The real story here is intake geometry. A side-draft manifold helps distribute air more evenly across the intake ports, and that matters when you want the engine to breathe cleanly and respond harder. We built that idea into our Big Hoss Side Draft Intake back in 2001 on a 735-horsepower engine developed to race with Cummins, and that manifold went on to help our Sidewinder Dakota set the FIA two-way average record at 217.306 mph. That airflow strategy didn’t stay at Bonneville. A Cummins engineer asked to use the concept, and now a side-draft manifold shows up on the 2025 Ram 6.7L. If you’re building a race truck, the Big Hoss still applies to common rail 5.9L engines and can be adapted to a 6.7L with minor mods. If your truck is street-driven, the Banks Monster-Ram Intake and Killer Grid Heater Upgrade is the practical path to better engine breathing, quicker turbo response, and improved fuel efficiency while staying emissions compliant in all 50 states and Canada, as stated here.
The video opens by pointing out that the 2025 Ram 6.7L uses a side-draft intake manifold, a layout intended to improve airflow distribution across the intake ports. Gale Banks notes that this design may look familiar because Banks developed and used the same basic concept more than two decades earlier.
Banks references the Banks Big Hoss side-draft intake manifold, developed in 2001 for a 735-horsepower Cummins race engine. This project predated the availability of the common-rail Cummins in pickup trucks by two years. The side-draft manifold was engineered specifically for high-performance use, with the goal of improving how air was delivered to the engine.
That manifold was used on the Banks Sidewinder Dakota, the truck built to pursue the FIA record for the world's fastest pickup. According to the recap, the truck was driven to Bonneville while towing its own equipment trailer. After arriving, the trailer was unhooked and the truck recorded a two-way average speed of 217.306 mph. The side-draft intake manifold was part of the engine package that supported that result.
Gale explains that a Cummins engineer later asked whether this intake concept could be used, and he agreed. More than twenty years later, he says, the same side-draft idea has appeared on the 2025 Ram 6.7L. The implication is that the production-engine manifold reflects an airflow strategy Banks had already proven in racing applications years earlier.
For racers, Banks says the Big Hoss side-draft intake can be added to a common-rail 5.9L Cummins, and with some modifications it can also be mounted on a 6.7L. In that context, the side-draft layout is presented as a performance-oriented solution for engines where maximum airflow distribution is the priority.
For a street-driven 6.7L, Banks points instead to the Banks Monster-Ram. Rather than presenting it as a literal side-draft conversion, he describes it as the closest practical way to achieve the airflow, turbo response, and fuel-efficiency benefits associated with a side-draft design on a street truck.
The Monster-Ram is described as emissions compliant in all 50 states and Canada, making it the street-legal option in this comparison. Gale closes with a challenge not to use one to break his record, reinforcing the historical link between the original Banks side-draft manifold and the intake strategy now seen on the 2025 Ram.
