Hotshot Trucking Protection: Monster-Ram Upgrade on a 2021 RAM 3500
Brandon Turner depends on his 2021 RAM 3500, and his decision to install the Monster-Ram RAM 3500 upgrade was all about long-term protection and performance. Brandon may call Louisiana his home, but his hotshot trucking service, Favor & Grace Transportation LLC, has him delivering freight and vehicles all over the United States with his trusty 2021 RAM 3500 dually. Whether he’s transporting vehicles with his car hauler or has his 40’ flat deck loaded to the gills, keeping his RAM on the road is paramount to his business. “The truck consistently tows 15,000 to 17,000 pounds two to three times a week. It’s always active, and she really hadn’t given me any issues until she reached 240,000 miles, and that wasn’t too crazy. I have 259,000 miles now.”
“With all of those miles racked up, I’m surprised that I hadn’t had the grid heater bolt problem. My brother sent me the video of Gale explaining it and that it could happen at any time. I actually had a flyer on the Monster-Ram sitting on my desk and hadn’t thought much about it, but after learning how much damage it could cost me, I knew I needed to do something quickly. In addition to getting rid of that problematic bolt, the throttle response is sharper, and I’m getting more mileage.”
Full Video Transcript
00:00 if you’re a ram cummins owner you may have heard about the dreaded grid heater bolt failure that kills engines but what is it exactly and how can you prevent it i’m gale banks and i’m going to show you when we designed the monster ram intake elbow from the cummins 6.7 engine
00:28 our goal was to improve power and efficiency and i have to say we knocked it out of the park we achieved an 88 percent increase in mass airflow compared to stock that’s a huge gain that you can feel but what we didn’t realize is that we had also designed a device that prevents engine
00:49 failure with every 6.7 monster ram comes a bank’s high flow billet intake plate it replaces the factory grid heater we did this for performance the factory grid heater absolutely kills airflow you can see the difference our plate has no obstructions we also designed a coil heater
01:11 that sits vertically in the monster ram so we don’t leave our friends by the side of the road but what we didn’t realize is that by removing the grid heater we were also removing a point of failure and when i say failure i mean total engine failure to show you what this looks like
01:32 we’re heading north to kamloops british columbia brad hunt and his team at protech diesel center are the go-to guys for diesel repair in western canada and he’s got a ram in the shop right now suffering from the heartbreak of broken bolts
01:56 like gale says here at protech diesel center we do a lot of cummins repair and we see quite a few major engine failures and engine replacements due to this one little bolt as you can see here this is a heater grid out of a ram 3500 6.7 liter comes out due to heat and condensation and bad
02:14 connection this bolt has a tendency to erode and rot away and fall into the intake runner which then runs down the intake channel ends up in number six cylinder and either bends the valve or puts a hole in the piston and or both so here we have a 2016 ram 3500 with a 6.7 cummins diesel
02:34 it has the infamous intake grid heater bolt failure where the bolt is broken and gone into number six cylinder we’re going to tear down the top of the engine pull off the heater grid and find out how much damage there is so whether or not we can salvage this engine and put it back
02:51 together with the bank’s monster ram intake to show where the exact failure point is and you can see it right here here’s the 10 millimeter bolt head and wire that goes to the grid heater assembly as you can see when i touch it it is loose and broken off inside the intake and then
03:08 we will go from there we’ll start tearing this down so that you guys can see where the failure is and how banks has come out with a solution to avoid spending potentially twenty thirty thousand dollars on an engine replacement so i’ll introduce hayden at this point who is one of our techs here
03:24 at protect diesel center uh he’s gonna start the tear down process and we’ll go from there i have done a couple of these so this is your stock intake horn that cummins is put on there from factory right in here on the motor is where grid heater is
03:42 the power wire going to the intake powers the grid heater that is underneath here well with the new setup that we have this is no longer going to be installed it will be a different style heater all together so this is the piece in question as you can tell that bolt
03:58 has broken off and here is the rest of the intake so as you can tell this is supposed to be fixed to this it is no longer fixed okay so now that we have this intake grid heater off of this 6.7 cummins engine there is quite a bit of carbon in here from the egr system underneath you’ll see
