even from miles away and could interrupt anything that was going on in your life at the time making you swing your head it the direction it was coming from. Yeah… that sound: the Ice Cream Man’s theme. It wasn’t the same theme every time and there were different vehicles, some yellow and some white… but they all had the same wonderful junk. Where else could you get an ice cream with gumballs for eyes for one hand and a giant Pixie Stick for the other hand? Ah, the rush.

Anyway, I can honestly say that vision is the only thing I could use to describe the excitement that quickly spread at the Bosch Technical Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan when Jim and I arrived to pick up the Sidewinder after the DCX Tech Fair. As we fired up the engine its sound traveled through the plant like the Ice Cream Man’s theme, pulling people from their desks and stations. We had a long drive ahead of us traveling from Michigan to Chicago so we let the Sidewinder warm up for a while, and the crowd grew. The Bosch folks were genuinely excited to see the truck. Good. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to see the people who are responsible for some of the most advanced automotive systems on the planet impressed to see our “little engine that could.” These folks are our peers, and partners in our upcoming Duramax race efforts. For them to be that thrilled says a lot about what we do, and what we can accomplish together.

Wait till the Type-R is done. We might have a riot on our hands.

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Tags: Banks Sidewinder
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Banks Sidewinder All-Terrains are Ready to GO!

by Tim Gavern

Wednesday, June 1st, 2005

It’s been a real thrash for the past few weeks getting ready for Hot Rod Magazine’s Power Tour. You may have noticed the lack of new blogs recently. Sorry, but we’ve all been swamped. Imagine the logistics and man-hours involved in getting five trucks ready for the 1500-mile Power Tour…

Anyway, we now have all three 2005 Banks Sidewinder All-Terrain trucks finished and ready for Power Tour. Banks “Rat Rod” Shop Truck and Banks Bonneville Record-Holding Dodge Dakota are also ready to fly.

In fact, yesterday, the two Dodges left for Detroit to be on display at the Bosch-Sponsored Daimler-Chrysler Tech Fair at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, MI (Tues. May 24 and Wed. May 25) If you’re in the area, stop by and check them out.

I’ll make this post short and sweet since you can download and read the press release about the trucks that we’ll be handing out at each stop on the tour. Viewing requires Adobe Acrobat (adobe.com).

To download the 2.1mb high-resolution .pdf, click here:
(http://www.bankspower.com/ptprelease.pdf)

To download the 676k high-resolution .pdf, click here:
(http://www.bankspower.com/ptprelease2.pdf)

We hope you’ll come out and see all of the Banks trucks in person on Hot Rod’s Power Tour June 4-10. Log on to see if it passes near you: (
Sincerely,
Your faithful,
“Corporate Blogger

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Shhhh… we’re working on some future stuff!

by John Espino

Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

A little while ago, I wrote in my first blog that we get our hands on some really neat, future stuff. A good example from the past was the powerplant for our Sidewinder Dakota truck. You know… that little red pickup that ended up smashing a number of speed records and went 222 m.p.h.? Well, that engine was a ‘03 common-rail Cummins that we just so happened to get in 2001 from the Cummins Skunkworks for our project.

Being that we are an actual engineering firm, we are trusted (having non-disclosure agreements in place helps) by a number of original equipment manufacturers (O.E.M.s) with some of the newest hardware and technology on the planet. Of course, we keep in close contact with these O.E.M.s through the entire project; letting them know our progress, where we find the good and the bad in their equipment. We share data and make recommendations that sometimes make it to the assembly lines.

Anyway, what I wanted to spill the beans on is the progress of our General Motors Duramax project. Our partners at GM have sent us a number of next-generation engines for our project vehicles, the Type-R (roadrace) and Type-S (street performance truck) that we’ve been hard at work making parts for.

