Dyno Cell No. 4 is built to do more than make a power pull. It lets us run military engines under controlled load while tracking the health of every major system. The cell uses a 400 kW absorber, liquid-coupled charge air cooling, managed fuel delivery, and a pre-pressurized coolant system so the engine sees real operating conditions during its 22-minute test. Just as important, the engine cart docks into the dyno chassis with dowel-pin alignment, so the driveline stays true and repeatable. Every test creates a digital record of power, torque, temperatures, and system performance, which gives us traceability if an issue ever shows up in the field.
The video opens inside Banks Tech, where the company assembles its military engines. The current production focus is based on the L5P platform, although there are still roughly 1,000 LML engines left to build. The facility is set up to support a long-running military engine program, and the work shown centers on preparing and testing engines before shipment.
A key part of that effort is the engine dyno area, where a military engine is already installed in a test cell and being wired and plumbed for evaluation. The setup is presented not as a generic industrial installation, but as a dyno system assembled with a hot-rodder mindset. The point is that the equipment is purpose-built, practical, and heavily customized to support repeatable engine testing for production work.
Before entering the dyno cell, the tour highlights the facility's cooling tower, which supplies process water for the dyno and also supports engine-coolant-related functions and charge-air cooling. The system uses liquid cooling for those applications, and the fabrication approach reflects Banks' broader tubing and plumbing capability.
Rather than relying on a collection of threaded fittings, the piping is built more like a custom exhaust system, with formed tubing sections assembled in a clean, deliberate way. Gale compares it to a Harley exhaust layout, using that analogy to emphasize the shop's fabrication style. The takeaway is that Banks treats even utility systems as custom-built hardware, using tubing practices familiar from performance exhaust work rather than piecing everything together with conventional threaded plumbing.
Inside the dyno room, the engine shown is a military unit being prepared for test after substantial assembly work. The dyno cell is one of the tools Banks uses to validate each engine before it leaves the facility, and the company is adding more engine dynos because production demand is increasing.
That demand is tied to the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, or JLTV. Gale describes the vehicle as 70 percent faster than any military vehicle previously built in its weight class. He also notes that it is not just quicker, but easier on the occupants because it has about 21 inches of wheel travel, giving it characteristics more like a Baja Trophy Truck. With many of these engines to build over roughly the next eight years, the dyno infrastructure is being expanded to keep pace.
The test cell uses a Taylor absorber rated at 400 kilowatts, or 536 horsepower, and capable of operating up to 8,000 rpm. That speed range gives the dyno flexibility to run higher-revving combinations if needed, provided the power level stays below roughly 550 horsepower.
Gale addresses the obvious question of whether 536 horsepower is enough for this application. In the context of a military vehicle the size of the JLTV, he says it is a substantial amount of power. The absorber therefore fits the intended mission: it is not sized for extreme racing power levels, but it is well matched to the engines and vehicles Banks is testing in this production environment.
One of the major subsystems in the cell is the charge air cooler. The unit sits low in the installation, with larger stainless lines carrying boosted air into and out of the cooler while water circulates through it separately. Gale describes it as a liquid-coupled charge air cooler, intended to remove a large amount of heat from the compressed intake charge.
The emphasis is not only on cooling performance but also on instrumentation. Everything in the cell is monitored so that each engine test produces a complete digital record. That record includes not just power and torque, but also the operating behavior of the supporting systems. Banks tracks temperatures such as water entering and leaving the system, intake air going into the engine, and exhaust temperatures coming out. This level of data collection is important for traceability. If a field issue ever appears to be linked to engine build or test conditions, the stored records allow Banks to narrow down exactly which engines may be affected.
A particularly clever part of the process is the run-in cart system used to bring engines into the dyno cell. Banks developed carts that dock directly to the dyno structure. The rear of the engine is bolted to a plate that is part of the cart, and the unpainted cart rolls into the room and locates against the gray dyno chassis.
Alignment is handled with large dowel pins, and the chassis arrangement is designed so there is no twist between the engine cart and the dyno chassis. Gale refers to this structure as the trellis. Small guide features help slide the cart into position as it is rolled into the room, after which the dowel system establishes precise alignment. The goal is to make engine installation repeatable and mechanically stable, which is especially important when coupling the engine to the dyno for production testing.
The dyno setup includes a dedicated coolant system that functions like the radiator circuit in a truck. The cooling jacket water system is paired with an expansion tank, and a pump mounted on the floor is used to fill the engine once it has been brought into the cell.
The process is carefully controlled. The pump draws coolant from a tank and fills the engine. After filling, the system is valved off so the engine operates from the tank arrangement in the cell. That tank is pre-pressurized to simulate the upper tank of a radiator, and another system raises it to normal operating pressure, similar to what a pressure cap would provide in the vehicle. Importantly, Banks builds that pressure before the engine is even started. The dyno test itself lasts 22 minutes. When the test is complete, the coolant is pumped back out of the engine and returned to the tank, leaving the engine drained and ready to ship.
The fuel system is also self-contained and electronically managed. The cell includes a fuel pump with electronic control over pump speed, along with fuel filtration and what Gale calls the de-tank. This tank draws fuel from the external tank farm and supplies the dyno cell with conditioned fuel for testing.
The starter arrangement is unusually serious because the setup does not use a conventional ring gear. Instead, a large spur gear is driven by the starter pinion. The starter is physically large, and its job is not merely to crank the engine directly in the usual way. It spins up the dyno, and the shaft running through the dyno turns the driveline and then the engine until the engine fires. In other words, the starter works through the dyno system to bring the engine up to starting speed.
The exhaust system is routed overhead, then exits through the wall via an insulated opening. Like the rest of the cell, it reflects a practical custom-built approach rather than an off-the-shelf industrial layout. The same fabrication mindset seen in the cooling tower piping carries through the dyno room itself.
The overall impression is that Banks has built a production-capable engine test facility using hot-rod fabrication principles adapted to military-engine validation. The dyno cell combines a 400-kilowatt absorber, liquid charge-air cooling, full digital instrumentation, a dock-in engine cart, pre-pressurized coolant handling, electronically managed fuel delivery, and a heavy-duty starter system that drives through the dyno. Gale's conclusion is that this is how Banks builds a hot-rod dyno in Southern California: customized, mechanically thoughtful, and designed to support traceable testing for a large military engine program.