The Leader in Diesel Performance
I said in an earlier blog that I was a Ford guy. Today I think I am changing my identity a bit. I think I am starting to consider myself a Diesel guy. I drive a gas-powered F-150 every day and keep thinking about what my fuel costs are going to be this summer. I would sure love to have a small diesel-powered car to commute with. Unfortunately being in California, it doesn’t look like that will be available to me anytime soon.
So my pal, Peter Treydte comes into the office this past Monday morning and loudly declares, “Hey Tim, you’re no longer a diesel virgin.” We all laughed. It’s true though. I drove a bone-stock cherry red 2005 Ford F-250 crew cab 4×4 Power Stroke turbodiesel over three hundred miles last weekend. It was a great experience and one that truly changed any preconceived notions I had that modern diesels were still big, klunky and slow.
As I stated in a previous blog, I’m a hot rodder. I build street machines. Cars. Not trucks. In fact, the only trucks I’ve ever owned were two $500 trucks that helped me move and each time, I sold the truck right after.
One of the things that I like doing sometime during the workweek is to wander through the Banks Race Shop. It is really an amazing place. I can’t think of any other place in the world where I could find high-flow intake manifolds for diesel engines being developed, turbochargers being mounted on a V-12 tank engine and a one-of-a-kind diesel road race truck being built from the ground up… oh and by the way, just a few feet away is the world’s fastest pickup truck powered by a Cummins ISB engine.
I’m a typical hot rodder. I build hot car after hot car. And of course, every one of them has been gasoline-powered. What else is there?
Well, how about diesel? After coming to work at Banks, my old ideas about high performance changed. All you have to do is drive one hot rodded turbodiesel pickup truck and you’ll understand. Turbodiesels can really haul $%&! In fact, I’ve been in some daily-driven trucks lately that could beat many so-called musclecars. And these trucks typically weigh 7,000 lbs.!
Just the other day, I was fueling my vehicle at a service station. While I was there, the station attendant emerged with a handful of numbers to change the posted fuel prices. He didn’t change the gasoline prices, only the #2 diesel. It went up 4 cents per gallon. At that station, #2 diesel was then selling for 6 cents a gallon more than 91-octane premium gasoline, and 22 cents a gallon more than 87-octane regular gasoline. I remember thinking, that’s nuts!
My job title at Banks is, “Corporate Journalist.” Pretty high falutin, huh? Not really. I’m just a scribe. I record a lot of what goes on around here. I document projects and vehicle buildups for corporate sponsors, provide info for magazine editors, write blogs, Blah, blah, blah.
I’m swamped trying to keep up with all that is going on at Banks. I remember thinking recently that we need to get the information I collect to the public faster. Then, out of the blue a few weeks ago, Gale asked me what I thought of the idea of launching a blog about Banks. I couldn’t get “yes” out fast enough.
It’s an exciting time to be involved in high performance diesel. It’s an exciting time to be involved in high-performance diesel. For the past few decades, I
Banks Sidewinder All-Terrain, industry’s first diesel-tuner truck packages Banks Sidewinder All-Terrain packages debuted on Hot Rod Magazine’s Power Tour 2005, and Banks’ Power Stroke 6.0L, Duramax and
Other than big-rig drivers, Americans haven’t worked up much affection for the engine that Rudolf Diesel invented in 1897. Read on to see why that’s going to
This is the truck that shattered existing speed records – and people’s perception of diesel performance. Cummins diesel-powered Project Sidewinder set five land-speed records and became the World’s