04:20 it’s quite dirty and you see here there’s a missing bolt so you have a bolt right here a nut that is in place 100 percent and you look over here and then that is missing flip the intake grid heater over and here we go so now we have the top half of the stud and plastic assembly
04:37 has melted and corroded and broke off and now that has fallen from here and gone down the intake runner into the cylinder and uh is either wedged in the valve or in the top of the piston right now banks monster ram intake assembly would have prevented all of this from happening and would
04:56 have saved this guy this very costly repair and possible complete engine replacement which we’ll know soon as soon as we have the cylinder head off we’ll determine how much damage so by purchasing one of these intakes and going to this coil style intake heater assembly versus the factory 6.7
05:17 intake assembly it’ll save you in the long run it is a very good update so now that we have the intake off i have to hold the valve cover the valve train injectors the jar cooler exhaust manifold and then remove the cylinder head and then we can inspect the cylinder six to see if it
05:35 is embedded in in the piston or if it is scratched the cylinder wall if this block is even usable so now we have the cylinder head off of this this ram uh 3500 6.7 as you can see right here that’s where the heater grid bolt went down the intake runner and in through the valve and slapped
06:12 around on the piston and hit the bottom of the cylinder head right there it’s probably about a six or eight thousand gap dent in the head valves are gonna have to come out it’s gonna have to go to the machine shop and get repaired the bolt is wedged in the piston we’ll show you in a second
06:24 so at this point we are going to be pulling the engine and sending it to the machine shop to have it built properly and repaired and then we’ll be installing the monster ram intake system and the truck will be back up and running on the road it’s not the worst case scenario it could have been
06:41 but we should be able to fix it as long as that won’t go below minimum thickness on the head deck when we have it machined then we’ll be able to use this head if it goes below minimum thickness then unfortunately the customer is going to have to buy a replacement cylinder head that’s the bolt head
06:54 right in the corner of the piston right there you can see it you can see it in the picture and it’s come it scuffed up the side of the cylinder wall a little bit but nothing deep hello again everyone here we are with this 2017 ram 3500 6.7 turbo diesel this customer
07:21 here unfortunately had to replace the engine due to the heater grid bolt falling into the number six cylinder wrecking the cylinder and the piston the scene in the earlier video had he had this monster ram intake system he would have saved his engine and potentially twenty
07:35 thousand dollars in costly repairs as you can see this is a much better design you got your you got your intake heater up here monster ram intake it’s a good way to go it’s a clean fit and finish you
07:46 can see everything plugs in nice and sits in there nice there’s lots of space lots of room around it improved air flow 50 state emissions compliant well i couldn’t have said it better thanks again brad to you and your team at pro-tech diesel center not only is the monster ram the only
08:05 50-state emissions compliant high-performance intake manifold from 2007 to current rams it may very well save your engine if you want to learn more head to bankspower.com
“If you’re serious about having a business that centers around your truck, why invest over $100,000 in a truck, trailer, and equipment if you’re not willing to do what’s necessary to keep the business alive? The cost to buy a Monster-Ram is a small price to pay to keep my truck rolling.”
For hotshot truckers like Brandon Turner, reliability isn’t optional — it’s the backbone of the business. That’s why his decision to install the Monster-Ram upgrade was about more than performance. It was about protecting a high-mileage truck that hauls 15,000–17,000 lbs multiple times per week.
The Monster-Ram upgrade eliminates the dangerous grid heater bolt — a small failure that can destroy an engine. For Brandon, this wasn’t just an upgrade; it was an insurance policy. Even better, he noticed a sharper throttle response and slight improvements in fuel economy, which is critical when running cross-country loads week after week.
For any RAM 3500 diesel owner clocking serious miles, the Monster-Ram system is a must. It’s a low-cost, high-value upgrade that prevents major failure and adds performance benefits right out of the box. As Brandon puts it, “Why invest over $100K in your rig if you’re not protecting it?”
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