Now, I won’t go into the Sidewinder Type-R Project right now ’cause I’ll write about it in a future blog (behind the scenes highjinks, not just bragging), but I recommend the following link for an over-load of info: (http://www.bankspower.com/projects/show/2-Banks-Sidewinder-GMC-Sierra)

Yes sir, these Duramax projects will get more than just a tuner box that’ll “juice” up their power. Aside from a complement of hard-core racing internals especially designed by us for the Duramax engine, they’ll each get an entirely new “brain.” That’s really what I want to gab about. The brain is based on a design by the Robert Bosch Corporation and the programming is being done from the ground up with the assistance of some equipment from ETAS (a division of BOSCH).

A couple of our engineers were working with a rep from Bosch’s engineering arm in Germany in our diesel engine dyno cell writing programs and tuning the engine. We had the rep here for a week to get us familiar with the software, but by Wednesday they pretty much had everything down and were able to make that engine purr like a kitten, bark like a dog or growl like a lion. Both the Duramax engine and the new brain work in complete harmony.

So, just what did we do with the extra time left that week? I think a better question is what would you do if you had complete control of a powerful diesel engine? Ever heard of the expression “it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission?”

That’s right…play, and do things you don’t tell the boss about. One thing is for certain, our dogs were taught some new tricks, and the diesel world may never be the same for it.

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Tags: Sidewinder Dakota truck
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One Camaro to Go

by Pat Ganahl

Friday, November 22nd, 2002

At least one magazine calls them Pro Tourers: a new kind of hot rod with big wheels, very low-profile tires, big brakes, super-tuned chassis, a 5 or 6 speed manual trans, and plenty of horsepower. In other words, a hot rod that drives in something other than a straight line and for distances longer than a quarter mile—much longer.

The ‘68 Camaro under construction in our Race Shop is just such a vehicle. It sits on a chassis jig right next to Rick “Speed” Lefever’s incredible Mercedes 500-SL quad-turbo Pro Mod race car, and Speed splits his shop time working on both vehicles. We’ve been bragging so much lately about our Project Sidewinder Dodge sport truck—the World’s Fastest Pickup, period—that we’ve pretty much overlooked the Camaro project. Heck, it doesn’t even have a name. But it’s pretty incredible, too.

The trouble is, you really have to look to see what all has been done to it. I wouldn’t call this car subtle. But a lot of the modifications are not readily apparent. And Speed is not one to buy a part when he can make it himself. I can’t begin to tell you how much of this car is hand-fabricated.

It began when Gale’s son Andrew acquired a very scruffy ‘68 Camaro a little before he began to drive. It was just a bare body shell at the time, but he and a friend were going to fix it up and make it Andrew’s high school driver. But one thing led to another, and it became a full-on Banks project. Andrew’s been out of high school several years now.

At my house, we call it “we could syndrome,” especially when it comes to car projects with me and my son. You know, “We could do this…and we could do that…”. Some of it gets done, lots doesn’t. When Gale gets going on “We coulds” they can get pretty radical in a hurry. But they usually get carried out—eventually. To say this car is overbuilt is an understatement (just take a look at the rearend housing—and that’s only what you can see on the outside). That’s why it’s been in the project stage quite a while. But this week’s news is that it’s finally on wheels and tires and has a December date set with the paint shop. After paint comes window glass and then upholstery.

The main mechanical component left to build is the engine. It is currently comprised of an iron, 4-bolt main Oldsmobile Rocket small block and a pair of GM Performance splayed valve, symmetrical port aluminum heads. A pair of high-flow, compact Garrett turbos are in place, and they will blow through an electronic fuel injection system as yet to be determined. Same for the crankshaft, so we don’t know exact engine size, but it will be over 400 cubic inches—probably 427. And horsepower numbers anywhere from 800-plus to 1600 have been bandied about, but I’ll bet it’s toward the higher end of that range.

Will it run over 200 mph? We already did that on Mrs. Orcutt’s driveway with much less engine. With a twin-turbo 454 in a stock-bodied Firebird, Gale ran close to 300 mph at Bonneville. But the real beauty of this project car is that it will steer and stop, too. It has ground clearance and creature comforts for cruising cross-country. Which is exactly what it’s intended to do—Pro Tour.

We said it’s slated for the paint shop, but we didn’t mention what color it’s going to be. Come now, do you even have to ask? They’re sending over several samples of red sometime next week so Gale can choose one.