Arm Wrestling or Q and A

by John Espino
April 2nd, 2009

Some of you might have had the chance to see the webcast, while others… well you were probably at work since it was in the middle of the day. For those of you who missed it, or were working for the man, I’ll post video on the whole thing once I get it in. There were great presentations from all of the panel members, including one from BMW explaining how today’s diesel works. Very simple explanation, and easily understood…

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Destination: Capitol of California

by John Espino
April 2nd, 2009

I’m writing this from my hotel room in Sacramento, Ca. See, Gale and I were invited to participate in an event Bosch is putting on here at the state’s capital called California Diesel Days. The intention of this outing is to raise the awareness of the legislative group in the toughest and most mandated “Green” state in the Union…

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Swimming at the Boat Show or Taking the Marine Engine Plunge

by John Espino
March 30th, 2009

Well, it’s been a long time coming but we finally were there: the Miami International Boat Show. Well… we visited the thing for a few years in a row as a guest of General Motors, but this year we were on display and officially showing off our marinized Duramax diesel engine which we will be testing soon.

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Greener than green or bio-shocked

by John Espino
March 28th, 2009

There are certain moments that you remember from your youthful days that are so vivid that you can actually recall every detail of that point in time: what you were wearing, what something smelled like, etc. These events can be good, bad, important or just plain trivial. As for me I have many of those “scrapbook” memories taking up valuable space on the hard drive in my head, but one especially stands out in this day and age that we’re in.

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0 - 50 Years in 63 1/2 Feet…

by Doug Stokes
March 27th, 2009

Azusa, California - - No, it’s not the Bayeux Tapestry, but perhaps it might be considered as the American motorsports equivalent of it.

It’s the colorful 63 and-a-half-foot long, five foot tall, timeline-history of Gale Banks Engineering that stretches a full 50 years and features over 400 illustrations that go all the way back to 1958!

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Stock intake manifold vs. Banks Big Hoss

by Jeff Barker
March 26th, 2009

Hey again guys and gals. I’m getting some questions as to how the stock intake manifold compares to the Banks Big Hoss manifold. I could go on and on about the details but I figured that a picture is worth a thousand words so here’s the comparison (if you can really call it that). I do need to point out here that these are for hardcore engine builds ONLY. This is for you guys wanting 1000hp+ without having to run 100psi of boost. This isn’t something you can bolt on in an hour for your daily driver. These parts are straight off our drag race/road race trucks. Caution: LOTS OF PICTURES!

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The Snake on the Wall

by Doug Stokes
March 19th, 2009

There it was, all 19 (and change) feet of gleaming black carbon fiber: the Banks Top Diesel Sidewinder main body, floating there in space, 6 feet high with that really “speed hungry” looking snake on the side that seems spitting out a warning to watch out for some Duramax diesel-powered drag racing speed in the very near future.

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7 seconds - part 3

by Jeff Barker
March 17th, 2009

Gale Banks himself just arrived. As you can imagine it didn’t take long for the group of people looking at the truck to immediately start talking with Gale. I have to admit that working for Gale Banks is a little strange, but in a good way. Growing up, my father, an old school hot-rodder himself would talk about him all the time. He would tell me how fast his engines were, how many world records he had, show me articles in Hot Rod magazine about him. Heck he even had one of Gale’s early twin turbo systems for our boat, and now I work for “the man” himself.

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7 seconds - part 2

by Jeff Barker
March 15th, 2009

It’s Saturday March 7th 2009 and we’re back at the SpeedWorld drag strip in Wittman Arizona. It’s time to go racing. Being as this is my first diesel only event I’m really not sure what to expect. Oh sure, I’ve been to some NHRA events before, but the only diesels there were in the parking lot and were hooked up to the race trailers. Here we’ve got both. Diesel trucks towing trailers loaded with, well, diesel trucks. Ok, not all of them. The crew from Texas Diesel Power just arrived with their diesel powered Funny Car, and another crew just showed up with a diesel powered “rat-rod”. I must admit both of those cars are so very cool, I’d love to go over and check them both out, but we have work to do.

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7 seconds - part 1

by Jeff Barker
March 11th, 2009

Seven seconds. It doesn’t sound like a long period of time does it? Think about it for a minute. Seven seconds. It actually takes longer then seven seconds to even write out the words “seven seconds”. It takes me longer than that to unlock my truck, put on my seat belt, and start the ignition. But in the short span of just about seven seconds, the Banks Sidewinder S-10 drag truck has gone from a dead stop to over 180 miles per hour…

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